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| 1 | +#BioDocumentViewer |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +[](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt) |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +##Introduction |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +BioDocumentViewer is a software enabling to query, browse, fetch and retrieve sequences from NCBI and EBI public servers. |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +The software has been made to facilitate the use of public web services so that it is easy to retrieve set of sequences in batch mode. |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +BioDocumentViewer also provides you with viewing capabilities to display annotated sequences and 3D structures. |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +##Requirements |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +Use a [Java Virtual Machine](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html) 1.7 (or above) from Oracle. |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +*Not tested with any other JVM providers but Oracle... so there is no guarantee that the software will work as expected if not using Oracle's JVM.* |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +##Working with the binary release |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +The most easy way to use BioDocViewer Tool consists in downloading an official release. It is made of a single Java binary archive file: |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | + biodocviewer-x.y.z.jar |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +It is available from this Github page: check [Releases] tab and download the latest release. |
| 26 | + |
| 27 | +We invite all users to start working with that tool, as explained in the next section. |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +*Notice for developers:* this unique JAR file is absolutely not intended to be embedded within any other applications since it contains all the dependencies (third-party libraries) into a single large file. So, if you want to include BioDocViewer into some other softwares, start from its source code (git clone). |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +##User manual |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +###Start the graphical interface |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +After retrieving an official release of the BioDocumentViewer (BDV) software (see above section), you can start it quite easily: |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | + java -jar biodocviewer-x.y.z.jar |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +By default, BDV uses [NCBI Entrez eUtils services](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25499/) (NCBI, Bethesda, USA) to let you query and retrieve protein and nucleotide sequences, 3D structures and taxonomy information. |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | +However, you can also ask BDV to use [EB-eye Search services](https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ebisearch/) (EBI, Hinxton, UK) as follows: |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | + java -DV_PROVIDER=EBI -jar biodocviewer-x.y.z.jar |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | +JVM argument "V_PROVIDER" accepts one of: NCBI (default) or EBI. |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | +###Make and run a query |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +Whatever the data provider you use, NCBI or EBI, the software is quite easy to use: |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +* select a bank to query |
| 52 | +* click on the [Go...] button |
| 53 | +* setup the criteria in the query dialogue box |
| 54 | +* click on the [Ok] button... and wait a little bit to get an answer from the provider |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | +The DocumentNavigator is displayed as soon as you get a valid answer from the bank provider, i.e. your query matches some entries. |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | +Use the DocumentNavigator: |
| 59 | + |
| 60 | +* to navigate through entries; use [<] [>] buttons the the top right corner |
| 61 | +* to display an entry in the Sequence or 3D Structure viewer |
| 62 | +* to fetch entries as Fasta of plain format (e.g. Genbk, EMBL, Uniprot, etc.) |
| 63 | + |
| 64 | +###NCBI/EBI recommendations |
| 65 | + |
| 66 | +**BDV strictly respects the recommendations of NCBI and EBI for the use or their public resources**, especially when retrieving sequences in batch mode. |
| 67 | + |
| 68 | +Basically: |
| 69 | + |
| 70 | +* keep in mind that you are using resources that are shared by many users around the world |
| 71 | +* do not overload NCBI/EBI remote serves |
| 72 | +* retrieve sequences in batch mode using timers |
| 73 | +* provide your email address: NCBI or EBI can get in touch with you in case they consider your are querying too much remote services. |
| 74 | + |
| 75 | +More about these recommendations: [here for NCBI](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/home/about/policies.shtml#scripting), [here for EBI](http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/webservices/help/faq). |
| 76 | + |
| 77 | +###Extended configuration |
| 78 | + |
| 79 | +BDV accepts the following optional JVM arguments on the command line: |
| 80 | + |
| 81 | +* V_DEBUG. Accepts one of: true, false. Default is false. |
| 82 | +* V_PROVIDER. Accepts one of: NCBI, EBI. Default is NCBI. |
| 83 | +* V_EMAIL. Your email address; see "NCBI/EBI recommendations" section, above. Default is none, so BDV will ask you that information at runtime, the first time you use the software. |
| 84 | + |
| 85 | +You use all these arguments as follows: |
| 86 | + |
| 87 | + java -DV_PROVIDER=EBI -DV_DEBUG=true ... -jar biodocviewer-x.y.z.jar |
| 88 | + |
| 89 | +###Log viewer |
| 90 | + |
| 91 | +BDV uses a logging framework to monitor the software... this can be quite useful when you experience NCBI/EBI connections failure. |
| 92 | + |
| 93 | +To access the log messages, simply click on the little icon located on the top right corner of BDV main frame, next to [Documents] pulldown menu. |
| 94 | + |
| 95 | +By default, BDV uses "info" log level, which does not provide much messages. However, you are advised to start BDV with "-DV_DEBUG=true" to get more log messages, which can help to diagnose problems. |
| 96 | + |
| 97 | +##License and dependencies |
| 98 | + |
| 99 | +BioDocViewer itself is released under the GNU Affero General Public License, Version 3.0. [AGPL](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt) |
| 100 | + |
| 101 | +BioDocViewer depends on several thrid-party libraries as stated in the NOTICE.txt file provided with this project. |
| 102 | + |
| 103 | +-- |
| 104 | +(c) 2007-2016 - Patrick G. Durand |
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