Including Entries in the Workspace

fix, unfix, exclude

The Workspace is the part of the main window where project entries can be displayed, edited, styled, and acted on in various other ways. Including an entry in the Workspace means adding it to the Workspace; likewise, excluding an entry means removing it from the Workspace. An included entry is usually displayed (unless it was previously hidden), and becomes available for all the operations that can be performed in the Workspace. The entries that are in the Workspace are listed in the Structure Hierarchy (Hierarchy).

The icon in the In column of the Project Table or Entry List indicates whether the entry is included in, excluded from, or fixed in the Workspace. A filled circle indicates that the entry is included, an empty circle indicates that the entry is excluded. A push-pin icon on the filled circle indicates that an entry is fixed in the Workspace (see below).

Entries can be included in or excluded from the Workspace in the following ways:

  • To include one entry and exclude all others, click the In column for that entry.

  • To include or exclude one entry without affecting others, hold down the CTRL key and click the In column for that entry.

  • To include a contiguous range of entries, click the In column for the first entry in the range, hold down the SHIFT key and click ("shift-click") the In column for the last entry in the range.

  • To exclude multiple entries from the Workspace, first select the entries, then press Ctrl+X (⌘X) or choose Table → Exclude.

  • To include the next (or previous) selected entry in the Workspace and exclude the current entry, press the Right Arrow (or Left Arrow) key. If there are multiple entries included in the Workspace, the action is applied to all of the included entries. This is a useful way of stepping through one or more sets of entries, displaying them in turn in the Workspace.

  • To include the first entry in each selected group in the Workspace, choose Table → Other Group Actions → Include First Entry (Top Group). This action includes the first entry at the top level of the selected groups, and not the first entry in any subgroups.

Entries can be fixed in the Workspace or unfixed (fix status removed). Fixing an entry means that it remains in the Workspace until you explicitly exclude it. It is not removed as a consequence of another inclusion action, such as including only another entry. You can make changes to entries that are fixed in the Workspace. Fixed entries are marked with a pin icon in the In column of the Project Table panel or Entry List panel.

  • To fix a single entry in the Workspace, double-click the In column for the entry.

  • To unfix a single entry without excluding it from the Workspace, double-click the In column for the entry.

  • To unfix a single entry and exclude it from the Workspace, control-click or middle-click the In column for the entry.

  • To fix one or more entries in the Workspace, first select the entries, then choose Table → Fix in Workspace.

  • To unfix one or more fixed entries, first select the entries, then choose Table → Clear Fix.

You can also include entries from plots in the View Chart Panel (Scatter default). This is a useful means of choosing entries for inclusion on the basis of their properties.

If you choose to include a large number of entries in the Workspace, a warning dialog box is displayed, as there is a risk that the inclusion will take up too much memory and degrade performance or freeze Maestro altogether. This is particularly likely if the entries have large numbers of atoms, such as proteins. You can set the number of entries at which the warning is displayed in this dialog box, and you can choose to continue or to cancel the inclusion. Once the inclusion starts, a progress dialog box is displayed if the inclusion takes more than a few seconds. You can stop the include operation in this dialog box at the last entry included by clicking Stop or pressing the Esc key.

For example, suppose you want to include into the Workspace all of the entries that start with the name "ligand". This is done by first selecting the entries and then including the selected entries.

  1. Clear the Workspace.

  2. Choose Select → By Property Values to open the Select Entries by Property Values dialog box.

  3. Select Select Only.

  4. Choose Title from the Properties list.

  5. Select Matches and enter ligand* in the text box.

  6. Click Add then click OK.

  7. Choose Table → Include.

The entries that are in the selection are included in the Workspace.