December 29, 2008
by Ryan Sasaki, NMR Product Manager, ACD/Labs
As I mentioned in my last post, with the release of Version 12 out of the door, there are many new and exciting things to explore in our latest release outside of the NMR Workbook.
For me, one of the things that I continue to be amazed about are how much the little things matter to end-users. We spend so much effort and hours to add significant and game-changing functionality like NMRSync, but oftentimes, it is the simplest implementations that make a big difference to the customer’s workflow.
Here are a few things that we implemented in Version 12 that have our end-users breathing a sigh of relief:
1) Zoom undo button
The addition of one button can make a big difference. Due to popular demand, we added a toolbar button for the zoom undo feature. Very useful, specifically when you are peak picking a 2D NMR spectrum.Clicking it, allows you to backtrack your zooming.
2) J-Coupler Pop up
In previous version, every time you created a multiplet in the software, the J-Coupler dialog box would pop up. This was a bit of an annoyance for some people, because the only time you need to launch this box, is when your multiplet was characterized incorrectly by the software. Now, whenever you create a multiplet, you get an enhanced label over the multiplet outlining the chemical shift, multiplet pattern, coupling constants, and integral:
If the characterization of the multiplet is incorrect, the user simply needs to click on the label to launch J-Coupler and edit their multiplet.
3) Easily Increase or Decrease Multiplet Ranges
Sometimes a user would like to increase or decrease a range for a multiplet of interest. This is especially useful in the case of overlapping multiplets where one multiplet was created originally instead of several. In previous version, users could adjust this range, but only by typing the range in J-Coupler.
In Version 12, we’ve added an easier way to quickly adjust this range by simply left-clicking and dragging the borders of the multiplet range:
4) Spectral Preview Pane
It is now possible to get a quick preview of other spectra without having to make them active by simply hovering your cursor over the respective tabs.
4) MAP in Shortcut Mode
Multiplet Assignment Preview (MAP) was a feature we released in version 11 that helps provide the end-user with assignment assistance. In version 11, when a user entered assignment mode, the software would run a calculation in the background comparing the predicted chemical shift, integration, and multiplicity information with the properties from the experimental spectrum in question. With this information, the software can then suggest the best possible assignments for distinct multiplets in an experimental 1H NMR spectrum. Unfortunately, this feature went largely undiscovered for many users because it was hidden in assignment mode.
In verison 12, this calculation is automatically run when a structure is attached to a spectrum, and the MAP will appear on the structure as soon as multiplets are created in Shortcut Mode:
From here, the user can quickly assign their multiplets with the aid of the Multiplet Assignment Preview.