If you’ve used SAMSON to design or manipulate molecular models, you’ve likely come across the concept of editors. These tools power an essential aspect of your modeling experience: they make things happen when you interact with atoms, molecules, or entire models using your mouse and keyboard.
But here’s something that sometimes raises questions: in SAMSON, one and only one editor can be active at a time. If you’re new to the software or coming from a different modeling platform, you might wonder why this limitation exists and what it means in practice.
One Editor, Many Contexts
Editors in SAMSON are not just menu add-ons—they’re context-sensitive tools that fundamentally change what your mouse clicks and key presses do. For example, one editor might let you deform a molecular structure while preserving local geometry, another one lets you select atoms using rectangular selection, and yet another helps you generate complex nanotube models from scratch.
When one of these editors becomes active, it takes over how inputs are interpreted. This guarantees a predictable and controlled environment, which is especially important when working with large biological or materials systems where a misclick could undo hours of careful setup.
Benefits of Having a Single Active Editor
- Minimal confusion: Knowing which tool is active ensures you’re not guessing what your actions will do. This is critical when you’re working with high-stakes data or publishing results.
- Performance optimization: Allowing only one editor to receive interaction events helps SAMSON stay efficient, even with complex models and interactions.
- Focused editing workflow: Each editor is built for a specific purpose. Activating just one at a time helps you stay focused and reduces cognitive overload.
Accessing and Switching Editors
When you’re inside the SAMSON environment, you can access your editors from the editor menu on the left side of the viewport:
There’s also a quick-access area in the top-left corner of the viewport interface, showing commands corresponding to the currently active editor. And if you’re unsure where a particular editor is, use the Find everything search bar at the top of the interface to locate it easily.
Expanding Your Toolkit
SAMSON comes with a base set of editors, but you can always tailor it to your workflow by adding more from SAMSON Connect. There, you’ll find everything from geometry-constrained modelers to visual analysis tools designed by the SAMSON community.
Want to Build Your Own?
If you’re a developer or scripting-savvy user, you can create your own editors using the SAMSON Extension Generator and API. Many researchers and academics use this feature to design task-specific tools for their domains. Check the developer guide to get started.
To learn more about editors in SAMSON and how they work, visit the official documentation: Editors in SAMSON.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at www.samson-connect.net.