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4 | <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> |
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5 | <title>Help Page for the Laj Applet</title> |
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6 | </head> |
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7 | <body bgcolor=#FFFFFF> |
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8 | <br> |
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9 | <p> |
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10 | <h2>Help Page for the Laj Applet</h2> |
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11 | <br> |
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12 | <p> |
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13 | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
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14 | <ul> |
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15 | <li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a> |
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16 | <li><a href="#prep">Preparing Your Browser</a> |
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17 | <li><a href="#screen">Screen Layout</a> |
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18 | <li><a href="#mouse">Mouse Controls</a> |
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19 | <li><a href="#menu">Menus and Buttons</a> |
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20 | <li><a href="#notes">Footnotes</a> |
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21 | </ul> |
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22 | <p> |
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23 | <br> |
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24 | |
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25 | <h3><a name="intro">Introduction</a></h3> |
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26 | <p> |
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27 | Laj is a tool for viewing and manipulating the output from |
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28 | pairwise alignment programs such as |
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29 | <a href="http://bio.cse.psu.edu/">blastz</a>. It can display |
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30 | interactive dotplot, pip, and text representations of the |
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31 | alignments, a diagram showing the locations of exons and |
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32 | repeats, and annotation links to other web sites containing |
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33 | additional information about particular regions. |
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34 | <p> |
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35 | The program is written in Java in order to provide a |
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36 | graphical user interface that is portable across a variety |
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37 | of computer platforms; indeed its name stands for "Local |
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38 | Alignments with Java". Currently it exists in two forms, |
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39 | a stand-alone application and a web-based applet, with |
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40 | slightly different capabilities. However, this help page |
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41 | will only discuss the applet. |
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42 | <p> |
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43 | |
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44 | <h3><a name="prep">Preparing Your Browser</a></h3> |
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45 | <p> |
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46 | This applet requires at least Java 1.2, and preferably Java 1.3 |
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47 | or higher. For best compatibility, Sun's Java Plug-in |
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48 | is recommended. Please see |
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49 | <a href="java_plugin_help.html">Installing the Java Plug-in</a> |
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50 | for more information. |
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51 | <p> |
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52 | |
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53 | <h3><a name="screen">Screen Layout</a></h3> |
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54 | <p> |
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55 | The Laj window is divided into several sections. |
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56 | Across the top you will see a menu/control bar, and below |
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57 | that two indicator lines for displaying information about the |
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58 | positions of the mouse pointer and the "mark" |
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59 | (<a href="#red">red</a> circle) |
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60 | respectively. The controls will be discussed individually |
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61 | in the <a href="#menu">Menus and Buttons</a> section of this |
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62 | document. |
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63 | <p> |
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64 | <i>Ruler:</i><br> |
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65 | The first graphical panel is a horizontal ruler that displays |
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66 | tick marks corresponding to positions in the first aligned |
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67 | sequence. These are intended to give you an immediate |
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68 | general feel for the location and scale of the region being |
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69 | displayed. Precise locations can be determined via the |
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70 | position indicator, which displays the exact coordinate of |
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71 | the mouse pointer. |
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72 | <p> |
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73 | <i>Dotplot:</i><br> |
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74 | The large middle panel displays a dotplot view of the |
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75 | alignments, with the first sequence (often human) along |
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76 | the horizontal <tt>x</tt>-axis and the second sequence |
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77 | (e.g., mouse) along the vertical <tt>y</tt>-axis. If the |
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78 | second sequence contains multiple contigs, they will appear |
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79 | as separate horizontal bands across the plot, each with its |
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80 | own <tt>y</tt>-axis coordinate system. Whenever |
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81 | the mouse pointer is in this panel, the position indicator |
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82 | displays its location in the format "<tt>x,y</tt>", where |
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83 | <tt>x</tt> is the position in the horizontal sequence and |
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84 | <tt>y</tt> is the position in the vertical sequence. If |
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85 | there are multiple contigs, then the first word of the |
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86 | contig name will be displayed as well. |
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87 | <p> |
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88 | <i>Annotation links:</i><br> |
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89 | Below the dotplot is a panel that provides links to |
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90 | additional information about various sequence regions. Each |
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91 | annotation is represented by a color-coded bar spanning the |
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92 | region's position in the first sequence. The bars' |
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93 | vertical positions are not meaningful; they are placed in |
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94 | rows only for convenience, to keep them from overlapping. |
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95 | Pointing to a particular bar will cause the position |
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96 | indicator to display the <tt>x</tt> coordinate of the |
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97 | pointer, and also the type and description of that bar's |
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98 | annotation; otherwise only the <tt>x</tt> coordinate will be |
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99 | shown. Clicking on a bar will open a separate browser |
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100 | window to visit the corresponding web site. If no annotation |
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101 | file was provided, this panel will not appear. |
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102 | <p> |
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103 | <i>Sequence features:</i><br> |
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104 | The next panel contains a schematic diagram of the |
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105 | known exons, repeats, and other features in the first |
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106 | sequence, if these files were provided. Again, the position |
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107 | indicator displays the <tt>x</tt> coordinate of the mouse |
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108 | pointer, and also identifies any features at that position. |
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109 | <p> |
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110 | <i>Pip:</i><br> |
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111 | The next panel displays a pip (percent identity plot) view |
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112 | of the alignments. This is similar to the dotplot, |
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113 | except that the vertical scale represents the percentage of |
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114 | matching nucleotides in each gap-free segment of a local |
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115 | alignment, instead of its position in the second sequence. |
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116 | Only the top half of the plot is shown, since segments |
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117 | matching less than 50% are not very interesting. An |
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118 | additional feature of this panel is that colored backgrounds, |
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119 | or "underlays", may be used to highlight regions of interest. |
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120 | The position indicator displays the horizontal coordinate |
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121 | and vertical percentage position of the mouse pointer, and |
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122 | it can also display labels for the colored regions if these |
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123 | were provided. |
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124 | <p> |
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125 | <i>Text view:</i><br> |
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126 | The bottom panel displays a nucleotide-level view of a single |
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127 | selected local alignment. (Initially it is blank, since you |
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128 | haven't selected anything yet.) The top row of this display |
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129 | shows the nucleotide sequence from the first species |
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130 | (<tt>x</tt>-axis in the dotplot), while the bottom row shows |
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131 | the sequence from the second one (<tt>y</tt>-axis). Both |
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132 | sequences will likely have had gaps inserted by the alignment |
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133 | program. The middle row contains symbols to |
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134 | indicate how well the nucleotides match at each position; |
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135 | this matching is case-insensitive to deal with soft masking, |
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136 | but non-nucleotide characters such as <tt>X</tt> or <tt>N</tt> |
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137 | never match anything, even themselves. |
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138 | Note that most |
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139 | of the local alignments will be much too long to fit across |
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140 | this window, so a scrollbar is provided; the |
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141 | relative size of the scrollbar's slider indicates what fraction |
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142 | of the alignment is shown in the window. Shaded "highlights" |
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143 | similar to the pip underlays may also appear. Whenever |
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144 | the mouse pointer is in this bottom panel, the position |
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145 | indicator displays its location in the |
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146 | format "<tt>n:x,y</tt>", where <tt>n</tt> is the column position |
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147 | in the text representation of the alignment (starting with 0), |
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148 | while <tt>x</tt> and <tt>y</tt> are the sequence positions |
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149 | in the top and bottom rows, respectively (starting with 1). |
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150 | Note that <tt>x</tt> and <tt>y</tt> do not include the gaps, |
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151 | but <tt>n</tt> does. Labels for any highlights at that |
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152 | position are also displayed. |
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153 | <p> |
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154 | With the exception of the text view, all of these panels |
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155 | use the same horizontal coordinate scale (i.e., position in |
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156 | the first sequence), and they are always kept vertically |
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157 | aligned so they can be compared easily. |
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158 | <p> |
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159 | |
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160 | <h3><a name="mouse">Mouse Controls</a></h3> |
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161 | <p> |
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162 | You can select a particular local alignment in the dotplot |
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163 | or pip by clicking on one of its segments with the left mouse |
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164 | button. (Actually you don't have to click exactly on it, |
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165 | because Laj will automatically jump to the nearest point in |
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166 | the same contig if you miss.) The spot will be marked with a |
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167 | small <a href="#red">red</a> circle |
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168 | in both the dotplot and the pip, and the entire local |
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169 | alignment containing the mark will change color from black |
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170 | to <a href="#red">red</a> |
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171 | (each local alignment typically spans several |
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172 | gap-free "segments"). Also, the corresponding text view for |
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173 | that alignment will appear in the bottom panel with the |
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174 | selected position highlighted. This requires loading the |
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175 | sequence files, so it may take a few moments. Lastly, the |
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176 | mark indicator line will be filled in with information about |
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177 | the marked alignment and position, including the contig name |
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178 | if the second sequence is fragmented. Note that there is only |
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179 | one mark at a time, so the previous one, if any, will be |
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180 | unmarked. |
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181 | <p> |
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182 | In a similar fashion, clicking the left mouse button in the |
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183 | text view will move the mark (both the highlight and the |
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184 | <a href="#red">red</a> circle) to that position |
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185 | (though sometimes you have to click twice). |
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186 | However, gap positions cannot be selected in this manner |
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187 | because they do not correspond to pip segments; if |
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188 | you click in a gap, the left end of the gap is selected |
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189 | instead. |
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190 | <p> |
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191 | As mentioned earlier, clicking on an annotation bar will |
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192 | open a separate browser window to visit the corresponding |
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193 | web site, but clicking in the ruler or feature panel has no |
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194 | effect. |
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195 | <p> |
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196 | You can "zoom in" on a particular region by dragging out a |
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197 | rectangle with the left mouse button in any of the white |
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198 | panels (ruler, dotplot, annotations, features, or pip). All |
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199 | of these panels will always zoom together, to keep them lined |
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200 | up. This can be repeated until the maximum resolution is |
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201 | reached; after that Laj will display an error message. |
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202 | Note that selecting your zoom in a non-dotplot panel only |
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203 | zooms horizontally (the zoom rectangle is always |
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204 | full-height), so to keep the dotplot looking nice it is best |
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205 | to select your zoom there, and keep the zoom rectangle |
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206 | roughly proportional to the dimensions of the existing |
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207 | dotplot panel. |
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208 | <p> |
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209 | Holding down the right mouse button over any of the white |
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210 | panels adds crosshairs at the mouse pointer's location, which |
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211 | is convenient for determining whether two regions really line |
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212 | up. If you have a one-button mouse, you can achieve the same |
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213 | effect by applying the <code>Shift</code> key when initially |
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214 | pressing the mouse button. |
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215 | <p> |
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216 | |
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217 | <h3><a name="menu">Menus and Buttons</a></h3> |
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218 | <p> |
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219 | <dl> |
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220 | <dt>File - Save: |
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221 | <dd> |
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222 | Allows you to save the alignments that you have flagged (see below) |
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223 | by sending them back to the server in a format similar to the input. |
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224 | What the server does with them depends on the site. For example, |
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225 | if you are running Laj via <a href="http://www.bx.psu.edu/">Galaxy</a>, |
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226 | they will be stored as a new dataset in your history for further |
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227 | analysis. A different site might email the file to you, reflect |
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228 | it to your browser, or use it in some other way. If the site does |
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229 | not specify a URL for sending the alignments, this menu item will not |
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230 | appear. |
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231 | <p> |
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232 | <dt>File - Exit: |
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233 | <dd> |
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234 | Closes the Laj window. |
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235 | <p> |
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236 | <dt>Tools - Flag: |
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237 | <dd> |
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238 | Flags the currently selected local alignment (the one containing the |
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239 | <a href="#red">red</a> mark circle) by changing its color. You can |
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240 | repeat this on other alignments to build a flagged set. The flagged |
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241 | alignments are normally green, but if one is also the currently |
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242 | selected alignment (e.g. when you have just flagged it), it can't be |
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243 | both green and red so it is orange instead. Also, just like the |
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244 | <a href="#red">red</a> circle, all of these colors will be displayed |
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245 | differently against colored backgrounds. |
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246 | <p> |
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247 | <dt>Tools - Unflag: |
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248 | <dd> |
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249 | Changes the local alignment containing the <a href="#red">red</a> |
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250 | circle back to its original color. |
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251 | <p> |
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252 | <dt>Tools - Unzoom: |
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253 | <dd> |
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254 | Restores all of the white panels back to the original, unzoomed view. |
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255 | <p> |
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256 | <dt>Help - About: |
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257 | <dd> |
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258 | Displays a message window with information about Laj, including |
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259 | version, author, etc. |
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260 | <p> |
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261 | <dt>Help - Manual: |
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262 | <dd> |
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263 | Displays this help page in a separate browser window. |
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264 | <p> |
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265 | <dt>Help - Keys: |
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266 | <dd> |
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267 | Displays a message window listing Laj's keyboard shortcuts. No |
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268 | <i>Alt</i> key is needed, since Laj doesn't use the keyboard for |
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269 | much else. |
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270 | </dl> |
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271 | <p> |
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272 | |
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273 | <!-- <hr align=left noshade size=1 width="20%" color=black> --> |
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274 | <h3><a name="notes">Footnotes</a></h3> |
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275 | <p> |
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276 | <a name="red"></a> |
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277 | [1] |
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278 | The circular mark and its local alignment are red |
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279 | when the background is white, but are displayed in different |
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280 | colors against other backgrounds to ensure good contrast. |
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281 | <p> |
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282 | |
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283 | <br> |
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284 | <p> |
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285 | <hr> |
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286 | <i>Cathy Riemer, August 2006</i> |
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287 | |
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288 | <!-- These blank lines allow the browser to scroll properly |
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289 | to the last anchor target. --> |
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