The question is "Should the list box remain when the Program selected is "Extract additional information for deposition"? There may also be scope for having this option, which is the option to use PDB_EXTRACT, at the top of the list of programs, or as the default when the interface to the Harvesting Manager is opened. A user has to open a file browser to select the harvest files into the list box, but there is currently no functionality to pass these files as file input into PDB_EXTRACT. The interface to PDB_EXTRACT uses the standard Input File Line system. A drag-and-drop system was an initial idea, but I do not know how this could be implemented.
Something which has only recently come to light is that the modified interface sent from Yang does not have many Help messages in the yellow bar at the top of the interface, mainly in the drop-down menu to select where information is being extracted from, as well as when the user is selecting the program. This can be easily fixed and should be done before 10 September.
Initially, this does seem like a strange option to have, but presumably the functionality must be present in the PDB_EXTRACT programs for it to be able to handle log files from programs not described in the drop-down menu list. Perhaps confirmation of this from the RCSB may be prudent before deciding whether or not to keep this option.
When choosing to run PDB_EXTRACT, and then choosing the step or 'mode' (eg: extracting information from scaling, or generating a complete mmCIF file), there are some modes which seem to suggest that more than one log file is required, even though only one log file is present. It may be that some programs, CCP4 or otherwise, produce more than one log file during a run, but it has not been customised to act in this way. Although PDB_EXTRACT will run if only one log file is given, it does give the user the impression that two are required.
One option is to just have the minimum input lines present (eg: 1 log file line, 1 harvest file line) and have a button which will then create another log file input line as and when is required. This will make the interface neater and there will be fewer unnecessary input file lines. The next step may be to have no input file lines at all, and have the user create input file lines depending on the files present. This is because the user may not have a harvest file from the program and may be using the PDB_EXTRACT program to create a harvest file which was not created before.
Also to be considered is how, if possible, the harvesting directory alias for the project can be passed to the task interface so that the input file lines for harvest files are pointing to the harvesting directory by default instead of the project directory.
Pryank Patel, 19/08/2004