gene inspector

powerful integrated e-book

Gene Inspector is centered around an electronic notebook which can contain many kinds of objects, including analysis results. Output from the various analyses in Gene Inspector are placed into the notebook as they are run, showing users the results and allowing annotations directly on the page. Text wraps around notebook objects and can be used to discuss experimental results just as in a paper lab notebook.

Bookmarks, appendices and aliases provide a convenient way to track different aspects of the same project and navigate within the Gene Inspector notebook. Bookmarks can take a user to any location in the GI notebook instantly - such as different experiments, a specific date, a page of buffer recipes, etc. Appendices are like appendices in a book and are accessible through a menu item. An appendix is opened in its own window (which is still part of the notebook) and can be used to hold information to which you want easy access but do not want to take up large amounts of notebook space - such as annotated sequences, restriction maps, sequence alignments, experimental protocols, or solution recipes. Aliases function like aliases or shortcuts in an operating system. An alias can be created to any object (including an appendix) and then the alias can be moved to any location, even to a different notebook. When the alias is double-clicked, the user is taken to the object pointed to by the alias; if the alias points to an object in a closed notebook, that notebook is opened and scrolled to the appropriate location. These enhanced and very natural navigation tools provide the user with a significantly more effective research notebook environment than their current paper notebooks.

In addition to standard graphic tools like lines, rectangles, and circles, users can create tables in the Gene Inspector Notebook to contain standard data like buffer recipes, gel lanes, assay results, or any other information that would benefit from a tabular format. Tables provide a convenient way to present different kinds of information that might be difficult to format in the background text.