From owner-bionews@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Sat Oct 7 00:09:07 2000 Return-Path: Received: by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix, from userid 110) id 5B86817B73; Sat, 7 Oct 2000 00:09:05 +0100 (BST) Received: by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix, from userid 6022) id CB35417B6A; Sat, 7 Oct 2000 00:09:03 +0100 (BST) Received: by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix, from userid 6024) id 1509A17A6D; Fri, 6 Oct 2000 20:54:27 +0100 (BST) Received: from briar.org (backdraft.briar.org [192.207.123.123]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 96E7D415DC for ; Fri, 6 Oct 2000 20:54:26 +0100 (BST) Received: (from smap@localhost) by briar.org (8.9.1b+Sun/8.6.12) id PAA19476 for ; Fri, 6 Oct 2000 15:54:25 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: backdraft.briar.org: smap set sender to using -f Received: from vixen.cso.uiuc.edu(128.174.5.49) by backdraft via smap (V2.1) id xma019472; Fri, 6 Oct 00 15:54:24 -0400 Received: by vixen.cso.uiuc.edu (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.3) id OAA06233; Fri, 6 Oct 2000 14:53:29 -0500 (CDT) To: bionet-announce@moderators.isc.org From: johns@ks.uiuc.edu (John Stone) Newsgroups: bionet.announce Subject: Announce: VMD 1.6a3 is available Message-Id: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (SunOS) X-Complaints-To: abuse@uiuc.edu X-Trace: vixen.cso.uiuc.edu 970862008 130.126.120.127 (Fri, 06 Oct 2000 14:53:28 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 14:53:28 CDT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 00:09:03 +0100 (BST) Sender: owner-bionews@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Hi, We have just made VMD 1.6a3 available for download on our software downloads page: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Development/Download/download.cgi Brief change summary: --------------------- VMD 1.6 Alpha 3 fixes PR 114 (Cartoon rep problems with certain molecules), and has a bunch of small user interface improvements some of which were only on Windows, and some which are on all versions. We're now providing pre-compiled binaries for Linux on PowerPC and Alpha processors, which are new to this release. I intend to continue providing these binaries as long as we have access to such machines. We have also recently started adding Python support into VMD, although it isn't visible in the binary distributions we're making available at this time, it will begin to be more prominent in future revs of VMD. Those individuals curious about Python support in VMD that are willing to play with bleeding edge code may feel free to send us email and get in on the ground floor of VMD's Python support. What's new in VMD 1.6? ---------------------- New Features o New support for Linux on Alpha processors o New support for Linux on PowerPC processors o New support for generation of RenderMan .RIB files from VMD scenes. o New VMD Python scripting interface (developmental stage) General Improvements and Bug Fixes o Windows version of VMD now implements mouse capture so that you can drag the mouse outside of the graphics window while doing rotations, translations, scaling, and other mouse dragging operations. o Improved interactive rendering speed of molecular surfaces by a factor of two or more on most platforms. o Improved OpenGL materials rendering and gave VMD better looking default material properties. o Tachyon ray tracer binaries are now packaged along with VMD on all supported platforms. o Added the ability for Tcl code to capture VMD events as through the logfile mechanism, but through a Tcl variable, so that one VMD can easily remote control other VMD's through a bit of Tcl sockets code. o Significant speed increases for many common VMD commands, many commands are 5 to 200 times faster now, using new Tcl 8.x interpreter interface. o Made it easier to customize size/position of the VMD command window on Unix versions of VMD. o Built with FLTK 1.0.9 o Built with VRPN 5.01 o Fixed PRs: 60, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114 User Interface Changes o New Tcl/Tk based RMSD fit GUI o Save state uses a GUI dialog now when possible. User Documentation Updates o Updated various sections in User's guide, particularly relating to new rendering features, RMSD fit, etc. o Started lengthy update to Programmer's guide. o Added commit email capability to CVS, may make it an option for read-only CVS users as well. We welcome your feedback on this latest version, tell us what you think! Thanks! John Stone vmd@ks.uiuc.edu -- NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801 Email: johns@ks.uiuc.edu Phone: 217-244-3349 WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078 .