Re: [Jmol-developers] Jmol/JSmol SourceForge project integration

[Mark P. <pe...@so...>]

That's great!  I did once try to compile Jmol, but I ran into those issues
(Eclipse version, Java 6, etc).  This should make it easier for others to
contribute.

Thanks,
Mark

On Thu, Nov 16, 2023 at 9:59 AM Robert Hanson via Jmol-developers <
jmo...@li...> wrote:

> Jmol Developers,
>
> Not sure if you are on this list you still have any interest in Jmol, but
> I hope some of you do.
>
> Well, it's done. The JSmol sourceforge project at
> https://sourceforge.net/p/jsmol is now no longer needed. I've placed all
> the files that were in that project into the /unused/ folder there. This is
> so that we still can track the histories of the files if we need to. But
> probably that will not be necessary.
>
> This past week I totally overhauled the way the transpiler works. For the
> past 10 years, the transpiler that was being used for Jmol only worked in a
> very old version of Eclipse "Juno" from (I think) 2013. This has been an
> enormous pain. For at least eight years I have avoided doing anything with
> this old transpiler.
>
> I finally took the step to revisit the prototype "java2script 4.2" code
> from 2013, and I realized that it was not so bad and that would be possible
> to add that code to the SwingJS transpiler plugin as an alternative
> transpiler option.
>
> That has worked perfectly. The new plugin is j2s.core_5.0.1.jar, at
> https://github.com/BobHanson/java2script/tree/master/sources/net.sf.j2s.core
>
> And, as a bonus, we now can adapt the legacy 4.2 transpiler, which is only
> ever to be used with Jmol anyway, to future needs. The first thing I did
> was move it up to Java 8 (Though it still only recognizes Java 6 syntax.)
> One of the things I did was to give it a way to deliver JavaScript code
> ready for running directly into the site/ directory. This was huge, because
> previously there were a series of ANT tasks that had to be run to do all
> sorts of minor tweaking of that output before one could test in JavaScript.
>
> But now, it's very clean and simple. You modify Java code for Jmol, save
> the .java file, and open your browser to see how it runs in JavaScript.
> Your changes are instantly there. Full integration. The way it should be.
> Hooray!
>
> And then I realized that we didn't need the JSmol project at all.
> Originally, the idea was to do all the transpiling in this separate
> project, just using the code that relates to the applet. But now this is
> not necessary. Once I got the transpiler doing what the ANT tasks were
> doing (and I was able to fix the various bugs in the 4.2 transpiler that
> were causing these problems in the first place), I realized that the only
> thing the JSmol project was doing (yesterday) was to add some more files.
> So I figured I would just put those files in the Jmol project (into
> site-resources/ and site-resources-zip). That's all checked in now.
>
> Happy to report that that went smoothly, and I was able to fix a few more
> bugs while at it.
>
> So, in short, the Jmol project is alive and well at SourceForge, now using
> the same transpiler plugin as SwingJS. Just the two projects - Jmol, on
> SourceForge, and java2script on GitHub. (OK, there's also the Jmol-SwingJS
> GitHub project, that's true.) No old versions of Eclipse are necessary. So
> long, Luna!! There's just the one plugin.
>
> And my life is way easier. Retirement (from teaching) is just terrific.
> The bicycling season is just about over here; looks like I will hit 4000 km
> this year.
>
> Drop me a line and tell me how you are doing.
>
> Bob
>
> --
> Robert M. Hanson
> Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus
> St. Olaf College
> Northfield, MN
> http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hansonr
>
>
> If nature does not answer first what we want,
> it is better to take what answer we get.
>
> -- Josiah Willard Gibbs, Lecture XXX, Monday, February 5, 1900
>
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> honor with gratitude the people who have stewarded the land throughout the
> generations and their ongoing contributions to this region. We acknowledge
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> and we wish to interrupt this legacy, beginning with acts of healing and
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