Index:
The present chapter describes some of the general functions of the program.
When the Pronto program is started, a menu as shown in Figure 1 appears. The Data button is the main entry to the program. Pressing the left mouse button when the cursor is located on that button reveals a popup menu, and selecting one of the items opens a catalog window. Several copies of the same catalog window type can be opened simultaneously. The active copy of a catalog window is shown with a blue background and the inactive copies have a red background. Messages about focusing on database entries are only sent to the active window. The File button opens a window for loading and saving the database. The Backup button stores the database contained in PRONTO_WORK in the directory PRONTO_DATA/backup. The System button opens a window with some maintenance functions: A help window, which will contain some messages about the progress of some of the tools, and a window survey, which will make it possible to raise a specific instance of a window. The Tools menu contains the functions for locating peaks, making consistency checks of the database, and making reports of the contents of the database. The Exit button terminates the program, after asking the user for a confirmation.
Most of the catalogs in the database contain more information that can be displayed simultaneously on the screen. In these cases, the information is displayed using a Browser. An example of that is shown in Figure 2. This catalog contains a list of all the cross peaks in the database. The three arrows above and below the list are used to go through the list. The first arrow steps one entry, the second arrow steps one page, and the last arrow moves to the top or bottom of the list. In this window, the sorting order can also be changed using the Sort buttons. Pressing on one of the lines in the browser list selects that entry as the current entry in that catalog. In many windows, a Zoom button will open a window containing detailed information about the current database entry.
An example of a zoom window is shown in Figure 3. The actual information contained in the database record is shown in the fields at the bottom of the window. The fields can be changed using the Editor. Pressing the right mousebutton when the cursor is on top of one of the fields opens up an editor window containing the current value of the field. Pressing the left mousebutton instead stores the current value of the field in the clipboard. Opening the editor window with the middle mousebutton transfers the current value of the clipboard into the editor window. Thus, a value can be transferred from one field to another by pressing the left mousebutton in the from-field, and opening the editor window in the to-field using the middle mousebutton. Accepting the value by pressing the OK button transfers the value into the catalog.
An example of an editor window is shown in Figure 4. Pressing OK closes the window and transfers the value to the database. Pressing CANCEL aborts the editing and leaves the value in the database untouched. The value in the editor field is modified in the following way: Place the mouse cursor in the editable window. You can now either modify the value or replace the value. If you move the cursor in the window using the arrow keys on the keyboard, the field is modified: You can then insert or delete characters. If you enter a digit or letter in the field without first moving the editor cursor, the whole field will be erased before the character pressed is inserted at the beginning of the line.