Section 5.3.3.4. Platform-specific editors

The Windows program beCIF (Brown et al., 2004) is still in prototype. It is a DDL1-dictionary-driven CIF manipulation tool that does not require detailed knowledge of CIF or dictionary structures. It provides a rather different view of the contents of a CIF from the applications discussed above through an interface that will be familiar to users of Microsoft Windows applications. When the application is opened, the user is prompted to provide the location of a CIF dictionary (at any one time, only a single dictionary file may be loaded). This dictionary is loaded into memory and used to validate CIFs upon input. As a data file is read, discrepancies from the types and value ranges permitted by the dictionary are listed in an information window.

The file contents are presented in a number of panels, one per dictionary category, between which the user may navigate by selecting the tab with the desired category name (Fig. 5.3.3.11).

Figure 5.3.3.11 | top | pdf | A category view in the beCIF editor of a CIF with navigation by tabs.

At the highest level, tabs allow the user to choose the data block of interest. Buttons are provided to delete a data block entirely, to rename it or to create a new data block.

Within each data block, the user may add new categories. Again, to help the novice user, when the button `New Category' is selected, a list of only those categories described in the current dictionary but absent from the current data block is presented to the user. Each category present in the data file is accessed through its own tabbed display panel.

Where the category contains non-looped data items, values may be edited within individual text widgets; data items may be removed by selecting the adjacent check box; or new data items may be added by selecting the `New Data Item' button to create a dialogue box offering a choice of the remaining data items in the dictionary category. Against each data item a button provides access to a pop-up window containing the relevant dictionary definition.

For a category with looped data, the contents are displayed in a spreadsheet-style representation, with columns headed by the matching data name and rows numbered for convenience (Fig. 5.3.3.12).

Figure 5.3.3.12 | top | pdf | Representation by the beCIF editor of looped data within a category (here ATOM_SITE) in spreadsheet style.

The changes requested to the CIF are only effected when the user selects the `Save CIF' button. Unlike many other of the CIF editors previously discussed, this program does not make any effort to retain the initial ordering of the input data, nor does it preserve comments. The edited CIF may therefore be superficially very different from the input file; however, the only significant differences in content will be those introduced through use of the editing functions within the application.

The tools described so far emphasize the data content of a CIF. printCIF for Word (Westrip, 2004), on the other hand, was commissioned to help prospective authors of structure reports in the IUCr journals to visualize and prepare for publication complete papers submitted in CIF format. Chapter 5.7 describes the workflow and processing of such submissions. Here is given a brief description of the use of the printCIF software from an author's viewpoint.

This application also differs from others discussed in this chapter in that it is rather specific to a particular program environment, being written as Visual Basic macros embedded in a Microsoft Word template document. Efforts are under way to provide versions that can run with other word processors. Nevertheless, Word is currently sufficiently widespread that the utility is likely to be of use to a large community.

Typically the author begins by double-clicking on the icon associated with the printcif.dot template file. The initial macros are loaded and the author is prompted to provide the location of a CIF. As the CIF is imported into the application, the data items that will be used in the publication are extracted and converted into a rich-text format (RTF) representation. For extended text fields, this RTF content may be edited directly in the word-processing environment; this makes it easy for authors to compose and edit continuous text in a familiar way. Numeric and brief textual data items from the CIF are processed and presented in read-only fields in the manner in which they will appear in the journal, often as entries in a table or as a list of brief experimental details. These fields may not be edited within the RTF representation; if it is necessary to change these, the author must modify the data value in the CIF itself. To assist the author, the contents of the CIF are opened in a text-editor window alongside the formatted representation. The CIF and RTF representations are linked; if the author selects text in the RTF window, the corresponding CIF data item is highlighted within the text-editor window (Fig. 5.3.3.13).

Figure 5.3.3.13 | top | pdf | The dual RTF/CIF editing windows in the printCIF for Word application. In this example, the author has selected the word `Monoclinic' in the read-only table of crystal data; the corresponding CIF data item _symmetry_cell_setting is highlighted in the CIF window, where it may be edited.

The advantages to the author of editing in RTF format are that existing text may be cut and pasted from other applications, and formatting features, such as subscript or superscript text, Greek letters and other special symbols, may be entered through the word-processor's menu-driven interface, rather than by use of the rather unmemorable ASCII codings used in CIF.

The major disadvantage is the need to recognize that two versions of the file, both editable, are accessible at the same time; and care must therefore be taken to ensure that conflicting changes are not made, and that the author is aware of which version is currently the master. The function `Update CIF using RTF' (in the toolbar of the CIF editing window) will reimport into the CIF all the editable content from the RTF window, replacing any existing data items. The complementary function, `Build preprint', creates a fresh copy of the preprint representation of the document in RTF format.

A number of options are available to modify the preprint that is generated (for example, by printing a complete list of the geometry included in the CIF rather than just the items flagged for publication; or listing the atomic coordinate data). The general style is that of Acta Crystallographica Section C and Section E; nevertheless, the application may be useful to users who do not intend to submit to these journals but who wish to produce an attractive representation of the content of their CIFs.

Utilities are provided to create tables in the RTF environment suitable for embedding in the CIF, to browse the contents of the CIF core dictionary and to validate the syntax of the CIF. The application is not dictionary-driven, however, and does not carry out detailed consistency checks. It is therefore best considered as an aid to publication, to be used alongside data-centric editors and validation tools such as enCIFer.

A particularly useful self-documenting feature of printCIF for Word is that the User Guide is automatically opened when the application is started, before a CIF is loaded.