3 * Jalview - A Sequence Alignment Editor and Viewer (Version 2.8.1)
4 * Copyright (C) 2014 The Jalview Authors
6 * This file is part of Jalview.
8 * Jalview is free software: you can redistribute it and/or
9 * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
10 * as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
12 * Jalview is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
13 * WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty
14 * of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
15 * PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
17 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Jalview. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
18 * The Jalview Authors are detailed in the 'AUTHORS' file.
20 <head><title>Editing</title></head>
22 <p><strong>Editing</strong></p>
23 <p>There are two major ways to edit alignments - in 'Normal mode',
24 gaps are inserted and deleted at the mouse pointer in various ways by
25 clicking the left mouse button and pressing a combination of either
26 shift and control (or the alt, option or apple key on Macs) and dragging the mouse. Pressing
27 <em>F2</em> toggles the alternative <a href="../features/cursorMode.html">'Cursor
28 mode'</a> keyboard editing facility, where the space bar and delete
29 keys add and remove gaps at the current editing position. The key
30 strokes for both these modes are summarised in the <a
31 href="../keys.html">keystrokes table</a>.</p>
32 <p><strong>Tip:</strong> For large alignments, deselect "Calculate ->
33 Autocalculate Consensus" to prevent the alignment performing lengthy calculations
34 after every edit. </p>
35 <p><em>Inserting / removing gaps</em> - hold down the
36 "Shift" key. Click on a residue with the mouse and drag it
37 to the left or right to insert gaps and remove gaps.<br>
38 If the current selection is a group over all sequences in the
39 alignment, or a group over some sequences or all columns in the
40 alignment, then hold down either "Control"
41 key (or the "Alt;" on OSX if "Control" does not work) and drag the residue left or right to edit all sequences in the defined
43 <p><em>Copy/paste/cut/delete</em> - any sequences which are in the current selection
44 box (indicated in red) may be cut and / or copied to a new alignment or deleted.
46 <p><em>Undo / redo</em> - editing of sequences (insertion/removal of gaps, removal
47 of sequences, trimming sequences etc) may be undone or redone at any time using
48 the appropriate menu items from the edit menu. The undo history list only allows
49 a maximum of 10 actions.
50 <p><em>Trimming alignment</em> - First select a column by clicking the scale indicator
51 (above the sequences) The alignment may then be trimmed to the left or right
52 of this column. If multiple columns are selected, the alignment is trimmed to
53 the right of the rightmost selected column (or to the left of the leftmost selected
55 <p><em>Remove gapped columns</em> - Removes columns within the alignment which
56 contain only space characters ("-" or "." or " ")</p>
57 <p><em>Removing gaps</em> - Removes all gaps from the alignment. Gaps are "-"
58 or "." or " ".</p>
59 <p><em>Set gap character</em> - Switches the gap character between "."
60 and "-". If the "Render Gaps" option from the "View"
61 menu is unticked all gaps will appear as blank spaces.</p>
63 <p><strong>Editing In Selection Areas</strong></p>
64 Editing can be restricted to the current selection area.
65 This allows the user to "Lock" the alignment either side of the selection
66 area. Any gap insertions or deletions will only affect the current selection area.
67 <p><img src="editing.jpg" width="428" height="186" align="top"></p>
68 <p>In this example, if Sequence IL2RA_MACMU has gaps removed from position 98-104,
69 the same number of gaps will be inserted at position 116, (between M and L).
71 <p><em>Locked selection area based editing was introduced in Jalview 2.08</em></p>