3. Mouse, keyboard and joystick OpenGL

 

3.1 Mouse

The mouse can be used to manage the 3D objects trough rotation, translation and scale operations, changing the mouse mode with the context menu and/or the M hotkey (see hotkeys section). To change a 3D property, you must drag the mouse from left to right and vice versa pressing the left mouse button. To apply a Z transformation (rotation or translation), you must drag the mouse holding the middle button or the left button and the shift key at the same time. The mouse wheel, if present, has some functions on the basis of the current mouse mode: it can rotate around Y axis, translate along the Z axis and zoom.
In the main window, you can select some functions with the context menu, pressing the right mouse button:

 

Item Subitem CmdName Description
Mouse mode

                          

Rotate mMouseRotate switches the mouse into the rotation mode.
Translate mMouseTrans switches the mouse into the translation mode.
Scale mMouseScale switches the mouse into the scaling mode.
Measure None mPickNone

With these items, you can enable/disable the mouse atom picking in order to show the atom information and/or perfor a measure between 2 (distance), 3 (angle), 4 (torsion) and 6 atoms (angle between two planes). The result of each pick/measure operation is showed in the textport window.

Distance mPickAtom
Angle mPickAngle
Torsion mPickTorsion
Plane angle mPickPlaneAngle
Joystick enabled   mJoyEnable enables/disables the joystick control.
Display Wireframe mShowWire switches the current display mode in Wireframe, Van der Waals dotted, Van der Waals vectorized, Van der Waals solid, CPK with vectors, CPK solid and liquorice.
VdW Dotted mShowVdwDot
VdW mShowVdwWire
VdW Solid mShowVdw
CPK mShowCpkWire
CPK Solid mShowCpk
Liquorice mShowLiquorice
Settings mShowSettings shows the display settings dialog box.
Window 320x240 - changes the window size. Only the sizes that compatible with te current screen resolution, are showed in the menu
640x480 -
800x600 -
1024x768 -
1280x1024 -
1600x1200 -
Reset   mResetView resets the current view, changing to default the rotations, the translations and the scale factor.

Please note that the CmdName column contains the command name, that must be used with SendVegaCmd program to activate the menu functions in batch files (click here for more information).

 

3.2 Keyboard

When the main window is active, some commands can be executed directly from the keyboard, like showed in the followind table:

Key Description
A Turn on/off the animation mode.
ESC Close VEGA.
L Switch on/off the light.
M Change the mouse mode in rotate -> translate -> scale.
SPC Stop the animation.
V Change the current display mode in Wireframe -> Van der Waals dotted -> Van Der Waals vectorized -> Van der Waals solid -> CPK with vectors -> CPK solid -> Liquorice (see the main menu section).
Arrows
Up, Down
Rotate the molecule around the X axis.
Arrows
Left, Right
Rotate the molecule around the Y axis.
Pg. Up
Pg. Down
Rotate the molecule around the Z axis.

 

3.3 Joystick

To enable the joystick operation, you must check the Joystick enable menu item present in the the context menu. The keybord and the mouse are kept full operative. VEGA supports some types of joystick: analog, digital, with 2 or 3 axes and with or without multiple buttons. The following table reports the functions associated with buttons and axes operators (buttons and/or sticks):

Joystick Function
X axis X rotation.
Y axis Y rotation
Z axis or
X axis + button 1
Z rotation.
X axis + button 2 X translation.
Y axis + button 2 Y translation.
Z axis + button 2 or
X axis + button 1 + button 2
Z translation.
Y axis + button 3 Scale.