When working with complex molecular models, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the variety of entities displayed in your workspace. Whether you’re inspecting annotations, distances, or custom text markers, labels are often key to interpretation. But without efficient controls, label clutter can slow down your workflow and obscure molecular detail.
Fortunately, SAMSON‘s Node Specification Language (NSL) includes robust support for label attributes, allowing you to precisely select, organize, and manipulate label nodes independently of other elements. This means faster navigation and cleaner visuals during your structural analysis. Here’s how to make the most of it.
Targeting Label Nodes Only
In NSL, label attributes fall under the label attribute space, or la for short. By using la, your query will match only label nodes. This is ideal when you want to isolate labels from the rest of the nodes in your system.
Making Labels Disappear (or Reappear)
Too many labels on screen? Use the hidden and visible attributes to show or hide them dynamically. For example:
la.hselects hidden labels.not la.hselects visible labels.la.vselects visible labels (same as above).not la.vto select hidden ones again.
This gives you immediate control over which labels are showing without affecting other node types like atoms or residues.
Quick Label Identification by Name
Let’s say you added a label with the name “Distance A-B” and want to retrieve it later. The name attribute makes that easy:
la.n "Distance A-B"searches by full name.la.n "Dist*"uses wildcards to match multiple labels starting with “Dist”.
This is handy when using naming conventions to organize custom annotations in larger systems.
Selection and Interaction Flags
Interactive work often requires quickly selecting or deselecting label elements. The selected, selectionFlag (sf), and visibilityFlag (vf) tools help fine-tune interactions:
la.selectedidentifies currently selected labels.la.sf falsefilters those not enabled for selection.la.vfhighlights labels currently visible in view, even if logically hidden.
By combining these, you can build very specific queries to support deep structural inspection or build automation scripts.
Why It Matters
As molecular models grow in size and annotations multiply, distinguishing between visual elements without clutter becomes more important. Efficient label management prevents visual noise and helps you focus on structural relationships.
For example, when comparing two candidate drug molecules, hiding distance labels temporarily can help you better observe hydrogen bonding or hydrophobic contacts. Or, during an educational demo, you might want only certain highlighted labels visible for clarity.
More to Explore
Label attributes are just one part of the larger NSL framework in SAMSON, which provides detailed ways to control any node in your scene. Understanding how to use la attributes helps you streamline your workflows, automate visualization steps, and improve clarity across diverse molecular systems.
To learn more, visit the full documentation: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/nsl/label/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.