Diamond Version 5 User Manual: Working with Diamond

Color Coding of Structural Parameter Sets

Different parameter sets in a multiple structure document can easily be distinguished by color

This is about:
- Colored rows in structure table. Colored group headers in data sheet.
- Colored tabs of preferred structure pictures as well as link buttons.
- Colored frames around picture thumbnails.

Previous article: Working with structure picture thumbnails
Next article: Data Pane: Data sheet, tables, and atom list

If you have a lot of different structure parameter sets, e.g. from a database enquiry, Diamond (optionally) differentiates these sets by color, in the structure table, in the frames of the picture thumbnails, on the tabs in the picture edit view, and in the data sheet.

The following screenshot shows the sample file "PCD-VxOy.diamdoc" opened, with the "Recent Pictures" docking window to the left, the structure table at the top, the structure picture view with four tabs (and PCD:1252235 being in edit view), the thumbnails of the residual (here: 16) structures' pictures at the bottom, and the data sheet of PCD:1252235 in the bottom right.

Screenshot of Diamond (made with version 4) with binary V-O compounds from Pearson's Crystal Data and color coding activated and Recent Pictures window docked. (Original size...)
Please note: Depending on your previous exercises with Diamond beta version, your screen may look different.
To open the "Recent Pictures" docking window, run command "Recent Pictures" from "View" menu.
To open the structure table, open the "View" menu, then "Structures" sub-menu, and run command "Show Table".
For the data sheet, run "View" -> "Data Sheet".
To handle multiple tabs and the picture link bar, read this article before: Side-by-side structure picture editing

The color coding affects the following views and panes in Diamond:

• The structure table (or in collapsed condition: the structure info bar). (Cf. "View/Structures/Show [...]" sub-menu.)
• The tabs of the preferred structure pictures.
• The frames around the structure pictures in thumbnails view.
• The headlines in the data sheet. (Cf. "View/Data Sheet".)
• The frames around the thumbnail pictures in the "Recent pictures" or "Undo/Redo buffer" docking window. (Cf. "View/Recent Pictures" and "View/Undo Buffer", rsp.)

Changing Color Coding Settings
To change the color coding settings, use the command "Color Coding..." from the "View" menu. The dialog offers three options:

The third option "Automatic" is the default setting and uses colored tabs etc. whenever a document contains at least two structure datasets, but light gray tabs and light gray headlines in data sheet otherwise. Use "No color coding", if you should dislike the color coding.

Note: Since version 4 (and in this version 5) we have been using four different colors only. Maybe there will be six or eight colors in a later version, but these additional colors may conflict with the greenish to brownish colors used to symbolize the age of the recent pictures in the "Recent Pictures" docking window.

Previous article: Working with structure picture thumbnails
Next article: Data Pane: Data sheet, tables, and atom list

Reference:
PCD:1252235: VO2(A) LTP in P4/ncc (130) - tetragonal. Oka Y., Sato S., Yao T., Yamamoto N.: Crystal Structures and Transition Mechanism of VO2(A). Journal of Solid State Chemistry, 141, 594-598 (1998).