AT&T Home | AT&T Labs | Research
AT&T Labs, Inc. - Research

The Yoix® Scripting Language

Home | What's New | Grammar | Documentation | Download | License | YChart | YDAT | YWAIT | Byzgraf | FAQs

Yoix / YChartElements

Try it!

Kick off the Periodic Table using Java Web Start
 
This is a standalone YChart application that is included as part of the default Yoix distribution, so you get it when you run the Yoix installer that is available at the Yoix download page. We hope it will be of value to both students and scientists.

It actually is five charts combined into one application:

  1. Periodic Table of the Elements - Standard Version
  2. Periodic Table of the Elements - Wide Version
  3. Naturally Occurring Isotopes
  4. Chart of the Nuclides
  5. Periodic Puzzle
A screen shot of each of the five chart types listed above is shown in the following five figures, respectively. Figure 6 also shows two additional views of the Chart of the Nuclides.

You will notice in figure 1 that a panel to the right of the chart can display detailed information regarding the currently selected cell. The panel can be hidden when not needed, which is the case in the remaining figures. You will also notice a URL text field above the chart. When an element is selected, the appropriate URL for information, in english, at the Wikipedia or WebElements sites is presented. Exactly which site depends in the user's choice from the drop-down menu to the right of the text field. Pressing the Open button to the right of the drop-down menu will bring up an HTML viewer window. The URL field and associated widgets are only displayed when the YChart script believes it has been successfully able to determine that a browser is available for displaying the element web pages.

We will resume these notes after figure 5, but take a moment now to look at the five chart types available in YChartElements.

[Image: Periodic Table - Standard]

Figure 1. YChart Periodic Table of the Elements (Standard Version) with Element Detail Panel Open and Colored by Block

[Image: Periodic Table - Wide]

Figure 2. YChart Periodic Table of the Elements (Wide Version) with Element Detail Panel Closed and Colored by Atomic Radius Range

[Image: Naturally Occurring Isotopes]

Figure 3. YChart of Naturally Occurring Isotopes, Somewhat Zoomed In for Detail and Colored by Radioactivity

[Image: Chart of the Nuclides]

Figure 4. YChart of the Nuclides, Zoomed In, Colored by Decay Mode and with the Find Panel Available

[Image: Periodic Puzzle]

Figure 5. YChart Periodic Puzzle with No Coloring Hint, Oxygen Correctly Placed and Sulphur Misplaced

YChart can handle a significant visual dynamic range as Figure 6 indicates by showing a display of the entire chart of the nuclides on the left and the result of zooming in to the selected cell of interest on the right. Note that the cell in question is highlighted in white in the left image. YChart renders each cell individually, displaying more or less detail within each cell as needed. Regardless of detail level, YChart always listens for events on each cell, such as when the mouse cursor enters or leaves a cell so that, for example, tooltips can be displayed and informational labels can be updated regardless of zoom range.

[Example YChart Display Range]

Figure 6. An Example of the Range of a YChart Display (Chart of the Nuclides)

YChart also supports free-form mark-up, which can be particularly useful when working with a large chart such as the chart of the nuclides. Marks can be restricted (clipped) to individual cells or be spread across the entire chart. Marks consist of multi-segmented lines that follow the path of the mouse as long as the left mouse button is depressed and marking mode is active. When arrow mode is selected, an arrowhead is automatically attached to the ending portion of the line. Pop-up menu options allows all chart marks, all cell marks or individually selected marks to be erased.

Individual cells can also be dragged out of the position in the chart and dragged to a new location anywhere in the chart panel. This feature is useful for emphasizing cells of interest. Whenever a cell is dragged, its original position is highlighted to make it easy to return it to its original position. A pop-up menu option also allows all moved cells to be returned to their original positions automatically.

Figure 7 shows both the mark-up and cell relocation features, though it is recommended you click on the image in figure 7 to bring up the full-sized image so that the markings are more clearly visible.

[Example YChart Marks]

Figure 7. An Example of YChart Marks. On the left, arrow marks are used to show, in the context of the chart of the nuclides, the transitions from U238 through U234 and other elements to Rn222 gas and, eventually, stable Pb206. On the right, the cells have been pulled out the the chart to show the transitions from U234 to Rn222. In this latter case, both arrow marks and line marks are used. To view the full-sized images and see the markings more clearly, click on the image.

The Yoix Periodic Table of the Elements is available in the standard Yoix distribution, which can be found on our download page. The distribution contains a specific start-up script for the periodic table application. If the script is in your execution PATH, then it can be invoked from the command-line as follows: 
  ychart_elements
The periodic table YChart script is also in the distribution and is called elements_ychart.yx. Thus, assuming you are in the same directory that contains the elements_ychart.yx file, other options for starting the periodic table application are: 
  ychart elements_ychart.yx
or, if the file YChart library script file, ychart.yx, is also in the same directory, then you can use: 
  yoix ychart.yx elements_ychart.yx
Of course, if those other files are not in the same directory, then you can still run the scripts, but paths to the scripts must be provided.

We also have a special, consolidated script for running the periodic table application over the web from our website in a secure manner. It uses the new yxs suffix so that the interpreter will run the application using the applet security-level mode of execution. For this case, you can invoke the script in either of the following ways: 

  yoix http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/yoix/scripts/elements.yxs

  yoix http://www.yoix.org/scripts/elements.yxs
You could replace the http protocol request with https if you wish, but our server certificate is self-generated and not from a certificate authority so those looking for complete security will not find it that way. Incidentally, if you choose to use your browser or a program such as cURL to save the consolidated script as a local file, then, assuming you have convinced yourself that the script does no evil, you can change the suffix from yxs to yx, if you so choose.

In whatever manner you start the Yoix Periodic Table of the Elements, we suggest you try it. You can refer to the general YChart help page for information on accessing the many features available in this YChart application.

As always, feel free to contact us if you have any questions or comments.

 

Yoix is a registered trademark of AT&T Inc.