0e4e0c0af65eea70f64edbc68348ce0972c4bbf4 braney Fri Aug 28 16:45:00 2026 -0700 Correct the track types listed for trackDb settings, and the hub settings list The "For Types" list in the trackDb docs was wrong for about sixty settings, so the docs named the wrong track types for settings that have always worked. Most named only the older type and left out its big* counterpart. The clearest case is the multiple-alignment family: a bigMaf track is drawn and configured by the same code as a wigMaf track, but only speciesOrder said so, while irows, itemFirstCharCase, speciesGroups, speciesCodonDefault, speciesDefaultOff, treeImage, pairwiseHeight and speciesUseFile all claimed wigMaf alone. The hapCluster settings said vcf and not vcfTabix. noScoreFilter said bed while its own example uses type bigBed 6 +. Six settings said "all" for something that only works on item tracks. Two documented settings do not exist. pslSequence describes a variable that was replaced by the baseColor family long before the setting was listed, and nothing has read either spelling since; it is removed. noStems is renamed to lollyNoStems, which is what the Browser actually reads. That one mattered: hubCheck builds its list of valid settings from trackDbHub.html, so it accepted the spelling that does nothing and rejected the one that works. Fourteen settings that work in hubs had no entry in the hub spec, so hubCheck reported them as unrecognized. They are listed now: chainColor, chainNormScoreAvailable, pairwiseHeight, barChartMatrixUrl, mouseOverFunction, intronGap, filterBy, baseColorTickColor, speciesGroups, speciesDefaultOff, speciesCodonDefault, itemFirstCharCase, irows, and canPack with configureByPopup and origAssembly. The last three, along with filterBy and baseColorTickColor, were marked "NOT FOR HUBS", which was wrong: the Browser reads them from a hub's trackDb the same way it reads them from ours. The type setting on the hub page listed every type the Browser knows, including ones that only work for tracks loaded into our own databases. It now shows only the types a hub can use. A hub-specific blurb for this already existed and had never been referenced. Three settings had no blurb at all, so the generated trackDbSettings.json never saw them: metadata, noInherit and useScore. Written, and the five hand-written copies in trackDbDoc.html that had drifted from the library are brought back into line. The library's header told the reader to always check their work in trackDbTestBlurbs.html, which was deleted in November 2025. It now points at "make settings" instead. That target regenerates trackDbSettings.yaml and .json, which are updated here, and its name map gains an entry so the hub-specific type blurb is still keyed as "type". refs #37908 diff --git src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/help/trackDb/trackDbSettings.json src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/help/trackDb/trackDbSettings.json index dd8db21c28a..5fdf7dfaee7 100644 --- src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/help/trackDb/trackDbSettings.json +++ src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/help/trackDb/trackDbSettings.json @@ -1,3616 +1,3994 @@ { "version": "v3", "categories": [ "Common Settings", "Common Settings - less frequent", "bam - Compressed Alignment Track Settings", "bigBarChart", "bigBed - Item or Region Track Settings", "Item or Region Track Settings - less frequent", "bigChain - Pairwise Alignments", "bigGenePred - Gene Annotations", "bigInteract", "bigMaf - Multiple Alignments", "bigNarrowPeak - Peaks", "bigPsl - Pairwise Alignments", "bigWig - Signal Graphing Track Settings", "bigLolly - Lollipop charts", "hic - Hi-C contact matrices", "halSnake - Multiple Alignments", "vcfTabix - Variant Call Format Track Settings", "vcfPhasedTrio - Variant Call Format Track Settings", "superTrack - Folder Track Settings", "Composite Track Settings", "Composite - Subgroups Settings", "Composite - Views Settings", "Faceted Composite Settings", "Aggregate or Overlay Track Settings", "general hub file settings", - "genomes file settings" + "genomes file settings", + "Miscellaneous Deprecated Settings" ], "settings": [ { "key": "track", "category": "Common Settings", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "required", "fmt": "track", "ex": "track myFirstTrack", "desc": "This is the name of the dataset and must be unique within the Genome Browser or dataHub." }, { "key": "type", "category": "Common Settings", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "required", "fmt": "type", - "ex": "type bed 6 +", + "ex": "type bigBed 6 +", "desc": "Declares the format of the data and is used to determine display methods and options." }, { "key": "shortLabel", "category": "Common Settings", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "required", "fmt": "shortLabel", "ex": "shortLabel Human mRNAs", "desc": "Specifies the track's \"short label\", which is used in a number of places in the Browser to identify the track." }, { "key": "longLabel", "category": "Common Settings", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "required", "fmt": "longLabel", "ex": "longLabel Human mRNAs from GenBank", "desc": "Specifies the track's \"long label\", which is also used in numerous places in the Browser to identify a track." }, { "key": "bigDataUrl", "category": "Common Settings", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": [ "bigBarChart", "bigBed", "bigChain", "bigInteract", "bigLolly", "bigMaf", "bigPsl", "bigWig", "bam", "hic", "vcfTabix", "vcfPhasedTrio" ], "level": "required", "fmt": "bigDataUrl ", "ex": "bigDataUrl http://vizhub.wustl.edu/VizHub/hg19/biBrainH3K4me1.bb", "desc": "The location of a remote data file containing the bulk of the data for the track." }, { "key": "html", "category": "Common Settings", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "base", "fmt": "html", "ex": "html docs/myFirstTrack.html", "desc": "Use the html path/to/explain.html to specify the file that contains the complete description of a track in HTML format." }, { "key": "visibility", "category": "Common Settings", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "required", "fmt": "visibility", "ex": "visibility dense", "desc": "Visibility (i.e." }, { "key": "meta", "category": "Common Settings", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "full", "fmt": "meta", "ex": "", "desc": "Meta specifies the metadata tag for this track." }, { "key": "color", "category": "Common Settings - less frequent", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "base", "fmt": "color ", "ex": "color 255,0,0", "desc": "Many track types allow the color of the data displayed in the image to be specified with this setting." }, { "key": "priority", "category": "Common Settings - less frequent", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "base", "fmt": "priority ", "ex": "priority 50", "desc": "The priority is used to define the order of a track within its track group or data hub, as well as its default order within the Browser image." }, + { + "key": "canPack", + "category": "Common Settings - less frequent", + "roles": [ + "super", + "composite", + "view", + "leaf" + ], + "types": "all", + "level": "deprecated", + "fmt": "canPack ", + "ex": "canPack on", + "desc": "Deprecated." + }, + { + "key": "configureByPopup", + "category": "Common Settings - less frequent", + "roles": [ + "super", + "composite", + "view", + "leaf" + ], + "types": "all", + "level": "full", + "fmt": "configureByPopup ", + "ex": "configureByPopup off", + "desc": "Most track displays that can be configured by a user can also be configured from directly within the Browser image through a right-click option that pops up..." + }, + { + "key": "origAssembly", + "category": "Common Settings - less frequent", + "roles": [ + "super", + "composite", + "view", + "leaf" + ], + "types": "all", + "level": "full", + "fmt": "origAssembly ", + "ex": "origAssembly hg18", + "desc": "The original assembly version for which the dataset was generated." + }, { "key": "altColor", "category": "Common Settings - less frequent", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "full", "fmt": "altColor ", "ex": "altColor 0,0,255", "desc": "Many track types allow setting a color range that varies from color to altColor ." }, { "key": "boxedCfg", "category": "Common Settings - less frequent", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "full", "fmt": "boxedCfg ", "ex": "boxedCfg on", "desc": "Configuration controls can be placed inside a box on the configuration page." }, { "key": "chromosomes", "category": "Common Settings - less frequent", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "full", "fmt": "chromosomes ", "ex": "chromosomes chr1,chr7,chr18,chr19,chr22,chrX,chrM", "desc": "Some datasets do not contain data for all chromosomes of a genome." }, { "key": "darkerLabels", "category": "Common Settings - less frequent", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "full", "fmt": "darkerLabels on", "ex": "", "desc": "If this setting is \"on\", the color of the left labels on the track display will have a somewhat darker color than the track display itself." }, { "key": "dataVersion", "category": "Common Settings - less frequent", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "full", "fmt": "dataVersion ", "ex": "dataVersion May 2011 beta", "desc": "Many tracks undergo multiple revisions over time." }, { "key": "directUrl_for_hubs", "category": "Common Settings - less frequent", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "full", "fmt": "directUrl ", "ex": "directUrl http://mygenes.org/cgi-bin/geneView/%s", "desc": "By default, items shown in the Browser image can be linked to a details page giving information about that item." }, { "key": "downloadUrl", "category": "Common Settings - less frequent", "roles": [ "super", "composite", "view", "leaf" ], "types": "all", "level": "full", "fmt": "downloadUrl