The General Panel

The items in the General panel control the background color, items displayed in the view, and the fog feature. It is illustrated below.

v_disp_gen.tif
Display Format General Panel

You can change the View window background color by clicking on the color chip labeled Background Color and selecting a new color using the color selection dialog.

The Use Fog to Improve Depth Perception checkbox causes more distant atoms in the View window to recede to invisible, allowing nearer atoms to become more distinct. The Fog has Zero Visibility at field controls the depth at which atoms become completely invisible. This feature is illustrated below.

v_fog.tif
The Fog Depth Display Feature
The left illustration shows the molecule with the fog feature disabled. In the right illustration,
fog is turned on, and the frontmost atoms are much more distinct than more distant ones.

Compare the display types between the two windows to understand the effect of fog.

The remaining checkboxes in this panel control the display of various labeling and comprehension tools with the View window. Their effects are illustrated in the displays in the following table (which uses benzene with a dummy atom in the center of the ring as its example for most settings):

Control Meaning Default Non-Default Setting Example
Show Hydrogens Display of hydrogen atoms in the View window. On
Show Labels Display numeric labels indicating atom sequence numbers. Off
Show Bonds Display bonds between atoms. On
Show Stereochemistry Display the chirality of any chiral centers. Off
Show Dummies Display of dummy atoms if present. On
Show Symbols Display the chemical symbol for each atom. Off
Show Cartesian Axes Display X,Y,Z axes. This feature is illustrated below. Initially, the origin of the axes is in an arbitrary position (sometimes located on atom 1), and it remains fixed despite changes to the molecule. Use the Edit=>Reorient menu item to move the origin to the molecule’s current center of mass. Off
Show Positioning Tools Open positioning toolbar in View window. Off See this help entry

You can specify default values for these items via the General panel of the Display Format Preferences. You can also exclude labels and symbols on hydrogen atoms or hydrogen and carbon atoms using the Exclude View Labels and Exclude View Symbols items in the Text panel of the Display Format Preferences (both default to excluding no atom types). Finally, the size of textual labels can be adjusted using the Size field in the Text panel of the Display Format Preferences.

Displaying Cartesian Axes

The figure below further illustrates GaussView’s Cartesian Axes display option. The window on the left shows the initial position of the axes (which is quite arbitrary), and the one on the right shows the origin’s new position after using the Edit=>Reorient menu item.


Cartesian Axes Display Before (left) and After (right) Reorientation