Core Text Commands

Table 8.1: Summary of core text commands in VMD.

First Word	Description
animate	Play/Pause/Rewind a molecular trajectory.
axes	Position a set of XYZ axes on the screen.
color	Change the color assigned to molecules, or edit the colormap.
colorinfo	(Tcl) Obtain color properties for various objects
debug	Turn on/off printing of debugging messages.
display	Change various aspects of the graphical display window.
echo	Turn on/off echoing of text commands to the console.
exit, quit	Quit VMD.
help	Display an on-line help file with an HTML viewer.
imd	Control the connection to a remote simulation.
logfile	Turn on/off logging a VMD session to a log file.
label	Turn on/off labels for atoms, bonds, angles, or dihedral angles.
light	Control the light sources used to illuminate graphical objects.
material	Create new material definitions and modify their settings.
menu	Control or query the on-screen GUI menu forms.
molecule or mol	Load, modify, or delete a molecule in VMD.
mouse	Change the current state (mode) of the mouse.
play or run	Start executing text commands from a specified file.
render	Output the currently displayed image (scene) to a file.
rock	Rotate the current scene continually at a specified rate.
rotate	Rotate the current scene around a given axis by a certain angle.
scale	Scale the current scene up or down.
stage	Position a checkerboard stage on the screen.
tool	Initialize and control external spatial tracking devices.
translate	Translate the objects in the current scene.
user	Add new keyboard commands.
vmdinfo	(Tcl) Get information about this version of VMD
wait	Wait a number of seconds before reading another command. Animation continues.
sleep	Sleep a number of seconds before reading another command. Animation is frozen.

All text commands in VMD are composed of one or more words or phrases separated by white space, and terminated by a newline. Since the parser now uses Tcl, a ``phrase'' is text surrounded by double quotes or by a matching set of open and close braces. (Please read the Tcl manual to better understand what constitutes the end of a statement.) The first word of each command indicates the general purpose for the command, and the following words specify the exact type of command to execute. Table 8.1 summarizes the text commands in VMD by listing the first words, and describing the general purpose for commands starting with those words. Since VMD can be compiled with optionally included components and features, commands labeled optional may not be available in your version of VMD.

The commands described in the following sections are listed by name, and followed by a list of the available arguments. If an argument is optional, it is enclosed in []s. If only one of a list of arguments is needed, the list is enclosed in <>s and the items are separated by |. Words in italics indicate a string or value to be specified by the user.