RasMol Setup

The following instructions were originally written to configure RasMol as a helper application with older versions of Netscape Navigator, but should provide sufficient information to easily adapt its use to other browsers.

RasMol is a free program which will allow you to manipulate molecules hyperactively.

Several versions of the Rasmol 2.6 beta are available for downloading from the Chemistry Gopher. Although still in beta, this update has added many features and improvements, and is currently the recommended version. Rasmol is available in self-extracting archives for Windows as both the 16-bit RasWin, designed for Windows 3.1 or greater, and the 32-bit RasWin which requires Windows 95 or Win32s with OLE for Windows 3.1. A Macintosh version, RasMac, is also available. You can also download RasMol from the RasMol Home Page at UMass / Amherst, where you will find additional information and instructions.

Follow these instructions to set up RasMol to work correctly with Netscape.

  1. From within Netscape, choose the Preferences... item from the Options menu.
  2. Once the Preferences dialog box has appeared, choose Helper Apps.
  3. Click on the Create New Type... button.
  4. In the Configure New Mime Type dialog, enter chemical in the Mime Type text field and x-pdb in the Mime SubType text field. Click the OK button.
  5. Once you have returned to the Preferences dialog box...
    1. Enter pdb in the File Extensions text field.
    2. Click on the Launch the Application Action radio button.
    3. Click on the Browse... button, and use the standard file dialog boxes to locate your copy of RasMac or RasWin.
  6. Click on the OK button to close the Preferences dialog box.
  7. Choose Save Options from the Options menu to save your settings.

RasMol should now work with your copy of Netscape.

Molecular Visualization Resources