rmoretti Staff Lv 1
We are excited to release a new, single interface for Foldit.
One of the issues we’ve had in Foldit development is supporting both of the prior interfaces (Original Interface and Selection Interface). Not only does it take more effort to write to implement features in both interfaces, it’s also something of a user support issue, as it’s difficult for new players to come in learning one interface, and then get help from the documentation and experienced players for the other interface.
People with familiarity with the old Selection Interface will see similarities with the new interface, as we leaned heavily on the behavior of the Selection Interface for the new UI. (Selection interface is the preferred interface of a number of top users and the Foldit team, as well as allowing more flexibility for future improvements.) Most importantly, we kept the “selection” mechanic from the Selection Interface. To work on sub-sections of the protein, first select segments by clicking (and/or shift-clicking, ctrl-clicking [cmd-click for Mac] or double clicking) those sections you want, then select the action to use. Simply click the background to deselect segments and return to global actions.
Menu Panel: The Menu Panel can be accessed by clicking the Foldit icon in the upper left corner. This allows you to access overall game controls like changing puzzles, saving/loading solutions and exiting the program.
Puzzle Title: Click on the Puzzle title to go to the web page for the puzzle. (Try it on intro puzzles!)
Score Display: We’ve simplified the score display to focus more on the thing that counts – your score.
Objective Panel: Previously, in puzzles with a large number of objectives, having the objective panel directly underneath the score meant that expanding it would block the main display. We’ve moved it off to the side, to lessen the interference when it’s expanded.
Side Buttons: For easy access, a number of panels can be accessed from convenient buttons on the left hand side of the screen: Help, Undo, View Options, Behavior Options and the Cookbook
Action Bar: Similar to the old Selection Interface, most of the actions you’ll use in working with the protein are found in the action bar. Unlike the SI, though, all the actions which are available on the puzzle should be present from the start - they may be disabled until you have the correct selection (check the tooltip on disabled actions), but they’ll be present. If you’re familiar with the Original Interface, the actions from the action popup menu and the right-click pie menu will now be found at the bottom of the screen.
No Modes: Gone are the “Modes” from the Original Interface. Instead, all functionality from the independent modes are available in the action bar. No more switching back-and-forth!
Mouse Control: The control of the view by clicking on the background should be unchanged. Use (left) click (either single or double, potentially while holding shift or ctrl [cmd for Macs]) to select residues. (Left) Click and drag does pull. Right click [control-click for single button Macs] can freeze a segment, double right click will freeze a region, and right click and drag will add a band.
View options: The behavior of the View Options menu has gotten an update. We’ve added support for view presets. This should allow you to develop your own customized combinations of view settings for different purposes, and easily switch between them. It will also allow us to put out suggested per-puzzle view settings, such that design puzzles can get a different default view from electron density puzzles or ligand puzzles.
To use a preset, simply select it from the list. You can also create a new preset from the current settings, edit the current preset, or delete your custom preset. Editing a preset brings up the customization options. These will only change your preset if you actually Save the preset, or return to the preset list (keeping the current view settings, but without changing the preset.)
The Future
We’re excited about the new, unified interface. This should allow us to more rapidly implement improvements to the program and the UI. We’re open to suggestions on how to make the new user interface more useful for all Foldit users.
Wondering where things went? We’ve put together a short guide on where various buttons and functionality have moved to.
