Ability to temporarily disable specific mouse modes

[Tristan Croll]

Up until now I've been disabling the entire mouse modes toolbar any time an ISOLDE simulation was running, but I'd like to get more specific and disable only those that would be seriously problematic. Examples are swapaa (changing the topology while a simulation is running would be a Bad Thing), tug and minimize (which start their own simulations) and, to a lesser extent, buttons which move individual atoms (not dangerous, as such - but the movement would be ignored by the simulation which would be confusing). Is there a favoured method to do this?

[Tom Goddard]

There are plenty of commands that can modify structures (e.g. deleting atoms), and there will be many more coming. There will be many user interface panels that can modify structures. It is not sensible to try to disable everything in ChimeraX that could disturb a running calculation or the state of your tool. Instead you are expected to use two methods: 1) detect changes using the trigger mechanism that may effect your tool, and 2) catch errors and give a sensible error message or carry on -- for instance if a model is deleted that your tool is using and you don't monitor the trigger for that, then catch the error that results and simply stop your simulation. Ultimately the user is still going to be able to cause mayhem, but if they choose to do things that deliberately interfere with a running simulation and they get an error, they generally learn that they should do that.