Introduction |
Unipro UGENE is a free visual software solution for DNA and protein sequence analysis.
This chapter contains a quick overview of the main UGENE components.
The functionality of UGENE can be significantly extended with plugins. Check plugins documentation to learn more about plugins after reading this manual.
Before digging deeper into complex topics get to know the glossary used in UGENE manual and role of top level menus:
| Project | - a storage for a set of data files and visualization options. |
| Document | - a single file (can be stored on a local hard drive or be a remote web page). Each Document contains a set of Objects |
| Object | - an minimal and complete model of biologial data. Example: a single sequence, a set of annotations, a multiple sequence alignment. |
| Task | - A process, usually asynchronous, that works in background. Example: some computations, loading and writing files.. |
| Plugin | - A dynamically loaded module that adds new functionality to Unipro UGENE. |
| Object view | - A graphical view for a single or a set of Objects. |
| Project view | - A name for the visual component used manage active Project. |
| Task view | - A name of the visual component to manage active Tasks (processes). |
| Log view | - A name of the visual component used to show logs. |
| Plugin viewer | - A name of the visual component used to manage plugins |
In the image below you can see a typical Unipro UGENE window with a Project view and a single Object view window opened:
Top-level menus roles in UGENE:
| File | - A set of project level operations. |
| Actions | - Various actions associated with the active window. |
| Settings | - Application, plugins and tools settings. |
| Tools | - Various tools, independent of the active window. |
| Window | - A list of active windows and basic manipulations with windows |
Top-level menus can be dynamically populated with new actions added by plugins.
Check plugins documentation to learn how each of plugins affects global and popup menues .