When working on complex molecular models, one of the last things you want is an overwhelming interface filled with tools competing for your attention. This is where SAMSON’s design choice around editors makes a difference. In SAMSON, only one editor can be active at any given time. Let’s explore why this limitation is not just intentional but actually beneficial for researchers and modelers.
What is an Editor in SAMSON?
Editors in SAMSON are tools that allow you to carry out interactive tasks from within the interface: they respond to mouse and keyboard events and let you modify molecular systems intuitively. Examples include:
- Creating a new nanotube model with just a few clicks
- Applying rigid-body transformations to molecular structures
- Performing local deformations that preserve geometrical constraints
- Selecting atoms or groups through efficient selection tools
However, even though multiple editors can be part of your workspace, SAMSON restricts you to interact through only one editor at a time.
Why Only One Editor?
At first, this might seem like a limitation. But in practice, this approach simplifies user interaction and ensures that editor-specific actions remain predictable and streamlined. Here are a few reasons this design choice can actually improve your modeling workflow:
1. Prevents Conflict Between Functions
Different editors interpret user interactions in different ways. For instance, a rectangle selection tool and a molecular deformation tool may both respond to mouse clicks, but in very different manners. Restricting active interaction to one editor at a time eliminates input ambiguity and ensures that your actions always yield the expected result.
2. Encourages Task Focus
When you are actively using an editor—say, generating a nanotube—you are fully immersed in that task. Allowing multiple editors to operate simultaneously could distract from the task at hand, potentially leading to mistakes or inefficient workflow transitions.
3. Simplifies the User Interface
Only one active editor means fewer simultaneous control panels, tool prompts, and contextual hints, helping reduce screen clutter and cognitive overload.
Switching Between Editors
You can easily switch the active editor by selecting it from the editor menu located on the left side of the SAMSON viewport. Quick-access commands for the currently active editor are shown in the top-left corner of the viewport. You can also use the Find everything search box to locate specific editors quickly.
Adding More Editors
By default, SAMSON comes with a set of useful editors, but you can extend the platform by downloading additional ones from SAMSON Connect.
Interested in Building Your Own?
For users interested in developing custom tools tailored to their own use-cases, SAMSON supports the creation of new editors through its Extension Generator. More information can be found in the developer documentation.
To learn more about editors and how SAMSON handles them, check out the official documentation: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/editors/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.