It would be nice for the file format spec to be more intuitive and clear for users about how to provide different geometry files to render agents in the viewer.
Acceptance Criteria
Users clearly understand how to provide PDB or mmCIF files or IDs to RSCB PDB, and how to provide OBJ or other mesh files, in order to render agents in the viewer.
Details
In the geometry block, displayType="PDB" specifies multi-sphere rendering but could use either a PDB file or a mmCIF file. Although both of these file types can be downloaded from RCSB PDB (Protein DataBank), it might be confusing for users to call them both PDB.
We could add a display type for mmCIF, but then we're really using display type to mean file type. This could also be an issue for display type OBJ in the future when we add support for other mesh file types beyond OBJ.
The best solution is probably to change the display type options from "PDB" and "OBJ" to "molecule" and "mesh" or something similar, and then let the user provide any of the supported file types for that display type. But it would be nice to verify this with users before we change the file format spec.
Use Case
It would be nice for the file format spec to be more intuitive and clear for users about how to provide different geometry files to render agents in the viewer.
Acceptance Criteria
Users clearly understand how to provide PDB or mmCIF files or IDs to RSCB PDB, and how to provide OBJ or other mesh files, in order to render agents in the viewer.
Details
In the
geometryblock,displayType="PDB" specifies multi-sphere rendering but could use either a PDB file or a mmCIF file. Although both of these file types can be downloaded from RCSB PDB (Protein DataBank), it might be confusing for users to call them both PDB.We could add a display type for mmCIF, but then we're really using display type to mean file type. This could also be an issue for display type OBJ in the future when we add support for other mesh file types beyond OBJ.
The best solution is probably to change the display type options from "PDB" and "OBJ" to "molecule" and "mesh" or something similar, and then let the user provide any of the supported file types for that display type. But it would be nice to verify this with users before we change the file format spec.