GMOD

CMap FAQ

Contents

About this FAQ

What is this FAQ?

It is the list of Frequently Asked Questions about CMap.

How is it maintained?

It is now maintained as a Wiki on this site. You can help maintain it by adding questions and answers.

Install

How do I install CMap?

You can download CMap from source forge : http://sourceforge.net/projects/gmod/files/

Configuration

How do I configure CMap?

How do I configure CMap so that when someone does mouse over a feature, it shows the name, beginning position and end position?

The “area_code” section of each feature_type (or map_type) declaration in the configuration file will allow you to modify the behavior of the features(or maps).

The “area_code” section is where you can define Perl code that is executed during feature (or map) drawing. It allows you to specify a few things about the area box over the feature (or map).

There are three variables that are useful to dynamically set;

$code - Holds the javascript to be associate with the feature (or map) and is useful for creating mouse over effects and the like.

$alt - Holds the text that will be displayed in a little pop-up box when you hover over a feature (or map). This is specifically what you want to modify in your case.

$url - Holds the url that the feature will point to.

In the following example the $code variable is set so mousing over the feature will give the feature name in the status bar. The $alt is set to popup the feature name with the start and stop positions (as you wanted) and the $url will point to google.

 <feature_type read>
   feature_type_acc read
   feature_type Read
   area_code <<EOF
   $code=sprintf("onMouseOver=\"window.status='%s';return true\"", $feature->{'feature_name'});
   $alt =sprintf("%s: %s-%s",$feature->{'feature_name'}, $feature->{'feature_start'},$feature->{'feature_stop'});
   $url=sprintf("www.google.com/search?q=%s",$feature->{'feature_name'});
 EOF
 </feature_type>

More information can be found in the ADMINISTRATION.pod documentation that comes with the CMap distribution.

How do I configure CMap to include an attribute value in the mouse over pop-up for a feature or map?

Attributes aren’t as easily accessed as other fields (for speed reasons). To get at them, you have to write a Perl code in the config file that accesses the database through the sql() object.

In the area_code portion of the feature/map type, the sql object can be accessed using $self->sql(). The resulting object has methods that interact with the database. For more information about the methods that can be called execute “perldoc Bio%253A%253AGMOD::CMap::Data::Generic” on the command line. In this instance, we want to use get_attributes() to read through the attributes and look for the one to display.

Here is an example of how to do this:

 <feature_type int-phen>
 feature_type_acc int-phen
 feature_type Pnterpolated Phenotype
 area_code <<EOF
     # The following uses the CMap sql() method to get at the
     # Generic.pm object.  This object queries the database.
     # In this case we are getting attributes.
     # For more information:
     #   perldoc Bio%253A%253AGMOD::CMap::Data::Generic
     my $conf_attributes = $self->sql->get_attributes(
         object_type => 'feature',
         object_id   => $feature->{'feature_id'},
     );

     # Now create a string that will be attached to the description
     my $conf_desc = ;

     # Cycle through all available attributes.
     # get_attributes returns an arrayref.
     foreach my $conf_attr ( @{ $conf_attributes || [] } ) {

         # Look for the attribute that we are interested in
         if ( $conf_attr->{'attribute_name'} eq 'Description' ) {
             $conf_desc .= $conf_attr->{'attribute_name'} . ":"
                 . $conf_attr->{'attribute_value'} . " ";
         }
     }

     # attach it to the $alt value in whatever format you like
     $alt = $feature->{'feature_name'} . " " . $conf_desc;
 EOF
 </feature_type>

Administration

How can I password protect some data sources while leaving other data sources open in the same CMap installation?

The easiest way to do this is to use two different cmap cgi scripts. They can either be renamed (cmap and cmap_password for example) or placed into subdirectories of the cgi-bin directory (cmap1/cmap and cmap2/cmap).

(Incidentally, this is how you run CMap on two different web servers on the same machine).

  1. Create a second cmap.conf directory somewhere else in the file system (that the web server has access to).
  2. Create two different cmap cgi scripts each one specifying a different config directory.
  3. Password protect one cgi script (using your web server).
  4. Modify the cmap home page (cmap/index.hml) to link to the new cgi scripts rather than the original (all the other links generated by CMap will be correct).

The caveat to this is that you will have to administer them separately. You will have to supply the config directory to cmap_admin.pl when administering the non-default data_sources. (cmap_admin.pl -c /path/to/different/cmap.conf).

The following are notes from a CMap administrator for using the installer to help perform this task which were sent to the CMap mailing list. (edited for display and reprinted by permission)

  1. Edit CMapBuilder.pm and change the line

    my $to_cgi = catfile( $self->notes(‘CGIBIN’), ‘cmap’ );

    into

    my $to_cgi = catfile( $self->notes(‘CGIBIN’), ‘cmap-1’ );

  2. perl Build.PL PREFIX=/var/www/cmap CONF=/etc/cmap/cmap-1.conf CGIBIN=/usr/lib/cgi-bin/ WEB_DOCUMENT_ROOT=/var/www HTDOCS=/var/www/cmap

    ./Build

    ./Build install

  3. Make a copy of index.html (say, cmap-1.html)
  4. Edit cmap-1.html and replace all the occurrences of /cgi-bin/cmap by /cgi-bin/cmap-1

    The first CMap db will be available at www.mysite.org/cmap/cmap-1.html.

    Then, for each additional data source:

    • make a new conf directory (e.g., mkdir /etc/cmap/cmap-2.conf);
    • go through step 1-2 (where any occurrence of ‘cmap-1’ is replaced by ‘cmap-2’), but *without* installing.
    • Rename htdocs/index.html into, say, cmap-2.html and copy it into /var/www/cmap.
    • Rename cgi-bin/cmap into ‘cmap-2’ and copy it into the default cgi-bin directory (/usr/lib/cgi-bin in this example). Make it executable.
    • Perform step 4, with ‘cmap-1’ replaced by ‘cmap-2’.
  5. At the end, remove index.html or, even better, replace it with a welcome page. Now, you can password protect different data sources independently.

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