ChimeraX Developer Meeting

Zach, Eric, Tom, Greg

June 23, 2022

Agenda

General

ChimeraX

Release Planning

1) Greg wants a 1.4.1 release on Linux for Wayland

2) How can the NIH 3D pipeline toolshed install 3D presets when bundle cache not yet initialized?

3) 1.5 roadmap

Bugs

1) Due asynchronous startup toolshed check, can't issue "toolshed" commands immediately after ChimeraX installation.

Build System

1) Supporting IDEs

• may only need editable installs (will require workaround as namespace packages cannot be installed in this mode automatically)
• editable installs should also let us call ChimeraX with Python for rapid iteration and the C launcher for detailed crash info
• Zach mentioned PyCharm, LSP (Language Server Protocol), XCode
• Greg mentioned Visual Studio

2) API for getting C headers: get_include (see: numpy.get_include)

• native-packaging moves bundle header and source files to bundle/src/include/module \
• maybe just use header files?

3) API for getting library directories: get_libdir

4) macOS compiler call in Makefiles

Infrastructure

1) Beta releases on Toolshed

2) Decoupling core bundle version number from the ChimeraX release number

3) Prereq audit after 27 June

4) arm64 port

• Tom suggests zipping x86_64 ChimeraX and arm64 ChimeraX together
• How best to backport M1 support from native-packaging to 1.4 release branch

5) Regular packages on the toolshed

• Tom wonders if the functionality of python-gdcm is worth its weight
• Zach thinks we should leverage our plugin architecture to let users install only the bundles they need

Chimera

1) Back up the build machine to a solid state drive

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Discussion

• 1.4.1 ChimeraX release for Wayland fix?
  • Looked at 16 bug reports for Wayland
  • 2/3 of report are WSL2 where ChimeraX does not work even with XWayland
  • Other 1/3 have XDG_* environment variables and don't need ChimeraX fix.
  • Decided not to make 1.4.1 release for Wayland.

• 3DPresets toolshed install for NIH 3D
  • When NIH 3D tries to toolshed install 3DPresets bundle, fails because toolshed cache not initialized.
  • Michal has been provided a work-around which directly accesses Toolshed as a pip repository.
  • Waiting to hear from Michal if that workaround works.
  • Longer term, for 1.5 release, Greg will make populating toolshed cache a Task
  • As a Task the toolshed install can detect that it is running and wait for it.

• Mac M1 port
  • Can add a Mac M1 techpreview build.
  • Zach suggests making universal Mac build a 1.5 milestone
  • Greg showed how to add a techpreview build, changes needed to build_tools git repository.

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Action Items

• Present github continuous integration tutorial. Zach
• Remove pkg-config prereq if it is not being used for builds. Tom