The Files form is used to load a file from disk. It is opened by selecting Load Molecule ... in the Main form. To use this form, first select the file with the file browser or by typing the filename into the text entry area. By default VMD will try to guess the type of file you are loading by matching the filename extension with one of the file reader plugins in the file type list (the available file types are described in section §). If VMD is unable to guess the appropriate file type or guesses incorrectly, you must select it from the list manually.
If the file being loaded is intended for a new molecule select New Molecule at the top of the form. If the file being loaded contains additional simulation time steps, electron density map, or other ancillary data for an existing molecule, choose the appropriate molecule from the selection list at the top of the form. If the file being loaded contains trajectory timesteps, you have the option of loading a subset of the trajectory skipping ranges or strides of timesteps rather than the whole thing. You can also select for VMD to load all timesteps before continuing on, or to load them in the background so that you may continue to interact with the menus and forms while it loads additional timesteps. If the file being loaded contains multiple volumetric data, you may select which data sets you would like to load.
Once you have selected the file to be loaded, the appropriate file type, and the way it will be loaded, press the Load button and VMD will being loading the selected file. Any informational messages, errors or warnings which occur while loading the file will appear in the text window.
By default, VMD will load all of the timesteps contained in a coordinate or trajectory file.
Sometimes you may not want to read in a whole coordinate or trajectory file. For example, you may only want the last frame, or every tenth frame. You can do this by changing the options in the Timesteps control of Files form. The Timesteps controls consist of three numeric input fields labeled Begin, End, and Skip. These make it possible to use a subset of the frames, starting at frame Begin and selecting every Skip frames until the End is reached. For instance, to select every fifth frame between frames 14 and 98, set:
(Remember that frame numbers in VMD start at 0, so frame 0 is the first frame.) The value `-1' is a special number; setting Begin to -1 is the same as starting at the first frame, End = -1 is the same as ending at the last frame, and Skip = -1 is the same as taking one step.
