Configuring Macintosh for RasMol

Configuring your Macintosh for RasMol

Macintosh OS 7-9

DISCLAIMER-I do not use Macs normally, we have one Power Mac G3 PPC running OS 8.0 in the dept, that is not supported by our computer people, so is probably not optimally configured. The instructions below work on this.

The first difference on the Mac is that rasmol2.6b2 which is the version linked to on the installing page link has a bug not present in the other operating systems that means that some scripts hang including the test scripts on the previous page. One way round is to open up the file in a text editor. If it contains PDB coordinates ('load pdb inline' or 'load inline)' then you read it in as a coordinate file via the open option. You then cut and paste everything from after the 'load inline' to the 'exit' line not including either of these and this works.

More elegantly you need to get rasmol 2.7 from external link iconhttp://www.openrasmol.org. This is distributed as gzipped binaries. As a non-mac user it took me several hours to install searching the web in vain for advice. The following protocol worked in minutes when I discovered it.

  1. Download the binary either via netscape or Fetch. Also download rasmol.hlp at the same time into the same directory.
  2. Check what the extension is if it is .bin.gz run gzip on it
  3. Once you just have a .bin file open it with Stuffit Expander. external link iconhttp://www.stuffit.com/detect_expander.html/ (This was the step that was not explained anywhere I could find thanks to Alex Brown TSMB 02 for explaining this)
  4. You now should have a rasmol icon in the directory you can click on to start the programme
Configuring Netscape 4.7 on Macs

There is no way before OS X of issuing the equivalent of the 'rasmol -script' command. Instead the Mac version of rasmol depend on the 'type' information for the file rasmol scripts are type RSML (creator RSML), pdb files are TEXT (creator RSML). You can alter these on downloaded files using freeware such as Resedit external link iconhttp://www.ResExcellence.com/support_files/resedit.shtml. However you can tell netscape 4.7 to assign these when downloading mime types

Repeat the following steps for each of the three MIME types you are defining:-

i. MIME type chemical/x-pdb

  1. From the Edit option on the menubar select: Preferences.
  2. Locate the Navigator entry in the Category column on the left. If its arrow points to the right, then click on the arrow to open up the subentries Languages, Applications and possibly Smart Browsing. (If the arrow is pointing downwards, then these should already be listed below the Navigator entry).
  3. Click on Applications.
  4. Click on New and fill in the form as follows:-
  5. Mark Launch the Application: and press the Browse... button.
  6. Navigate to the directory containing RasMol.
  7. Select the RasMol (probably called something like RASMAC_PPC_32BIT) and click Open.
  8. The extra step on Macs is to set the file type box to TEXT
  9. Click OK in the bottom right hand corner of the "New Type" window.

ii. MIME type chemical/x-ras

  1. From the Edit option on the menubar select: Preferences.
  2. Locate the Navigator entry in the Category column on the left. If its arrow points to the right, then click on the arrow to open up the subentries Languages, Applications and possibly Smart Browsing. (If the arrow is pointing downwards, then these should already be listed below the Navigator entry).
  3. Click on Applications.
  4. Click on New and fill in the form as follows:-
  5. Mark Launch the Application: and press the Browse... button.
  6. Navigate to the directory containing RasMol.
  7. Select the RasMol (probably called something like RASMAC_PPC_32BIT) and click Open.
  8. The extra step on Macs is to set the file type box to RSML
  9. Click OK in the bottom right hand corner of the "New Type" window.

iii. MIME type application/x-rasmol

  1. From the Edit option on the menubar select: Preferences.
  2. Locate the Navigator entry in the Category column on the left. If its arrow points to the right, then click on the arrow to open up the subentries Languages, Applications and possibly Smart Browsing. (If the arrow is pointing downwards, then these should already be listed below the Navigator entry).
  3. Click on Applications.
  4. Click on New and fill in the form as follows:-
  5. Mark Launch the Application: and press the Browse... button.
  6. Navigate to the directory containing RasMol.
  7. Select the RasMol (probably called something like RASMAC_PPC_32BIT) and click Open.
  8. The extra step on Macs is to set the file type box to RSML
  9. Click OK in the bottom right hand corner of the "New Type" window.

The operating system is too old for netscape 7, but I imagine that the dialogue will be similar.
Configuring Internet Explorer on Macs

This is actually better on macs than on windows. Under 'Edit' 'Preferences' 'receiving files' 'file helpers', you get a very similar set of sections to fill in to the above. The difference is the file extensions is vital and you can only have one per entry. You can have the same Mime type assigned to several extensions in different entries.

Macintosh OS X

We have not used this system. It is meant to be 'linux for macs' so it may be that the Unix or netscape 7 advice is more relevant. It may be that the OS X versions allow command line designation of a file as a script file. Any comments from users to add to this site will be appreciated.

Bill Scott is a big fan of OS-X for crystallography - try his web pages

external link iconhttp://www.chemistry.ucsc.edu/~wgscott/xtal/page1.htmlRasmol is specifically dealt with on page6.html


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