Hot Keys

When the mouse is in the graphics window, several more commands are accessible via programmable hot keys. They allow you to do things like change mouse modes or advance the animation by a frame by simply pressing a key. The default key bindings are listed in the following tables. The commands listed are the text commands which are executed when the hot key is pressed; these text commands are explained in section §.

VMD keeps a list of user hot keys, which when pressed will result in an associated text command being executed as if it had been typed at the console. There are a number of predefined hot keys, as listed in tables 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4. The current state of these can be printed out with the command

• user print keys

The commands attached to these hot keys can be customized by the user.

To add/modify a hot key, use the command

• user add key key command

key must be a single character. When that key is pressed while the mouse cursor is in the graphics display window, the associated command will be executed.

Once you have discovered a set of commands which are particularly useful and familiar for you, you will want to have these hot key commands automatically available every time you run VMD. This can be done by placing the commands to add these items in your .vmdrc file, which is a file containing VMD text commands that is executed every time VMD starts up. The basic method for setting up this file is described in section §. Once you have such a file, just put the user add commands in it, and you will have your own specialized version of VMD.

Table 4.1: Mouse control hot keys.

Hot Key	Command	Purpose
r, R	mouse mode 0 0	enter rotate mode; stop rotation
t, T	mouse mode 1 0	enter translate mode
s, S	mouse mode 2 0	enter scaling mode
0	mouse mode 4 0	query item
c	mouse mode 4 1	pick center
1	mouse mode 4 2	pick atom
2	mouse mode 4 3	pick bond (2 atoms)
3	mouse mode 4 4	pick angle (3 atoms)
4	mouse mode 4 5	pick dihedral (4 atoms)
5	mouse mode 4 6	move atom
6	mouse mode 4 7	move residue
7	mouse mode 4 8	move fragment
8	mouse mode 4 9	move molecule
9	mouse mode 4 13	move highlighted rep
%	mouse mode 4 10	force on atom
${}^\wedge$	mouse mode 4 11	force on residue
&	mouse mode 4 12	force on fragment

Table 4.2: Rotation & scaling hot keys.

Hot Key	Command	Purpose
x	rock x by 1 -1	spin about x axis
X	rock x by 1 70	rock about x axis
y	rock y by 1 -1	spin about y axis
Y	rock y by 1 70	rock about y axis
z	rock z by 1 -1	spin about z axis
Z	rock z by 1 70	rock about z axis
j, Cntl-n	rotate x by 2	rotate $2^{\circ}$ about x
k, Cntl-p	rotate x by -2	rotate $-2^{\circ}$ about x
l, Cntl-f	rotate y by 2	rotate $2^{\circ}$ about y
h, Cntl-b	rotate y by -2	rotate $-2^{\circ}$ about y
g	rotate z by 2	rotate $2^{\circ}$ about z
G	rotate z by -2	rotate $-2^{\circ}$ about z
Cntl-a	scale by 1.1	enlarge 10 percent
Cntl-z	scale by 0.9	shrink 10 percent

Table 4.3: Menu control hot keys.

Hot Key	Command	Purpose
Alt-M	menu main off;menu main on	Show main menu
Alt-m	menu mol off;menu mol on	Show mol menu
Alt-f	menu files off;menu files on	Show files menu
Alt-a	menu animate off;menu animate on	Show animate menu
Alt-e	menu edit off;menu edit on	Show edit menu
Alt-g	menu graphics off;menu graphics on	Show graphics menu
Alt-l	menu labels off;menu labels on	Show labels menu
Alt-r	menu render off;menu render on	Show render menu
Alt-d	menu display off;menu display on	Show display menu
Alt-c	menu color off;menu color on	Show color menu
Alt-s	menu sim off;menu sim on	Show sim menu
Alt-t	menu tracker off;menu tracker on	Show tracker menu
Cntl-r	display resetview	Reset display
Alt-q	quit confirm	Quit VMD with confirmation
Alt-Q	quit	Quit VMD
Alt-h	hyperref invert	Invert hyper text mode (NOT help)

Table 4.4: Animation hot keys.

Hot Key	Command	Purpose
+,f,F	animate next	move to next frame
-,b,B	animate prev	move to previous frame
.,>	animate forward	play animation forward
,	animate reverse	play animation reverse
<	animate reverse	play animation reverse
/, ?	animate pause	stop animation