Biotech > FAQ > RasMol and Chime FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Retaining RasMol's window sizes/positions

To see other biotech frequently asked questions, please visit http://biotech.fyicenter.com/faq/

(Continued from previous question...)

Retaining RasMol's window sizes/positions

Windows 95: Retaining window sizes/positions. Get Deskey from Softarts (www.spiresoft.com). The shareware version runs for 1 hr at a time. Registration is $15. (I sent mine but never received any response, so I have to restart Deskey when I need it more than an hour after it was last started -- easy enough.)

When you run Deskey's SETUP.EXE, nothing seems to happen. However, at one end of the Taskbar (the bar with Start on it), you will now see a gold key. Click on this for Deskey's menu. Start RasMol and arrange the graphics window as you want it. Now select Window Placements on Deskey's menu, Add, select Capture from window, and OK the Add Window Placement Dialog (no further changes are necessary; be sure to leave the Auto-apply option checked).

Now arrange the RasMol Command Line window and do the same sequence to add a window placement in Deskey.

Close RasMol, restart it, and voila! Your window arrangement is automatically restored for both windows. If you have multiple icons for multiple RasMol working folders ("Start in" directories under Properties, Shortcut), you do not have to add window placements for each icon. Deskey recognizes RasMol as such regardless of which icon you use to start it. You can, however, have multiple placements stored simultaneously in Deskey for RasMol's windows. Whichever pair you move to the top of the Windows Placements list in Deskey become the active placements.

Enjoy! (Thanks to Rod Levine, NIH, for calling Deskey to my attention.)

Windows 3.1x: Retaining window sizes/positions. For Windows 3.1 (ONLY, not Win95), a shareware program called FreezeFrame makes RasMol (or most other programs) startup with the same windows sizes and positions (both windows!) as when you last closed it. Get the FreezeFrame file ff.zip from any shareware site (http://www.shareware.com, http://www.filepile.com).

Unzip the file (http://www.winzip.com). Now use Windows' File menu, New, to create an icon for ff.exe. Double click the icon and a minimized FF icon will appear at the bottom of your screen. Startup RasMol, resize/reposition the windows, and close RasMol. Now start it up again and Voila! FF remembers the window settings between sessions. Just start it up before RasMol and you get the same window sizes/positions every time. (You can include ff.exe in your autoexec.bat file to startup FF at boot time.) Oh what a relief it is!!

Use Write to view the help file ff.wri if you wish.

Please send the author the $5 he asks for! Send your check payable to Ronald Crane to:

FreezeFrame Registration
c/o Ronald Crane
758 Vasona St.
Milpitas, California    95035-4316

Macintosh: Retaining window sizes/positions. Sorry, we don't know a solution for the Macintosh. If you know one, please let us know!

(Continued on next question...)

Other Frequently Asked Questions