When you work with a model like this, you are likely to initially go through a series of model refinements, subsequently conduct a number of investigations, and finally extract data for further processing or reporting. This may be a process going on over a longer period where you start and stop the AnyBody Modeling System several times, and you want to quickly come back to the windows layout fitting the task at hand. This section is about how to control your windows layout.

When you start the AnyBody Modeling System, load the model, and open a model view window, you will get the standard layout of windows in the AnyBody workspace. It looks like this:

This layout is standard because it gives you a little bit of everything. But it may not be what you want for a particular task. You may also find yoursef doing a number of basically different tasks for which different windows layouts are convenient and being annoyed about having to change layout every time you change task. Therefore, the system offers you three different user layouts that you can set up as you like and switch between. If you look at the top of the main window, you will notice that the button, L1, is pressed in.

This indicates that you are now working in the first of the three user-defined layouts. Each layout can contain a different user-defined window setup, and you can switch between them by a single mouse click. Try running the HeelUpStudy.InverseDynamicAnalysis and open a ChartFX window to investigate the results. Perhaps you want to simultaneously see the Model View window, the Chart window and the AnyScript code, while you are not particularly interested in the Operations window at the bottom of the screen. You might arrange the windows as show below.

Suppose you have very carefully set this window layout up and want to keep it for later use after you have worked with another layout. How can that be done? Simple, you just press the L2 button. This will give you a fresh layout to work on, and you can always go back to what you had by pressing L1 again. Whichever layout you create under one of the L1, L2, and L3 buttons is kept for later use.

Workspaces

So, how do you preserve all the windows layouts when you have invested much time in setting them up and have to shut your computer down for the night? The answer is to save the workspace. A workspace file is a description of the state of your user interface. Notice the title of the main window:

It says "New Workspace" because you did not load a workspace when you started, and you have not yet saved the one you have created. Click File-> Save Workspace as..., pick a directory and a suitable name, and save the workspace. Then exit AnyBody, and start the system again.

When you have re-started, click File->Load Workspace..., browse your way to the workspace file you just saved, and load it. You will get the windows layout back that you had when you started. You can also find a workspace file in Windows Explorer and double-click it. The workspace files have the extension .anyws.

In addition, you can convenniently find recent workspaces in the AnyBody Assistant dialog box, please see the picture below. In the Recent Project files tab, you will find recent workspaces and main files listed. A complete list of recently uses AnyScript files is found in the Recent *.any files tab.

Window properties

Each window is equipped with a number of properties that are saved with the workspace. This set of properties is often updated in newer version of AnyBody in order to make the workspace storage of your working environment as good as possible and in order to match new functionality added to the windows.

Some of these properties can be accessed and set by the user. This can be done from the Main Frame menu item Windows -> GUI Properties. Selecting this item opens a the Properties Window that show the properties of the current window. Some windows, where frequent access to the properties may be needed, for instance the Model View and AnyChart View, have a button on thier toolbar for easy access to the properties. Look for a button looking like this  on the toolbar of a window. 

In the next lesson we shall proceed to have a closer look at the individual window types, and why not start with the Editor Windows.