VIEWMOL was developed on an IBM RS6000 using the Graphics Library (GL) of Silicon Graphics. It was also ported to Silicon Graphics computers. The programme runs with an 8-bit graphics adapter and without z-buffer, but not all features are always available with this adapter. The number of colours is limited and without z-buffer some drawings look very strange. The best equipment is a 24-bit graphics adapter with z-buffer.
The following operating systems are supported.
Using the programme under AIX 3.1.5 results in a strange behaviour of the menus. This is due to an incompatibility of IBM's GL. If you want to use VIEWMOL under this operating system please contact the authors. Using the programme under IRIX versions below 5.3 may also work, but is not further tested for the current release of VIEWMOL.
VIEWMOL was written mainly in Fortran. Parts of the programme are written in C. For recompilation of VIEWMOL you need a Fortran as well as a C compiler. TIFF files are supported by the freely available TIFF library which is also necessary to compile the programme. It can be found on many ftp sites, e. g. at sgi.com under graphics/tiff/v3.0.tar.Z.
Installation of the programme is simple. If you got the programme on a diskette
(IBM RISC System/6000) you can unload the diskette using the command
tar -xvf /dev/rfd0 (/dev/rfd0 must be the name of your diskette drive).
You get a file viewmol.tar.Z. If you got the programme via ftp you have
this file directly. Uncompress it using uncompress viewmol.tar.Z
and tar -xvf viewmol.tar. You get three subdirectories source, man,
and examples, three executables viewmol.ibm,
viewmol.mipsr3k and viewmol.mipsr4k and the configuration file
viewmolrc. Copy all files you got into an arbitrary directory. If you run the
supported operating systems you have to set the environment variable $VIEWMOLPATH
(vide infra) and the installation is complete. No adjustments in the code are necessary.
The programme uses dynamical memory allocation so that every size of a molecule can be
handled which fits the hardware limits of your workstation.
If you want to recompile the programme and you are running one of the supported
operating systems (this may be necessary on IBM workstations since the formats of the
executables are not compatible between different releases of AIX and/or Fortran
compilers - don't worry, IBM didn't) you may type make viewmol. The shell
script getmachine determines the operating system you are running and sets
some options for the compiler. If this does not work you should have a look into
the Makefile. The options set are explained there. That are the following:
OPT-O, on SGI's -O2).
EXT-qextname). This flag should not be set on SGI's.
IRIS-DIRIS on SGI's. Otherwise it should be not set (it
is for fixing the incompatibilties of the different GL's - look into cylinder.c,
dialog.c, marcub.c, raytrc.c, and savtif.c to see what is
influenced).
IRIX-lPW on SGI's running IRIX 5.3. Otherwise it should
be not set (it specifies an additional library needed to link a special function used
by X windows.)
INST.ibm the resulting programme gets the name
viewmol.ibm. The shell script getmachine sets INST to .ibm
for IBM's, to .mipsr3k for SGI's with MIPS R3000 processor, to .mipsr4k
for SGI's with MIPS R4000 processor, to .mipsr8k for SGI's with MIPS R8000
processor and to .iris for SGI's with another processor.
SHARED_s on SGI's and is not set on IBM's. It is used to link
on SGI machines with shared libraries. This makes the load module smaller and avoids
problems with incompatible libraries.
SPHERE-L/usr/lpp/GL/utilities -lsphere on IBM's or to
-lsphere on SGI's. It specifies where the library for sphere drawing can
be found.
SPHDRAsphdra.o on IBM's. It specifies an additional object module
needed only on IBM machines, because IBM does not support the sphere drawing from
Fortran programmes. On SGI's this flag is not set.
getmachine shell script will ask you for the path names to the TIFF library
and to the include files necessary with this library. You may specify these path names
using environment variables if you put the name of the variable in parantheses (e. g.
$(HOME)). These two path names are assigned to the LIBTIFF and TIFFINCLUDE
flags and stored in a file .config.<OS> where <OS> is the output of the
uname -s command on your machine. If this file already exists, getmachine
does not ask for these path names.
IBM Fortran compiler below version 3.2 will produce some error messages concerning concatenation of strings with inherited lengths. These can be safely ignored. Version 3.2 does (correctly) not produce these error messages anymore.
After building the programme it can be used. You have to set the environment variable
VIEWMOLPATH to the directory which contains your system wide viewmolrc
file (normally the installation directory of VIEWMOL). You should have a look
into this file in the installation directory and adapt it to your needs. The format
is described at page 
.