deleting a bond should delete a terminal atom as well

User 870ab5b546

07-08-2014 15:43:41

Hi, In MarvinSketch, if I delete a bond that leads to a terminal atom, i.e., one that has no other atoms attached, then the terminal atom is also deleted. However, in Marvin4JS, the terminal atom remains. This creates a need for a lot of extra user actions. The MarvinSketch behavior should apply in Marvin4JS as well.

ChemAxon f052bdfe3c

14-08-2014 08:08:55

Hi Bob,


Thank you for your suggestion, however we do not intend to change this behaviour.


Be

User 870ab5b546

14-08-2014 14:09:56

I encourage you to reconsider your decision. In MarvinSketch, you can choose not to delete the orphan atom by holding down the option key. You could do the same in M4JS. More to the point, when a user deletes such a bond, the vast majority of the time, she will also want to delete the orphan atom.

ChemAxon 996dedebe0

03-09-2014 08:01:12

Hello Bob,


We've considered your suggestion, and we had to come to a conclusion to leave this feature as it is now. Explanation:


1. Many people draw Markush structures with Marvin JS, where terminal atoms can be too important to lose them just because their only bond is deleted.
Especially because:



2. If someone wants to delete a bond and the terminal atom with the eraser tool, she/he can do it with a single move by:



 we think these interactions are as simple as the one in your suggestion. 


3. If we fulfilled your wish, there would be no easy way to delete just the bond without the terminal atom (using modifier keys in this case is not an option, since touch devices have no keyboards).


4. Providing an option for two different behaviours would increase the complexity of the code, download size and eventually the loading speed of the application. And if there was an option, one would be able to set it on the server side permamently, on the client side one would have to set it every time. Considering this risk and the reasons above, we came to this conclusion.


Certainly, we may reconsider this (end every other) decision in the future. And of course any other comments and suggestions are welcome. Thank you again for your feedback.

User 870ab5b546

03-09-2014 12:40:38










jpapdeak wrote:

1. Many people draw Markush structures with Marvin JS, where terminal atoms can be too important to lose them just because their only bond is deleted. 


Especially because:



  • one can delete a bond just to replace with another later (not the best way, but still a legal one).

  • Homology groups, R atoms and abbreviations (Carboaryl, R1, COOH) can be terminal atoms aswell.


2. If someone wants to delete a bond and the terminal atom with the eraser tool, she/he can do it with a single move by:



  • clicking on the terminal atom (and the bond will be removed aswell)

  • dragging with the tool over the atom (or the atom+the bond)


 we think these interactions are as simple as the one in your suggestion. 



With respect to (1), you could delete the terminal atom if it is an element but not if it is a homology group or R atom. But maybe that would be too complicated. With respect to (2), yes, you're right, that is a simple solution, and I hadn't thought about the touch-screen implications. I guess I'll just have to get used to the new keystrokes. 


One last possibility is to create an option for the developer to set whether to delete terminal atoms when deleting a bond.