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Channel and Track

Channel

  • A Channel contains a predefined set of tracks grouped by data type.

    RBrowser Main

  • Typically represents one assay or annotation across multiple tissues or methods (e.g. M6A sites in HeLa, HEK293T, HSC d0–d9).

    RBrowser Main

Expanding Channels

A channel may contain multiple individual tracks. To expand a channel and view all its sub-tracks:
1. Hover over or click the channel’s Track Label in the sidebar.
2. Open the context menu and select Explode.

Searching Tracks (TODO)

You can search for specific tracks within a channel by keyword. This feature will allow you to quickly locate tracks of interest.

Loading Tracks

  1. Open the Track Panel
    Click the Track button in the left sidebar to open the track operations panel.

Track

  1. Choose Data Source
    Track RBrowser can load tracks from three sources:
    Remote (HTTP/S URLs)
    Local (files on your computer)
    DataHub (configured public or private hubs)

    Warning

    Modern browsers (e.g. Chrome) do not allow saving session state for locally-loaded files. We recommend loading from Remote or DataHub when you need to preserve your session.

  2. Select File Type
    A variety of bioinformatics file formats are supported (e.g. FASTA, GFF, BigWig, BAM, BED, BigBed).
    Auto: RBrowser will auto-detect the format based on the file extension, or you can select it manually.

Track

  1. Add Track
    Once your source and format are configured, click Add Track to import and render the data.

Tips

The quickest way to load local files is to drag and drop them directly onto the RBrowser window.

Removing Tracks

  1. Open the Track Menu
    Hover over or click the track’s label in the sidebar to reveal its context menu.

  2. Remove the Track
    Click Remove Track in the menu. The selected track will be immediately removed from the main browser view.

Ordering Tracks (TODO)

To sort the tracks within a channel:
Open the Track Label context menu. Click Order Tracks and choose your preferred sort criteria.

Filtering Tracks (TODO)

Use the Filter command in the Track Label context menu to restrict which tracks are displayed:

  • Annotation-based (string) filters

    rbrowser:get('name') == 'YTHDF2'  // Show only tracks with gene name “YTHDF2”
rbrowser:get('type') == 'CDS'     // Show only CDS-region tracks

  • Value-based (numeric) filters 

      rbrowser:get('score') > 10        // Show only signals with score > 10