PROJECT

DFF organizes user files by project. A project is a folder (directory) that contains files and sub-folders and displayed in the Project Navigator, on the left side of DFF user interface. The project corresponds to disk files but only DFF relevant files are shown. The project has a name which is the same as the folder name, a project file named as ".dpf" saved in the project has information of the project.

The project is potable, which means you can copy or share a project.

PROJECT NAVIGATOR

The Project Navigator is an interface between your computer files and DFF. Operations performed on files or folders in the Project Navigator are applied to real files. For example, deleting a file or a folder from the Project Navigator also immediately deletes it from your computer. New files or new folders can be added to the Project Navigator from DFF. Since any sub-folders under the project folder are considered as a part of the project, if a folder or file is added to the project folder or its sub-folders in the operating system, it will be treated as a part of the project.

FILE TYPES

Files used by DFF include molecular structure data (.msd), potential parameters (.ppf), validation result tables (.dft), quantum mechanics data (.qmd), and text files. Each of these files types has a unique icon in the Project Navigator.

Navigator Commands

Commands can be applied to a project by selecting a node and right-clicking mouse. Depends on the type of node or files, different operations can be applied.

On the root node (.dpf)

• Larger Font - enlarge the font size of the Navigator
• Smaller Font - reduce the font size of Navigator

On any folder or file node, several common commands can be applied, which are self-explaining:

• New to create a new empty model
• Open to open a model file from disk
• Copy to make a copy of the file or folder
• Cut to cut the file or folder off the project tree
• Paste to paste the cut object.
• Delete to delete the object.
• Rename to rename a project

On folders

• Refresh to reload all relevant files for current folder
• Sort to arrange all files using name, type or modify date
• Open in explorer - to see current folder in Windows's explorer.

On files, various commands can be applied depending on the type of files. The most common ones are:

For MSD node:

• Associate PPF to assign a force field (PPF file) to the model
• Dissociate PPF to remove the assigned force field.

For QMD file

• Create MSD - to extract the structure of lowest energy and save into a MSD file.