Description: molsKetch is a program for drawing molecular structures, in the spirit of Chemsketch and xdrawchem, for all platforms supported by Qt 4. As for now it supports drawing a basic carbon skeleton, adding hetero atoms and charge and different types of bonds. The resulting structure can be exported to all formats supported by the OpenBabel library and can also be exported as SVG or bitmap. For a full overview of the features see below.
This application is the result of a project for school (as well as my first Qt application). The goal of the project was to design a proof-of-concept tool for drawing molecular structures quick and easily, without sacrificing the quality of the resulting images. There is still much room for improvement, but it should be quite useful already. So you're free to give it a try.
Some of the features of molsKetch: creating regular and consistent bonds easily with tools as a dynamic grid and magnetic atoms open, save and import in all formats supported by the OpenBabel(tm) library export to Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and a number of common used bitmap formats print and export your document to PDF realign atoms automatically intelligent addition/removal of hydrogen atoms real time information about the molecule, like charge and weight built-in library for quick access to regularly used molecules and functional groupsLast changelog:
20080926
Helium alpha fixed crash when trying to remove nonexisting custom molecule file extension are now added on saving added option to add/remove single implicit hydrogens added 2D rotating rudimentary support for 3D rotation improved periodic table improved settings dialog save position of dock widgets remember last accessed path support for i18n fixed bug on loading/saving CML files added a panel to the toolbox to directly change the draw options support for changing the font of the atom symbols support for changing the bond width added an autosave feature there is now an initial version of a KPart of the molsKetch drawing widget available
Deuterium added support for OpenBabel under Windows switched to cmake as build system you can now use left click to delete items in the document loaded/imported files are now splitted in separate molecules made hinting less intrusive made charge changes undoable made scrolling on the document zoom to the cursor position (thanks to Vladimir Zima for the suggestion) made the element selector look like a periodic table (thanks to Carsten Niehaus for the suggestion) updated the element data added bug report menu entry updated some of the shortcuts clean up of the code and added apidox (thanks to Carsten Niehaus) fixed some crashes on closing/opening a new document lots of other fixes
Hydrogen Initial release Disabled load/save in the Windows release for now, due to problems with linking OpenBabel
This is the best chem sketch drawing program I've used!
OK here and there are a few missing features but this program is new. And for the second release it is very stable and usable.
I like the nice drawing and that circle tool to choose angle between bonds. Three suggestions.
-The program should have the ability to use drawing settings from most popular chemical journals, otherwise it would be nearly useless. This is a really important thing and ANY free software chemical drawing program implements it.
-3D molecules should be handled with tracball rotation. Look at the way bkchem does it.
-It could be possible to strip the drawing code into a library ? It would be great for KDE4-edu chemical stuff.
Thanks for the suggestions.
3D rotating and different drawing styles are planned for Helium or Lithium.
I think extracting the drawing code in the current state is a little difficult, but I'll keep it in mind. It would be a waste if only molsKetch could use it...
Ratings & Comments
4 Comments
This is the best chem sketch drawing program I've used! OK here and there are a few missing features but this program is new. And for the second release it is very stable and usable.
Thank you for the program! you are doing a nice job!
I like the nice drawing and that circle tool to choose angle between bonds. Three suggestions. -The program should have the ability to use drawing settings from most popular chemical journals, otherwise it would be nearly useless. This is a really important thing and ANY free software chemical drawing program implements it. -3D molecules should be handled with tracball rotation. Look at the way bkchem does it. -It could be possible to strip the drawing code into a library ? It would be great for KDE4-edu chemical stuff.
Thanks for the suggestions. 3D rotating and different drawing styles are planned for Helium or Lithium. I think extracting the drawing code in the current state is a little difficult, but I'll keep it in mind. It would be a waste if only molsKetch could use it...