Labeling atoms (LABEL)

Introduction.

There are in principle two different ways to label atoms or residues. The one is with world oriented labels, the other with screen oriented labels. World oriented labels are labels that have a fixed position with respect to the atom they belong to. This means that if you have a label besides a atom, and you then rotate the molecule 90 degrees around the X or Y axis, you will no longer be able to read the label because it is pointing into the screen. Screen oriented labels will always be parallel to the screen. So they are alway readable.

World oriented labels are normal MOL-items. That means that they can be moved around with the MOVITM option in the GRAFIC menu. These labels are meant for picture and plot purposes. The screen oriented labels are more for all day work. These are the labels that you get by default when you pick an atom. The special coding done to keep them screen oriented makes that you can not always do everything with them what you really want when you make pictures or plots.

Screen oriented labels

There are several ways to obtain screen oriented labels. The most straigth forward one is to give GO in the GRAFIC menu, and pick an atom. If you then pick an alpha carbon you get the residue type and number. If you pick another atom, the atom type and residue number will be shown.

If you first pick .YES and thereafter an atom, you will be prompted for the screen oriented label to be placed near the atom you picked. This label can be at most eigth characters long.

If you first pick .NO and thereafter an atom, you can only pick alpha carbons. In case you pick something else, you will get a warning, but nothing happens.

The picks of .YES or .NO stay active till you pick another menu command like eg. .WAIT.

Another way to label atoms is from the text terminal. The following options are available for screen oriented labels:

Remember that .NOID removes the picked labels from the screen.

Label residues (PCKRES)

The command PCKRES will cause WHAT IF to repeatedly prompt you for single residues. The residues you give will get their alpha carbon labeled with the residue type and the residue number. This is equivalent to picking the alpha carbon at the screen. (See above). As usual you should give 0 (zero) to stop being prompted for new residues.

Label atoms (PCKATM)

The command PCKATM will cause WHAT IF to prompt you for a residue. Thereafter all information about this atom will be shown to you. You will then be prompted for the atom in this residue to be labeled. The atom you give will be labeled just as if you picked it at the screen. (See above). WHAT IF will kepp prompting you for new residues till you give 0 (zero) somewhere.

Labeling a range of residues (PCKRNG)

The command PCKRNG will cause WHAT IF to prompt you for a residue range and for the number of residue to be skipped. If you answer this question with zero, then all alpha carbons in the given range will be labelled just as if you picked them at the screen. (See above). If you give 1 (one) as the skip value then every second one will be lebeled, etc.

Labeling residue types (PCKTYP)

The command PCKTYP will cause WHAT IF to prompt you for a residue range and for residue types. All alpha carbons of the requested residue types in the given range will be labelled just as if you picked them at the screen.

User defined screen oriented labels (PCKTXT)

The command PCKTXT will cause WHAT IF to prompt you for a residue. Thereafter all information about this residue will be shown. You will then be prompted for the atom in the residue to be labeled. Finally you will be prompted for the text to be put near this atom (in a screen oriented manner). This text may not exceed 8 characters. As usual, WHAT IF will keep prompting for new residues until you give 0 (zero) somewhere.

Removing the pick labels from the screen (PCKINI)

The command PCKINI is equivalent to picking .NOID at the PS300 screen command menu. It will cause WHAT IF to remove all screen oriented pick labels from the screen and from WHAT IF's memory. This command is irreversible.

Listing labels (SHOPCK)

The command SHOPCK will cause WHAT IF to tell you which labels are presently at the screen, what index in your colour map they have, and where (in X, Y and Z) they are.

Listing labels (MOVPCK)

The command MOVPCK will cause WHAT IF to tell you which labels are presently at the screen, and what index in your colour map they have.

You are than asked to give the number of a label, and you can add a translation to this label. If you give as translation 1.0 1.0 0.0 then that label will at the screen (and in subsequent plots) be placed 1 Angstrom along X and 1 Angstrom along Y away from its atom.

You will also be asked to give a new colour number. Here you give a whole number from 1 till 15. As I can not see from here how you set the lower entries of your colour map, I can not predict what colour the label will get. I suggest you experiment a bit....

If there is a colour that you like better than the default colour used by WHAT IF (normally red) you can put this colour number in the file ICONFI.FIG (see the installation notes about this file).

World oriented labels

In contrast to screen oriented lables, it is also possible to make world oriented labels. World stands for the world at the screen. These labels are handy if you want to put long texts in a plot, without having the text character crossing any atomic bonds for example. The informative value of these labels during working sessions is very low, since they are most of the times not readable at all.

However, these labels are MOL-items, therefore you can do every thing with them what is possible with items in general.

The following world view label options are available:

World view label single residues (LABRES)

The command LABRES will cause WHAT IF to prompt respectively for the residue, the text to put near the alpha carbon of this residue, the character scale, and the colour. Thereafter you will be prompted for the mol object number and the mol-item name.

As usual WHAT IF keeps prompting you for new input till you give 0 (zero).

You are suggested to look at the APLVIE command in the PORNO menu to see how you get the view at the screen such that the labels pop up orthogonal to the user, and thus readable...

World view label single residues (LABRNG)

The command LABRNG will cause WHAT IF to prompt respectively for the residue range, the text to put near the alpha carbons of these residues, the character scale, and the colour. Thereafter you will be prompted for the MOL-object number and the MOL-item name. All Alpha carbons in the given range will get the given text placed near to their alpha carbon.

You are suggested to look at the APLVIE command in the PORNO menu to see how you get the view at the screen such that the labels pop up orthogonal to the user, and thus readable...

World view label atoms (LABATM)

The command LABATM will cause WHAT IF to prompt respectively for the residue, the atom name, the text to put near the alpha carbon of this residue, the character scale, and the colour. Thereafter you will be prompted for the mol object number and the mol-item name. This option is not realy needed since you can of course use the LABRES option and then move the text to the desired position with the MOVITM option in the GRAFIC menu, but a little luxury can never be bad.

As usual WHAT IF keeps prompting you for new input till you give 0 (zero).

You are suggested to look at the APLVIE command in the PORNO menu to see how you get the view at the screen such that the labels pop up orthogonal to the user, and thus readable...

Other labeling options

Label residue range in 1-letter code (PCK1LC)

The option PCK1LC will prompt you for a range of residues. It puts a 1-letter code label indicating the residue type at every alpha carbon in this range. (The residue number is not indicated). WHAT IF can only display a limited number normal labels (normally the default parameter is set at 40). PCK1LC can display many more labels, typically this parameter is set at maximally 2000 1-letter code labels. (See also INI1LC).

These labels can not be operated on by the MOVPCK, neither can they be plotted. They are also not saved by the SAVSTA command in the SOUP menu.

Remove 1-letter code labels (INI1LC)

The option INI1LC will remove all the one letter code labels that were generated with the PCK1LC command (see PCK1LC above).