                               MOLMOL 2K.2
                          Important Information


Date: January 12, 2003


DESCRIPTION

MOLMOL is a molecular graphics program for displaying, analyzing, and
manipulating the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules,
with special emphasis on the study of protein or DNA structures determined
by NMR.


LEGAL INFORMATION

Legal information is contained in the file COPYING, you are required to
read this file and agree with its contents before using the program.

MOLMOL 2K.2 is an custom version derived from MOLMOL 2.6 by Reto Koradi
after his employment with the copyright holders ended.

Users are encouraged to register, please check the section about
registration towards the end of this document.


OBTAINING MOLMOL

The master ftp server is:

    ftp://ftp.mol.biol.ethz.ch/pub/software/MOLMOL

A link to all available ftp sites can be found on the MOLMOL
web page:

    http://www.mol.biol.ethz.ch/wuthrich/software/molmol/

Please read the platform specific README file (README.UNIX or README.WIN)
for downloading instructions.


INSTALLATION

Please read the platform specific README file (README.UNIX or README.WIN)
for installation instructions.


COMPILATION

Note that there are binaries for the most common systems, you should
only compile the source code if you have a good reason to do so.

Please read the platform specific README file (README.UNIX or README.WIN)
for compilation instructions.


PORTING TO DIFFERENT WINDOW SYSTEMS

The program runs under UNIX, using Motif and supporting various graphics
libraries (GL, OpenGL, XGL, X11), and under Windows, using Win32 and
OpenGL. Support for other platforms is not planned. If you would like to
port the program to a different window system (e. g. Mac) or graphics
system (e. g. Direct3D under Windows), please contact the authors. The
program has been structured so that this is possible within reasonable
time, but it is still a non-trivial task.


DOCUMENTATION

The man subdirectory contains the following files:

    manual.html:   users guide in HTML format (in one piece)
    index.html:    users guide in HTML format (in linked parts)
    ref.ps:        reference manual in PostScript format

The reference manual is just a copy of all online help pages, you
will normally not print that out.


ADDITONAL SOFTWARE

Note: Some of the following software may not be available for all
platforms (UNIX and Windows). Check the information at the given
sources.

The auxil subdirectory of the distribution contains some "goodies"
that can be useful in conjunction with MOLMOL. See the README file
in that directory for details.

If you your molecules have file formats different from the ones
that can be read by MOLMOL, you should check out the conversion
program Babel, written by Pat Walters and Matt Stahl. It is
available from ftp://joplin.biosci.arizona.edu/pub/Babel/.

MOLMOL can generate files for the public domain raytracing
program POV-Ray. You can obtain this program from ftp.povray.org,
check http://www.povray.org for more information. Note that you
have to make the font.inc file from the auxil directory accessible
to POV-Ray when rendering files created by MOLMOL.

When dealing with images (like the ones created by POV-Ray),
the netpbm tools for manipulating and converting images are
invaluable. They are available from many ftp sites, e. g.
wuarchive.wustl.edu.

Most systems have an image viewer, but xv, which is also available
from many ftp sites (e. g. ftp.cis.upenn.edu), is often the better
choice.

You will need a web browser for looking at the manual and the
hypertext version of the online help pages. Any web browser should
be capable of displaying these files, a popular one is Netscape
(ftp.netscape.com).

MOLMOL shares file formats with various other programs developed
in the group of Prof. Wuthrich. For information about some of
these, check:

    http://www.mol.biol.ethz.ch/wuthrich/software/


REGISTRATION AND MAILING LIST

There is a mailing list for discussing items related to MOLMOL.
All users are recommended to subscribe to this list, by sending
an e-mail message with "subscribe molmol-forum" in the body
(no subject) to majordomo@mol.biol.ethz.ch.

If you do not wish to be on the mailing list, you should at least get
registered as MOLMOL user by sending mail to molmol@mol.biol.ethz.ch,
the easiest way for doing this is by using the Register command from
the Help menu of the program (not supported in the Windows version).
Registered users will only receive very minimal information, like
notifications about new releases, everything else is dealt with on the
mailing list.


CONTRIBUTIONS

We maintain a web page with contributions by users. If you write
something that you think could be of use to others, you are very
welcome to send it to us, and we will make it generally available.
This could include:

    - macros (preferrably command definitons)
    - alternate menu or button definitons
    - non-standard entries for the residue library
    - additonal examples for the tutorial
    - shell scripts

We also maintain a web page with contributed images. Please notify us
if you have nice examples (do not send them by E-mail without our
agreement, please, only pointers to web pages or ftp sites).


OBTAINING MORE INFORMATION

Current information about MOLMOL is available from:

    http://www.mol.biol.ethz.ch/wuthrich/software/molmol/

An introduction for people with an account for the BRUKER web server
is also available at:

    http://bart.bruker.de/wwwdeka/nmrsoftw/packages/molmol/molmol.htm

Because the above is not generally accessible, it is mirrored at:

    http://www.mol.biol.ethz.ch/wuthrich/software/molmol/bruker/

Problems that you cannot solve should normally be addressed to the
mailing list (see above). In exceptional cases you can reach us at
molmol@mol.biol.ethz.ch. We do not guarantee that mail will be
answered, but it normally will.
