When working with complex molecular models, workflows can often become tangled—especially when juggling multiple tools. If you’ve ever wondered why SAMSON, the molecular design platform, allows only one editor to be active at a time, you’re not alone. This design choice may seem limiting at first, but it actually serves an important purpose in improving usability, reducing mistakes, and ensuring interactive precision.
In SAMSON, editors are components that handle direct user interaction—mouse movements, keyboard shortcuts, and more—allowing you to manipulate molecular structures in various ways. Examples include creating nanotubes, deforming molecules, or applying rigid-body transformations. These tools tend to be highly interactive and designed to significantly influence the model. To prevent conflicting behaviors, SAMSON enforces a rule: only one editor can be active at a given time.
The Benefit of Exclusivity
Imagine trying to use a nanotube generator and a molecular deformation tool simultaneously. Which tool should respond to your mouse click? What does a drag gesture mean in that case? By limiting interaction to one active editor, SAMSON removes this ambiguity. This is especially important in environments where molecular precision is key, like in drug design or material science research.
How to Switch Editors
Although only one editor can be active at a time, switching between them is designed to be quick and intuitive. Here are the primary methods to toggle your active editor in SAMSON:
- Use the menu on the left side of the viewport. This list provides access to all editors currently installed.
- Use the quick access command located at the top-left corner of the viewport. This area shows the active editor and gives you a one-click way to switch.
- Use the Find everything search box at the top of the SAMSON interface to locate a specific editor without scrolling through menus.
This exclusivity also brings performance benefits. Since only one editor listens for user interaction at a time, less computational overhead is required, which is especially helpful in large molecular systems where rendering and manipulation are already demanding.
Want More Editors?
SAMSON comes preloaded with several editors, but if you need more functionality, you can add additional ones via SAMSON Connect. Whether you need a more specialized molecular builder or an advanced selection tool, the platform gives you flexibility to expand but still ensures that the editing environment remains focused and predictable.
Planning to Create Your Own?
If you’re developing your own editors, this one-editor rule is also important when designing custom interaction behaviors. Make sure your editor is self-contained and behaves well when activated or deactivated. For development guidance, explore the Extension Generator and the Documentation Center.
To learn more about editors in SAMSON and how to work with them efficiently, visit the official documentation: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/editors/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.