Workbench

Workbench is another name for the main window of BiSSAP, together with its menus, viewers and editors. You have great freedom when it comes to rearranging editors, viewers and browsers within the main workbench window. You can also adapt the interface to suit your needs, changing the size and position of the windows.

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Main elements

The workbench can display many different elements. The diagram above shows the default layout. When you change the layout, your changes are automatically saved and loaded when the application restarts.

The main elements of the workbench are:

  • Project Browser
    Its default location is on the upper left. It organises access to projects and applications. The information is organised as a hierarchical tree. You can expand and collapse the nodes of the tree by clicking them.
  • Sequence Browser
    Its default location is on the lower left. It organises access to sequences and features. It displays information related to the last selected project (or one of its objects) in the Project Browser. The information is organised as a hierarchical tree. Click the nodes of the tree to expand and collapse them. To display information on any project, right-click any element belonging to the project in the Project Browser.
  • Editors
    The editors are the main way of editing existing information. To open an editor, right-click the object in question, and select editobject from the pop-up menu. Editors are located by default on the upper right, and take up most of the space in the BiSSAP workbench. Open editors are organised in tabs, i.e. only one editor is displayed at a time. You can access others by clicking the editor tab.
    Right-click the editor tab to display tab-related commands. When you modify data in the editor, an asterisk (*) appears on the editor tab. Save your changes by pressing Ctrl-S (on Mac OS X: Command-S). If your save operation goes smoothly, the asterisk disappears. No further message is displayed.
  • Viewers
    Viewers are also organised in tabs, like editors. However, there can be more than one viewer area. There are four default viewer areas in BiSSAP:
    • Project Browser on the upper left
    • Sequence Browser on the lower left
    • placeholder for Report Viewer on the lower right
    • placeholder for HelpViewer on the right (not visible at the beginning)
  • Menus
    There are two kinds of menu in BiSSAP:
    • main menu - on the upper part of the application window
    • pop-up menu - to see this menu, right-click the object with which the menu is associated, e.g. a sequence.

These elements are described in detail in other parts of this User Guide.

Tooltips

Many elements in the GUI have tooltips. The tooltips are displayed when you hover the mouse pointer over the icons (note: not buttons!) marked “i”.