[chimera-dev] how to remove chimera file load history?

[Elaine Meng]

Hi Dennis,
You can (carefully) text-edit your preferences file to remove the file browser history. You may want to save a copy first, because it's easy to mess up. The file browser history is in the 'miller browser' section.  You could remove the whole section, but the least ablative approach would be to try just removing the offending directory.  Of course, if you don't know where your preferences file is, that would be a problem (normally you can start Chimera and look in the Preferences category of the Preferences to see where it is).  Here is some information about the default location:
<http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/preferences.html#preffile>

Alternatively you could also specify a different (or nonexistent, in which case you will get factory defaults) preferences file upon startup with the command-line "--preferences" option.  See the link above for more information.  I tried "chimera --preferences nonexistentfile" and that started Chimera with factory defaults.

In my preferences file, the whole section is

'miller browser': {'dirHistory': [u'/Users/meng/Desktop/chidata',
                                   u'/Users/meng/Desktop',
                                   '/Users/meng'],
                    'fileHistory': {'': [u'/Users/meng/Desktop/tnnt2_human.py',
                                         u'/Users/meng/Desktop/stuff.py'],
                                    'MAV file save': [u'/Users/meng/Desktop/troponinT.afa'],
                                    'MAV phylogeny': [u'/Users/meng/Desktop/chidata/PF04055.nhx'],
                                    'PDB traj multi-model': [u'/Users/meng/Desktop/pathway.pdb'],
                                    'SaveImage': [u'/Users/meng/Desktop/viewdock.png',
                                                  u'/Users/meng/Desktop/viewdock-white2-amended.png',
                                                  u'/Users/meng/Desktop/target-coulombic.png',
                                                  u'/Users/meng/Desktop/template-coulombic.png',
                                                  u'/Users/meng/Desktop/chidata/viewdock.png',
                                                  u'/Users/meng/Desktop/viper-2g33-ribbons.png',
                                                  u'/Users/meng/Desktop/viper-2g33-surf.png',
                                                  u'/Users/meng/Desktop/viper-2g33-rib.png',
                                                  u'/Users/meng/Desktop/book3-coulombic-kiss90pct.png',
                                                  u'/Users/meng/Desktop/book3-coulombic-kiss.png'],
                                    'SimpleSession': [u'/Users/meng/Desktop/viewdock-amended.py',
                                                      u'/Users/meng/Desktop/viewdock-white2-amended.py',
                                                      u'/Users/meng/Desktop/vdtest.py',
                                                      u'/Users/meng/Desktop/posy-objects.py',
                                                      u'/Users/meng/Desktop/testcand1.py',
                                                      u'/Users/meng/Desktop/testcand5.py',
                                                      u'/Users/meng/Desktop/testdaily5.py',
                                                      u'/Users/meng/Desktop/testdaily1.py',
                                                      u'/Users/meng/Desktop/testdaily.py',
                                                      u'/Users/meng/Desktop/mca-model-coulombic.py'],
                                    'ViewDock': [u'/Users/meng/Desktop/chidata/ras.mol2'],
                                    'main chimera import dialog': [u'/Users/meng/Desktop/chidata/1plx.pdb',
                                                                   u'/Users/meng/Desktop/chidata/XYZ-axes.bild',
                                                                   u'/Users/meng/Desktop/4bqy_Phd3_edit.pdb',
                                                                   u'/Users/meng/Desktop/4BQY.pdb',
                                                                   u'/Users/meng/Desktop/4bqy_Phd1_edits_mar21.pdb']},

If th offending directory was chidata, for example, I would try removing just that one, from:

'miller browser': {'dirHistory': [u'/Users/meng/Desktop/chidata',
                                   u'/Users/meng/Desktop',
to:

'miller browser': {'dirHistory': [u'/Users/meng/Desktop',

If the preferences file gets messed up so that it is unusable, Chimera may just ignore it, which would also have the beneficial effect of forgetting your directory, but at the cost of forgetting your other preferences and history items.  I hope this helps,
Elaine
----------
Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D. 
UCSF Computer Graphics Lab (Chimera team) and Babbitt Lab
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry
University of California, San Francisco

On May 12, 2014, at 9:02 AM, Dennis N Bromley <dbromley at uw.edu> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Whenever I try and load a file into chimera, it tries to open the windows file load dialog in the last directory I loaded a file from (I guess that is what is happening, at any rate).  But that directory now has around 10K pdb files in it and chimera hangs trying to enumerate them all (maybe due to windows/samba/etc).  As a result, I can no longer even use chimera because it hangs every time I try and load a file.
> 
> Is there a way to clear this so that I can load files again?
> 
> thanks!
> -denny-