How to Navigate in DFF Interface

The DFF user interface has three major parts:

1. Project Navigator on the left.
2. Tabbed Panels in the center.
3. Command Menus and Toolbar on the top.

Project Navigator

Operations usually starts with create or open a project. To create a project means to create a new folder in the file system, and save works of current project in the folder. To open a project means to load an existing folder and its sub-folders, all treated as the project members. The project file structure is shown on the left side of DFF user interface, called Project Navigator.

Note only some of the DFF relevant files are shown in the Project Navigator. You can open, select, rename, copy, move or delete project members, you can also perform various computation tasks on selected files. These operations are usually done by pointing to the node(s) on Project Navigator and right-click mouse button.

Main Panels

In the Center is the tabbed Main Panels, which show all opened (.msd) files. Click the tab to set the view of a specific model.

Using commands in the toolbar, you can move, rotate, zoom in/out the image. You can also edit the model such as adding/deleting atoms or changing the order of selected bond.

Using commands in the Command Menu you can perform various computation tasks either for currently viewing model or for all selected/opened models. The currently viewing model sets the working directory, which is used for saving outputs of computations. Usually, the newly generated DFF files will be loaded to the Project Navigator automatically.

Command Menus and Toolbars

On the top is The command menu panel and toolbar. Each command menu list several commands which perform different functions. Toolbar commands are mostly used for editing and viewing the models shown in the tabbed panel.

Many commands open Dialogs for user inputs, some commands go straight to the computations. The commands in Command Menu can be applied to one or multiple models, depends on the nature of task. Toolbar commands are mostly used for showing and modifying the model opened.