Although released 11 December, the arrival of Chime 2.6 has not been noted on this forum previously. http://www.mdlchime.com/chime/ (UK users please note that if you are registered at the CDS service, you can download the Pro version of 2.6 there) Postings of experiences of this new version most welcome. I will note here that Chime 2.6 introduces support for the new "extended" Molfile format (called V3000) which is substantially different from the Molfile we all know and love. Writing the new format from Chime must be forced by an HTML attribute. I also note that for the Macintosh platform, the plugin is not claimed to support Internet Explorer, and in fact in my hands did not work at all for this browser. I presume that it does work for IE5.5 on Windows. I think its also reasonable to say it probably will not work with any of the Version 6 Netscape browsers (the latest of which is actually known as Mozilla 0.7. The released version of Netscape 6 is equivalent to Mozilla 0.6 ). -- Henry Rzepa. +44 (0)20 7594 5774 (Office) +44 (0870) 132-3747 (eFax) Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College, London, SW7 2AY, UK. http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/ chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. To post to list: mailto:chemweb@ic.ac.uk Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message; (un)subscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)
Although released 11 December, the arrival of Chime 2.6 has not been noted on this forum previously.
On a related issue. Some of you may be interested in the results of a poll on my WebElements site in which I ask people what they use to view .pdb files See http://www.webelements.com/sympoll/results.php3?vo=1&pid=10 (Pro version) and http://www.webelements.com/sympollSch/results.php3?vo=1&pid=10 (Scholar version) To sum up the results: most people haven't a clue what a pdb file is. Meaning careful consideration about the audience of a site is required when using special file formats. If you have control of your users (i.e., a group of students in a univ lab) then OK), but if you don't - beware, and test your pages using several hardware/software configurations. -- Dr Mark J Winter Department of Chemistry, The University, Sheffield S3 7HF, England tel: +44 (0)114 222 9304 fax: +44 (0)114 222 9303 e-m: mark.winter@sheffield.ac.uk http://www.shef.ac.uk/chemistry/staff/mjw/mark-winter.html WebElements is the periodic table on the world-wide web: http://www.webelements.com/ The Sheffield Chemdex is a listing of chemistry sites on the world-wide web: http://www.chemdex.org/ chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. To post to list: mailto:chemweb@ic.ac.uk Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message; (un)subscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)
To sum up the results: most people haven't a clue what a pdb file is. Meaning careful consideration about the audience of a site is required when using special file formats. If you have control of your users (i.e., a group of students in a univ lab) then OK), but if you don't - beware, and test your pages using several hardware/software configurations.
To follow up Mark's comment, this is an area where HTML was not thought out too well in its original implementation. Basically, the system is not "fail safe". The HTML 4.0 and the recommended XHTML spec does allow for better (but not perfect) treatment of this issue, via something like <object> <object 2 if object 1 cannot be displayed> <object 3 if 1 and 2 cannot be displayed> Text if none of the objects can be displayed </object> </object> </object> Object 3 could be an image, 2 say a Java object and 1 say a Chime object. Needless to say, the above construct is not supported uniformly. The excellent iCab browser for Mac supports it fully, Netscape does a pretty good job, but IE appears to try to display ALL the objects simultaneously (and also ignores any parameters declared in association with the object). One also has a breed of what might be called "hidden" browser, ie part of an AOL suite, where such "advanced" options are again indifferently supported If one takes the premise that authors must support the lowest common denominator, then all of the above fails, and we must revert to the patchy implementations, which causes problems of the type Mark refers to. -- Henry Rzepa. +44 (0)20 7594 5774 (Office) +44 (0870) 132-3747 (eFax) Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College, London, SW7 2AY, UK. http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/ chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. To post to list: mailto:chemweb@ic.ac.uk Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message; (un)subscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)
Mark, The question is what do you expect as basic knowledge from your audience ? Perhaps it would be good to add a list of references/index at the top/side/bottom of your page where a reader can get the basic knowledge. Chime -> explanation and Link to MDL pdf -> explanation etc As you cannot predict the knowledge and intelligence of your clients, there will be always something going wrong. So, might be that explanation links are the easiest way ? best regards Michael -----Original Message----- To sum up the results: most people haven't a clue what a pdb file is. chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. To post to list: mailto:chemweb@ic.ac.uk Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message; (un)subscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)
Mark,
The question is what do you expect as basic knowledge from your audience ?
Perhaps it would be good to add a list of references/index at the top/side/bottom of your page where a reader can get the basic knowledge.
Chime -> explanation and Link to MDL pdf -> explanation etc
As you cannot predict the knowledge and intelligence of your clients, there will be always something going wrong. So, might be that explanation links are the easiest way ?
Hi Michael I do exactly that, see for instance,: http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/H/xtal.html I don't get complaints, but what I do find is that overall more VRML files - no chemical information :( - are viewed than PDB files. I use a tracker, one item of which it reports is NetScape plugins. Chime/Chem3D are both very low in percentage terms (given that WebElemewnts is a chemistry site), VRML browsers a little higher. Flash is almost universally installed. Quicktime and PDF readers are pretty high as well. One or two other snippets from the tracker that you might find useful: 90% have a screen size 800 x 600 or better NS/MSIE version 4 or better accounts for 98% of traffic - so get your style sheets validated and scrap <FONT> tags etc. Operating systems: Windows 87% Mac 10% Other 2% Unix 1% Browsers: MSIE 76% Netscape 24% Opera 0.06% iCab ? - seems to not get recorded properly in the Hitbox stats Javascript: 97.5% enabled Java: enabled 95% unknown 4% disabled 1% -- Dr Mark J Winter Department of Chemistry, The University, Sheffield S3 7HF, England tel: +44 (0)114 222 9304 fax: +44 (0)114 222 9303 e-m: mark.winter@sheffield.ac.uk http://www.shef.ac.uk/chemistry/staff/mjw/mark-winter.html WebElements is the periodic table on the world-wide web: http://www.webelements.com/ The Sheffield Chemdex is a listing of chemistry sites on the world-wide web: http://www.chemdex.org/ chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. To post to list: mailto:chemweb@ic.ac.uk Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message; (un)subscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)
participants (3)
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Mark Winter
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Michael Engel
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Rzepa, Henry