VMD User's Guide

4.4 Description of each VMD formVMD uses several different GUI forms, each designed to control a specific aspect of the moleculardisplay (e.g., to control the appearance of the graphics display window, or to change the colors ofdisplayed objects). The following sections give a brief description of the forms available in VMD;the remaining chapters in this manual describe the actions which these forms make available ingreater detail.4.4.1 Main FormFigure 4.1: The Main formThe Main form is the main way to access other forms, load and save files, control trajectoryplayback, change various global program settings, access help, and to quit the program. Many ofthese actions can also be performed with the menu shortcut keys described in Table 4.3.The Quit menu item exits VMD. This will bring up another form which verifies that you doindeed wish to exit. Press Yes to quit, or No to return to VMD.HelpThe Help menu items each start a web browser to display on-line VMD help documents. Thebrowser is designated by the environment variable VMDHTMLVIEWER [§ 12.2]. Selecting a help itemmultiple times may start multiple browsers. The default web browser is Mozilla for Unix systems,and the built-in Explorer shell for Windows systems. The menu contains items for the VMD QuickHelp page, as well as the current User’s Guide, FAQ, and links to various helpful information andprograms.4.4.2 Main Form Molecule List browserThe Main form shows the global status of the loaded molecules. Any number of molecules maybe displayed by VMD simultaneously. Each molecule can separately be hidden from view or fixedin place (e.g., prevented from being affected by mouse rotation commands). The form containscontrols to change the status of the molecules individually or in groups.The browser displays information about each molecule. A unique integer ID is assigned to eachmolecule by VMD when it is loaded. The Molecule is the file name which contained the topology30