- <p>
- <strong>The Groovy Shell</strong>
- </p>
- <p>
- <a href="http://groovy.codehaus.org/">Groovy</a> is an "<em>agile
- and dynamic language for the Java platform</em>". The groovy
- scripting language makes it extremely easy to programmatically
- interact with Java programs, in much the same way that Javascript is
- used to generate and interact with applets and other objects on the
- page.
- </p>
- <p>
- <strong><em>Getting Groovy...</em>
- </strong><br> Jalview Groovy support is only possible if the core groovy
- jars which include the GroovyShell are present on the CLASSPATH when
- Jalview is started.
- </p>
- <p>
- The jars are obtained from the <em>embedded</em> directory within the
- <a href="http://dist.codehaus.org/groovy/distributions">groovy
- distribution</a>. The easiest way of adding them to the Jalview classpath
- is to download and build jalview from it's source distribution, and
- then add the groovy-all-*.jar to the lib directory whose path is given
- in the java.ext.dirs property.
- </p>
- <p>
- <strong>Opening Jalview's Groovy Console</strong><br>If groovy is
- available, then the <strong>Tools→Groovy Console...</strong>
- menu entry will be available from the Jalview Desktop's drop-down
- menu. Selecting this will open the <a
- href="http://groovy.codehaus.org/Groovy+Console">Groovy Console</a>
- which allows you to interactively execute Groovy scripts within the
- Jalview run-time environment.
- </p>
- <p>
- <strong>Executing groovy scripts on Jalview startup</strong><br>
- The -groovy <script> option on the <a href="commandline.html" />
- Jalview command line</a> will execute the contents of <script>.
- <script> may be a file, a URL, or alternatively if it is
- "STDIN" then the standard input will be used.<br>
- <em>Note: The groovy script will be executed <strong>after</strong>
- any data is loaded, and <strong>before</strong> images or any output
- files are written. This allows you to perform customised jalview
- analysis workflows with groovy.</em>
- </p>
- <p>
- <strong>Access to Jalview's functions from Groovy Scripts</strong><br>
- There is as yet no properly defined scripting interface to Jalview,
- but all the public methods of the jalview class hierarchy can be
- called from Groovy scripts. The access point for this is the <strong>Jalview</strong>
- object defined in the groovy environent which corresponds to the
- <pre>jalview.gui.Desktop</pre>
- object which manages all the Jalview windows.
- </p>
- Here's an example to get you started:
- <br>
- <ul>
- <li>Getting the title, alignment and first sequence from the
- current alignFrame<br> <pre>
-def alf = Jalview.getAlignframes();
+ <p>
+ <strong>The Groovy Shell</strong>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Groovy (<a href="http://www.groovy-lang.org/">www.groovy-lang.org</a>)
+ is an "<em>agile and dynamic language for the Java
+ platform</em>". The groovy scripting language makes it extremely
+ easy to programmatically interact with Java programs, in much the
+ same way that Javascript is used to generate and interact with
+ applets and other objects on the page.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <em>Getting Groovy...</em><br> Jalview comes with an embedded
+ installation of Groovy. Just select <strong>Tools→Groovy
+ Console...</strong> from the Jalview Desktop's drop-down menu. After a
+ short pause, you should then see the <a
+ href="http://groovy-lang.org/groovyconsole.html">Groovy
+ Console</a> appear. This allows you to interactively execute Groovy
+ scripts whilst Jalview is running. We've also provided a <strong>Calculations→Execute
+ Groovy Script</strong> button so you can execute the currently loaded
+ groovy script whilst viewing an alignment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <strong>Executing groovy scripts on Jalview startup</strong><br>
+ The -groovy <script> option on the <a href="commandline.html">
+ Jalview command line</a> will execute the contents of <script>.
+ <script> may be a file, a URL, or alternatively if it is
+ "STDIN" then the standard input will be used.<br> <em>Note:
+ The groovy script will be executed <strong>after</strong> any data
+ is loaded, and <strong>before</strong> images or any output files
+ are written. This allows you to perform customised Jalview
+ analysis workflows with groovy.
+ </em>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <strong>Access to Jalview's functions from Groovy Scripts</strong><br>
+ The scripting interface to Jalview is still a work in progress, so
+ we recommend you also take a look at Jalview's source, since all the
+ public methods of the jalview class hierarchy can be called from
+ Groovy scripts. In addition, the following objects are also defined:
+
+
+
+ <ul>
+ <li><strong>Jalview</strong> - this is bound to <code>jalview.bin.Jalview</code>.<br />Useful
+ methods include:
+ <ul>
+ <li>Jalview.getAlignFrames() - returns a list of
+ jalview.gui.AlignFrame objects</li>
+ <li>Jalview.getCurrentAlignFrame() - returns the alignment
+ window which is currently being looked at by the user</li>
+ </ul></li>
+ <li><strong>currentAlFrame</strong> - this is only defined when
+ running a Groovy script via the -groovy command line argument. It
+ returns the first alignment window created after acting on the
+ other arguments passed on the command line.</li>
+ </ul>
+ <p>
+ <em>A simple script</em><br />
+ <ul>
+ <li>Getting the title, alignment and first sequence from the
+ current alignFrame<br> <pre>
+def alf = Jalview.getAlignFrames();