There is a way to link to UCSC track descriptions using this link pattern:

• https://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgTrackUi?g=(track name)

Where "g" is a string identifying a track.

You can also add a "db" parameter to specify the genome version of interest. With this new parameter, the URL pattern is:

• https://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgTrackUi?g=(track name)&db=(ucsc genome version name)

For example:

• https://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgTrackUi?g=dbSnp155Composite&db=hg18

opens a page at the UCSC genome browser with a page describing track "dbSnp155Composite" in the context of the hg18 genome version.

This page is even an entry-point for the UCSC genome browser interface. The page has a "submit" button. When you click this "submit" button, a new page opens showing a genomic scene for the requested genome version, with the track shown, as well. It's hard to interpret this page if you are not already familiar with the browser, but it provides an entrée for a user to start comparing how the track data look in its native UCSC Genome Browser context with how it looks in IGB.

It would be fantastic if we could provide link-outs going from the IGB UCSC REST data sets shown in IGB's Data Access panel.

Doing this shouldn't be too difficult, and the goal of this task is to determine if it is feasible. If yes, we can include implementation in this ticket as well, as the developer sees fit.

The code would construct the "link out" URLs using this pattern:

• https://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgTrackUi?g=(track name)

or, even better:

• https://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgTrackUi?g=(track name)&db=(ucsc genome name)

Let's call this "option 1" also known as (aka) "direct link into UCSC Web site."