CCP4I2 Developers: Demo data for tutorials

Introduction

CCP4i2 has a standard mechanism to simplify user access to tutorial documentation and data files for practical workshops using CCP4i2. The user access is via Utilities->Copy demo data to project. This gives a menu of demo data that are available as part of the CCP4i2 release. Once selected, a set of demo data is copied to the user's project directory for easy access. The More info menu item opens a web page listing a brief description of each set of demo data and links to further documentation. The Download data menu option opens a dialog box that enables downloading data from a remote site - the user must enter the URL of a web page. This document describes the conventions for the demo data and how to set up a site that CCP4i2 can download new demo data from.

The demo data are in the $CCP4I2/demo_data directory and more demo data, downloaded from the web, can be placed there if the user has write permission. Alternatively downloaded demo data is placed in the user's 'dot' directory, ($HOME/.CCP4I2 on Linux and MacOSX and CCP4I2 on Windows).

Each set of demo data is in a single directory with a short specific name. Besides data files the directory should contain a file called README.html that describes the data files in the directory and explains the tutorial/workshop. README.html can include links to other documents - either in the directory, in sister demo data directories or on the web. There is also an INFO.txt file that contains three lines:

1. a very short name for the demo data that will appear on the menu
2. a single line description that will appear in the 'More info' page
3. the sub title for a section of the 'More info' page. Please use existing subtitles if appropriate or something like 'York MX Workshop, 2016' might also be appropriate.

Templates for creating these two files can be found in $CCP4I2/demo_data/resources.

Creating downloadable demo data

If you want to make additional demo data sets available to CCP4i2 users,probably for use in a classroom situation, then:

1. Assemble data files in a directory with short, informative name. Give the files informative names. Note that your tutorial instructions could also include downloading data from protein database sites via the options on the file browser.
2. Copy the template files $CCP4I2/demo_data/resources/README.html and $CCP4I2/demo_data/resources/INFO.txt to your directory and edit them. You may want to add other tutorial files to your directory - be sure to link them from README.html.
3. Create a compressed zip file of the directory in CCP4i2 using Utilities->Developers Tools->Compress Demo Data. (Doing this via CCP4i2 should avoid any possible problems with zip formats.)
4. Create a directory for CCP4i2 demo downloads on your website and move all compressed demo files to that directory.
5. Copy the $CCP4I2/demo_data/resources/downloadPage.html to that directory and rename it index.html. Edit this file to create links to all the zip files. Be careful to retain the structure of the links as CCP4i2 will parse this file in order to automatically download the zip files.
6. The download web page can be accessed via a normal web browser but can be downloaded quickly to the correct place by CCP4i2: go via Utilities->Copy demo data to project->Download data to a Download demo data window and enter the URL of the download directory. Beware classroom PCs often have restrictive firewalls, download, write access etc. and to use this in a classroom situation it would be wise to test beforehand and have a copy of data on a USB stick!