The mail mesages shown below were sent registred moviemol-users.

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============================  Mail 2, 1996-01-08  ===========================
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Dear Moviemol-Users,

Version 1.2 of the molecular animation program Moviemol has been
released, and it is since 95-12-31 available by anonymous ftp
from ftp.osc.edu, directory /pub/chemistry/software/MS-DOS/MovieMol/
(or ..software/RS6000/MovieMol/ or ..software/SGI/MovieMol/).

The ordinary ftp site, chem-ftp.mps.ohio-state.edu, is temporarily
down, but it is intended that the most recent versions of moviemol
should be available from chem-ftp.mps.ohio-state.edu in the future 
as they used to in the past. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Version 1.2 is essentially the same as version 1.1. The major
differences or new features are:

x  Mpeg files can be generated by the IBM Risc/6000 and Silicon 
   Graphics versions, by interfacing with certain free- or shareware,
   see appendix I in this mail. By these mpeg files you can for example
   include animations in your WWW home page.

x  New control variables:

   o  ioldpsfiles (default = 0)  The names of the postscript files have
                                 been changed. They are now called
                                 "movie[000-999].eps", so that up to 1000
                                 postscript files can be generated without
                                 overwriting the old ones. Specifying
                                 'ioldpsfiles=1,' in the control file
                                 gives back the old name format:
                                 "moviemol.ps[0-9]".

   o  xtranslate (default = 0.)  The same as translate(1), translate(2)
      ytranslate                 and translate(3). For example, by
      ztranslate                 specifying 'ztranslate=10.0' the object
                                 is translated 10 Angstrom closer to the
                                 viewer.

x  Some smaller buggs have been removed.

Please also note that the address for the moviemol WWW home page has
changed. The new address is:
              http://www.kvac.uu.se/~lars/moviemol.html


Best regards,

Lars Ojamae                               Kersti Hermansson
Department of Quantum Chemistry           Department of Inorganic Chemistry
Uppsala University                        Uppsala University
Box 518,S-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden          Box 531, S-751 21 Uppsala, Sweden
                      Email: moviemol@kemi.uu.se


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Appendix I.
                   How the MPEG files can be created
                   =================================

In Version 1.2 of Moviemol for Workstations, mpeg files can be generated
"automatically" if certain (see below) public-domain software have been
installed on the workstation.

To create these movies, you will need a shell script named 'XtoPPM' (which
must be executable!) in your current directory. This shell script should 
contain the lines:

# Shell script to make screen dumps and ppm files in moviemol
xwd -nobdrs -name moviemol -out $1
cp $1 moviscrdump.xwd
xwdtopnm moviscrdump.xwd > $1
rm moviscrdump.xwd

You will also need to add a line in your moviemol control file ("name.ctl"):

 $CNTRL
        idumpscreen = 1,
 $END

This tells the moviemol program to call the XtoPPM shell script for each
frame.
The XtoPPM shell script makes a screen dump of the moviemol X-window, and
transforms the screen dump file into a portable pixmap ("ppm") file. This
transformation requires that the 'xwdtopnm' program from the "pbmplus" or the
"netpbm" image-conversion toolkits has been installed on the computer (I only
got it to work using pbmplus, not netpbm, when I tried it on an IBM Risc
workstation - no idea why).

After moviemol has been run using the control file above, a set of ppm files
will have been created. These ppm files can then be strung together with the
help of the mpeg_encode program (which needs the input file "name.param" in
which one has to edit the output file name and the number of frames). The
resulting mpeg movies can now be displayed with the mpeg_play program (and
can for example be included in your WWW home page).

Some example files can be found in chem-ftp.mps.ohio-state.edu/moviemol/
mpeg_dir or in the moviemol tar files at ftp.osc.edu.

Additional note: you may also want to add some more lines to your moviemol
control file:

 $CNTRL
        idumpscreen = 1,
        npixwinx = 320, npixwiny = 226,
        idumpstart =  5, idumpstop = 100, idumpdelta = 5,
 $END

The second line in the cntrl namelist makes the X-window smaller (and so the
mpeg files). The third line says that moviemol should start making screen
dumps on frame 5 and stop on frame 100, with an interval of 5 frames. If
idumpscreen=2 screen dumps will occur when the key P is pressed.

Useful home pages and programs:

http://www.kvac.uu.se/~lars/moviehowtorun.html#mpeg
http://www.crs4.it/HTML/LUIGI/MPEG/mpegfaq.html
ftp://ftp.crs4.it/mpeg/programs
ftp://ftp.crs4.it/mpeg/programs/mpeg_encode-1.3.tar.Z
ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/X11/R5contrib/pbmplus10dec91.tar.gz
ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/X11/R5contrib/netpbm-1mar1994.tar.gz

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============================  Mail 1, 1995-01-04  ===========================
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Dear Moviemol-Users,                                           950104

we are happy to announce that the new Version 1.1 of Moviemol
now is available by anonymous ftp from chem-ftp.mps.ohio-state.edu
or from the authors. (Most shareware versions of the old version 1.0
expired on Jan 1, 1995).
On chem-ftp.mps.ohio-state.edu, the original files can be found in the
directory moviemol. (Compressed versions of the same files can be found
in the directory moviemol/compressed_files_dir. The PC files were
compressed with pkzip and the workstation files with tar and gzip.)


Several bugs in v1.0 have been corrected in v1.1. Among these are:

o Bonds displayed when ikeepbonds=1 are now shown correctly.
o The program no longer behaves unpredictably when the number of
  bonds from one atom exceeds 14.
o Pressing "PageUp" should now really imply "one frame forward" (="F").
o Atom labels in the postscript output can now contain up to 4 letters,
  as had been stated in the manual.
o The bug that made the key response sluggish in the IBM Risc version
  has been removed.


The new features and changes in v1.1 are:

x Display of cell edges (by specifying idisplaycell=1).
x New perspective mode. Setting the $cntrl-variable "ipersp" to 0
  implies that orthographic projection instead of perspective
  projection is used in the display. This means that there is no
  "depth" in the picture. This mode can be useful for displaying for
  example crystal structures.
  (A note: if you use ipersp=0 the zoom keys "I" and "O" will not be
  very useful, since in orthographic projection the size of the object
  is independent of the z coordinate. Scale the object with "(" and ")"
  instead.)
x Possibility to read atomic coordinates from standard input
  ("moviemol < ex.xyz"). This facilitates interfacing with e.g. MD programs
  to display coordinates as they are generated ("mdexe | moviemol").
  Specify ireadstdinp=1 in the $cntrl-file, which must be named
  "moviemol.ctl".
x Possibility to close and reopen the coordinate file when the end of file
  is reached. This can also be used for interfacing with other programs
  if these write their output on the coordinate file, since the updated file
  will then be displayed by moviemol. Specify icloseopen=1.

x New keys:

      X  rotate the object 90 degrees around the x-axis.
      Y             -"-                          y
      Z             -"-                          z

      #  displays the list number of each atom as in the current
         frame in the coordinate input file.

      W  write the current rotation and translation matrices to the
         file "moviemol.out", along with information of how some
         cntrl-variables are set.

      E  toggle "loop forEver" on/off (i.e. whether to continue from
         the first frame once the last frame is reached or not).
         (E does no longer mean "Exit").

x New cntrl variables:

      bondwidth(16)  The width of the displayed non-covalent bonds.
                     (The default is the same width as the covalent
                     bonds.)
      covbondwidth   The width of the displayed covalent bonds (same
                     as the old "bondthick").
      hbbondwidth    Same as "bondwidth(1)".
      chemsymb(500)  The chemical symbol of each atom type (Displayed
                     by pressing the key "T").
      icloseopen     Set to 1 to close and reopen coordinate file once
                     the end of the file has been reached (see above).
      idisplaycell   Set to 1 to display cell edges.
      imonochrome    Set to 1 if you do not have a colour monitor.
      ipersp         Set to 0 gives orthographic projection, see above.
      ireadstdinp    Set to 1 to read coordinates from standard input
                     (see above).
      xrotate        Rotate the object 'xrotate' degrees around the
                     x-axis before the first frame is displayed.
      yrotate, zrotate   As above.
      xrotstep, ...  The rotation step for rotations obtained by
                     pressing the key "X". Default 90 degrees.        

x A more consistent convention for naming variables has been adopted.
  For example, the variable "listdonor" is now called "bonddonor", and
  "distbondmax" is now called "bonddistmax". However, the old variables
  still work.

x More input examples (ex4-ex6).

x New manual in postscript format.
  

We are currently working on a version for Windows on PC, which we hope
(but do not promise) will be ready within the next few months.

We have managed to compile Moviemol for Sun and DEC vorkstations in
addition to the SGI and IBM Risc. In doing so, we had to link the program
with another graphics library than GL. We are currently investigating
whether the graphic library's license agreement allows us to distribute
these versions. If so, we will soon make them available.


Best regards,

Lars Ojamae & Kersti Hermansson
Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Uppsala University         
Box 531, S-751 21 Uppsala, Sweden  
Fax: +46 18 508542   Email: moviemol@kemi.uu.se 
