It would be great, if there is some kind of a parallel / double mode instead of only natural or target mode. I lose very much time with changing the views, but I have a lot of free space left on my screen.
A parallel mode would especially support those players, who solve these puzzles by guessing which patterns result in which shape.
My idea in detail:
You have two molecules (one in natural, the other in target mode) on the screen and they are seperately resizeable and moveable. The player can do a change by clicking on *either* molecule.
There’s also a new set of display items, which show the state of the molecule (5/10 G-U pairs, etc.) to the user, *if* it were in target shape. The calculations are done in the background, so there are no interruptions/lags, when the player wants to change the molecule too fast.
Would it be possible to construct a puzzle page where the natural state and the target state are shown side by side? Then, when a beginner starts to add NT’s in the target state, he/she can see the natural state “snap” together. And if it’s possible, is it worth the work to implement it?
I can’t speak to the technical difficulty of doing this, but I think it makes sense from a learning perspective. For some of the larger molecules, it might get a little crowded. But maybe the feature could be turned off and on?
@LFP6: Should we move whbob’s post to a new thread in order to track it as a suggestion/issue?