Garlic Controls

garlic, free molecular viewer and editor, free molecular visualization program, protein structure, DNA structure, PDB, molecular rendering, biological macromolecule, Unix, Linux, free software download, open source software, Damir Zucic.
The image in the main window is controled by CONTROLS and by COMMANDS . This page contains description of garlic controls.

Garlic controls are reserved keys, which may be used to rotate and translate the structure, to rotate bonds, to shift selected atoms and to change the position of slab surfaces and to change the way color depends on distance from the observer. At present, the reserved keys are numeric keypad keys and four function keys (F1, F2, F3 and F4).

Some desktop environments are reserving function keys for some special purposes. This means that some function keys will fail to work properly with garlic. To avoid this problem, you can use mouse to click on dummy buttons in control window. Another solution will be to change your desktop environment settings.

Numeric keypad Function keys

For each control, five steps are available: normal, large, very large, small and very small. If you press the control without holding a modifier key (shift, alt or control), the normal step will be used.

Modifier keys may be used in combination with reserved keys to select large, very large, small or very small step. Here is the table of modifier keys:

MODIFIER KEYS STEP EXAMPLE
none Normal
shift Large
alt_shift Very large
control Small
shift_control Very small

Be sure to avoid ctrl_alt combinations, because some of these combinations may have a very interesting effect (try, for example, ctrl_alt_del or ctrl_alt_F1).

The table below contains the list of controls and the corresponding default actions upon the structure which is currently handled (held, catched). These default actions will be active in default editing mode (no editing at all, just viewing the structure). If editing atoms or bonds some of the controls will have different role. The table refers to PC (101/102) keyboard. There are slight differences between PC and terminal keyboard; three terminal keys are listed in the table (KP_F2, KP_F3, KP_Separator). If you have some exotic keyboard, use the program xshowkey to check the mapping of keys and send this list to the author: zucic@mefos.hr

KEY LOCATION ACTION
0 Numeric keypad Translate structure along z in negative direction.
1 Numeric keypad Move back (distant) slab surface along z in positive direction.
2 Numeric keypad Rotate structure clockwise around x.
3 Numeric keypad Move back (distant) slab surface along z in negative direction.
4 Numeric keypad Rotate structure clockwise around y.
5 Numeric keypad Translate structure along z in positive direction.
6 Numeric keypad Rotate structure counterclockwise around y.
7 Numeric keypad Rotate structure counterclockwise around z.
8 Numeric keypad Rotate structure counterclockwise around x.
9 Numeric keypad Rotate structure clockwise around z.
delete Numeric keypad Move front (close) slab surface along z in positive direction.
enter Numeric keypad Move front (close) slab surface along z in negative direction.
/ (slash)
KP_F2 		Numeric keypad Translate structure left.
* (asterisk)
KP_F3 		Numeric keypad Translate structure right.
- (minus) Numeric keypad Translate structure up.
+ (plus)
KP_Separator 		Numeric keypad Translate structure down.
F1 Function keys Move back (distant) color surface along z in positive direction.
F2 Function keys Move back (distant) color surface along z in negative direction.
F3 Function keys Move front (close) color surface along z in positive direction.
F4 Function keys Move front (close) color surface along z in negative direction.
Num Lock Numeric keypad Unused key.
Escape Top left corner Return to the main drawing mode (display structure).


Here are the illustrations:

PC
keyboard 		Terminal
keyboard