[Kalzium] Kalzium3D in KDE 4.0

Benoît Jacob jacob at math.jussieu.fr
Tue Apr 24 11:11:47 CEST 2007


Hi,

I have proposed to the avogadro list that Kalzium doesn't get ported to 
libavogadro for KDE 4.0, but only for KDE 4.1. I think that is necessary in 
order to let libavogadro reach API/ABI stability quietly.

That means we need to discuss what remains to be done in Kalzium3D for KDE 
4.0.

On my side, I'll backport fixes from libavogadro, closing some bugs in my own 
code.

Carsten: on your side, could you work a bit on the GUI, especially the 
molecule-loading:

-- at least, the filesystem browser should default to a directory where there 
are some molecule files... not to a random location like /usr/bin/ !

-- if you have enough time, I'd suggest replacing the file-loading-dialog by a 
more user-friendly system. Here's one idea:

+---------------------------+-----------+
| /path/to/molecules        | browse... |
+---------------------------+-----------+
|                                       |
|  aldehydes/                           |
|       2-methylpropanal                |
|       butanal                         |
|  amides/                              |
|       acetamide                       |
|       oxamide                         |
|                                       |
+---------------------------------------+

+-----------------------+
| Get more molecules... |
+-----------------------+

So at the top you have a url-box allowing to choose a directory, with the 
usual "browse..." button. Of course feel free to replace this with any other 
kind of url bar if KDELibs provides a better solution (I love the url bar in 
Dolphin, I wonder if it's in KDELibs). The url-bar should default to a 
directory where a few molecule files are installed by default, provided by 
the kalzium package.

Below, you have a treeview showing the subdirectories of the path in the 
url-bar, with the files in them. File extensions (.cml) should be hidded. 
Only files with correct extensions should be shown (that means we'd enter the 
list of all 62 file extensions of file formats supported by OpenBabel).

The "Get more molecules..." button should use KNewStuff to install more 
molecules. Once it has been used, the default path in the url-bar should 
point to where KNewStuff has installed these files.

This is useful not only for 4.0 but also for later versions. It's independent 
of the libavogadro porting, so it's not wasted effort. Work on the 3D code 
itself, OTOH, will be lost after the libavogadro porting.

Cheers,
Benoit
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