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Modifying the Chemical Reactivity Worksheet
The Chemical Reactivity Worksheet was not designed to be modified by third parties. There is no built-in interface to add chemicals or make other changes to the program. While we do harbor some concerns about proper chemistry and quality review, there is no licensing restriction stopping third parties from making modifications to their copy of the program. This document attempts to explain the types of changes that can be made. One modification in particular, adding a new chemical, is fairly straightforward.
There are two levels at which changes can be made to the program. The first is moderately involved and requires understanding the data files used by the program. The second is very involved and requires first purchasing and then programming in Oracle Media Objects. A third option would be to keep the data files and rewrite the program from scratch, customizing it to fit whatever needs drove you down that path in the first place.
Level One - Modify the Data Files
The program uses data files to display chemical information, to perform mixing, and to display mixing results. These data files can be modified or replaced. The possibilities are summarized below.
Chemicals may be added to the program or the entire list of chemicals may be replaced. Adding a chemical is fairly easy to do (the data file is not complicated) as long as it can be assigned to an existing reactive group. A new chemical must be assigned to one or more reactive groups before it can be "mixed" with other chemicals.
Chemical reactive groups may also be added to the program. While this data file (in effect a compatibility chart) is not too complicated, the real challenge is in the chemistry. Adding a new reactive group means also making compatibility decisions about that group versus all the other reactive groups and possibly reassigning existing chemicals to the new group.
Hazard statements (mixture result comments) can be added or changed. This would probably only be necessary if reactive groups were being added. The data file is very simple and warning statements can potentially be changed or contact information appended. Additions and modifications may also be made to the glossary file.
The simplest change is to add a new chemical to the existing list of chemicals. It is possible to replace, wholesale, the chemicals, reactive groups, and hazard statements and create a small set of specialized in-house chemicals and hazards. See the link, Database File Structure Descriptions, below, for an explanation of the structures of the data files included in the Worksheet, and to learn how to modify the data files to accomplish your changes. All of the data files are ASCII text files and reside in the folder, "ReacData," which is already on your machine.
The obvious limitation is that these changes fit within the structure already imposed by the program; these modifications only affect the data, not how the information is displayed or the logic behind how chemicals are mixed. You could create a specialized in-house set of chemicals, but there would be no way to visually change the interface to indicate that this was a special version of the program.
Level Two - Modify the Program
Modifying the program is a significantly more involved undertaking. The Chemical Reactivity Worksheet was developed in Oracle Media Objects (as opposed to C++ or Java or Visual Basic) and runs in the free-to-distribute Oracle Media Objects runtime Player. This is a third-party product which runs on both Macintosh and Windows.
Modifying the program involves purchasing Oracle Media Objects and delving into the code. The good news is that Oracle Media Objects uses a scripting language which is interpreted at runtime by the Player. Therefore, the source code is inside the program you already have, all you need is Oracle Media Objects to get at it.
Even better news is that the Oracle Media Objects scripting language is very similar to HyperCard on the Macintosh and a HyperCard scripter would feel comfortable delving into the code. The bad news is that you have to learn the scripting language and you are pretty much on your own. There may also be licensing issues with Oracle if you do not plan on keeping your modified program strictly in-house.
The advantage to modifying the program is that you can change the interface as well as the structure of the program. If you do plan on modifying the code, please let us know. We can offer some limited assistance. Good luck.
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