All, Here is a copy of the email which Brian White sent to the rasmol mailing list.
Miguel -------- Mensaje Original -------- Asunto: Open-source =?iso-8859-1?Q?Chime=94?= De: Brian White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Fecha: Mie, 15 de Octubre de 2003, 16:34 Para: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hi - Last summer, I e-mailed the list about creating an open-source equivalent of the Chime plug-in. I was motivated by the following: - the ease of use of Chime for making presentations - the extensive use of Chime for education & research - the lack of any potential for further development of Chime by MDL (I have spoken with the MDL folks & they are not interested in continuing Chime development for free public use). I think that there may be a viable solution. Members of the jmol project, http://jmol.sourceforge.net, have explicitly undertaken the goal of making jmol fully Chime/RasMol compatible, to provide a modern upgrade path for current users of Chime. The jmol applet will work with modern browser/platform combinations that are not supported by Chime. More importantly, it provides an open-source foundation which the user-community can enhance as our requirements grow and change. Since jmol is a java applet, users will not have to download/install a special plug-in to be able to view jmol-based web pages. Jmol does not have any special installation requirements and will run on most java virtual machines, including the older Microsoft java virtual machine that comes with Internet Explorer. Jmol will run with most browsers 'out of the box'. The development version of Jmol now implements many of Chime's features. The developers have written a perl script, chime2jmol.pl, which will automatically convert many chime pages to jmol. Using this tool, we have converted one of my Chime pages (that shows some important features of hemoglobin - I use this in lecture) to a jmol page. The two pages are: - The original Chime page: http://intro.bio.umb.edu/111-112/111F98Lect/hemoglobin2/hemolect.html This is not a very sophisticated Chime presentation; we chose it because it uses some important Chime features. The scripts are simple & must be accessed in order from top to bottom or strange things will result. There are delays built into the scripts, so wait a few seconds after pressing a button. Viewing this page requires Chime and a Chime-compatible browser/OS combination. - The converted page using jmol: http://jmol.sf.net/demo/bwhite/hemolect.html This has the same views as the Chime page. Note the improved rendering quality with jmol. Viewing this page does *not* require Chime. The applet is automatically downloaded the first time you access the page and subsequently stored in the web browser cache. Please note that this is a *development* version of jmol; more improvements are to come. Both pages can also be accessed via: http://jmol.sourceforge.net/demo/bwhite/ Although this is not the most advanced Chime page possible, it does demonstrate jmol�s potential. Try it & see how it works! At this point, jmol should run on the following OS/browser combinations: Linux/Unix Netscape 4.79 + Java Plug-in 1.3.1 or better Mozilla 1.2 + Java Plug-in 1.3.1 or better (Konqueror has some problems) Win 98/ME/NT/2K/XP Netscape 4.76 or better IE 5.50 or better (either Microsoft JVM or Java Plug-in) Mozilla 1.2 + Java Plug-in 1.3.1 or better MacOS 9 (Performance problems on older machines with large molecules) (600mhz or better *highly* recommended) Netscape 4.78 IE - no JavaScript/Java communications MacOS X - does not work as yet. Netscape 7.1 - no JavaScript/Java communications IE - no JavaScript/Java communications Safari - no JavaScript/Java communications I am in the process of writing an NSF CCLI-A&I (Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement - Adaptation & Implementation) Grant to request funding for one of the jmol developers. This will help ensure that the final RasMol/Chime features get implemented in jmol in a timely fashion. Our goal is to develop a fully Chime-compatible version, managed as an opensource project on sourceforge, so that the applet and application, along with all source code, freely-available accessible for future development. In order to make the grant more persuasive, we would like some information from those who are interested; specifically: 1) Do you use Chime for teaching? At what level? (We need a rough count to put in the grant). 2) Would you be interested in using jmol if it were fully Chime-compatible? Please remember that the version of jmol posted at the above link is a *development* version; the production version will have improved compatibility, performance, etc. 3) We would like to have several beta-testers who would assist in the effort by converting their chime html pages to jmol. We would provide technical support for the changeover in return for bug reports, feedback, suggestions, etc. Would you be willing to be a beta-tester? 4) Do you have any other suggestions, comments, ideas for the grant, etc? Thank you for your time. Brian -- Prof. Brian White Biology Department University of Massachusetts, Boston 100 Morrissey Blvd Boston MA 02125 (617) 287-6630 fax:(617) 287-6650 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://intro.bio.umb.edu/BW/ ----------------------------------------------------------------rasmol-+ To change your address, unsubscribe, view previous messages/history, receive messages as weekly digests, or for any other information about the RasMol EMail List, please go to http://www.umass.edu/microbio/rasmol/raslist.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------rasmol-- -------------------------------------------------- Miguel Howard [EMAIL PROTECTED] c/Pe�a Primera 11-13 esc dcha 6B 37002 Salamanca Espa�a Spain -------------------------------------------------- telefono casa 923 27 10 82 movil 650 52 54 58 -------------------------------------------------- To call from the US dial 9:00 am Pacific US = home 011 34 923 27 10 82 12:00 noon Eastern US = cell 011 34 650 52 54 58 6:00 pm Spain -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. 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