These tips result from years of experience
and may prove useful even for advanced users.
1. Select the current object
Users can select the current object, the object that is moved, rotated, scaled,
and exported to a file. The current object can be a single object or a list of objects.
First click the mouse middle button over an object name, on the top menu. Then click
over an object of that class, to select it, or over the Gamgi button, to select
the current list of those objects.
2. Select the current layer
Users can select the current layer, the layer where are the objects
that can be directly manipulated. Press the mouse middle button over Layer,
on the top menu, then click over the graphic area, to select the layer from
a pop menu. The new current layer becomes automatically the current object.
Layers can be transparent or opaque. Objects in different layers can be
manipulated simultaneously using lists of objects.
3. Use lists of objects
Handling lists of objects are a powerful technique to manipulate
simultaneosuly arbitrary sets of objects previously selected. Using
Object->Select dialogs, objects can be added or removed, picked one
by one, selected by region or by a wide range of properties.
4. Use lights
Solid objects require lights to look good. Just press
Light->Create and then
Ok to create a light.
If lights are interfering with wired objects, use two
transparent layers, one with solid objects and lights,
the other with wired objects and no lights.
5. Move objects away
Large objects in
Ortographic projection tend to be too close
to the viewer, resulting in broken lines and surfaces. The easiest
solution is to move the objects away, along the z direction. Just
press
Move to activate the ruler, and press the left (negative)
half of the ruler with the third (z axis) button, until the image
looks correct.
6. Customize the ruler
In
Window->Config, the ruler can be configured to arbitrarily
high levels of accuracy. For example, setting
Rotate Max
and
Step to
0.5 and
0.1 respectively, will configure
the ruler in
Rotate mode, from
-0.5 to
+0.5 degrees,
in steps of
0.1 each.
7. Import multiple files
GAMGI can load an arbitrary number of files, local or remote,
with a single shell command. Try for example:
gamgi http://www.gamgi.org/dat/molecule/silicates/q10.xml ftp://ftp.gamgi.org/gamgi/dat/molecule/silicates/q10.xml
8. Set user preferences
Importing automatically a file with default data everytime
GAMGI is launched is a flexible and powerful way to set
preferences. For example, adding this line to
~/.bashrc:
alias gamgi='gamgi ~/gamgi/defaults.xml'
will import the file
defaults.xml everytime
gamgi starts. To turn C atoms grey by default, add
this data to
defaults.xml:
<gml>
<gamgi>
<atom element="C" red="0.5" green="0.5" blue="0.5"/>
</gamgi>
</gml>