Hi, I would like the following feature:

I can currently load a pdb file from the command line using:

pdb:1oct

which is very convenient.

Now, I would love to have a feature where I could load a scop PDB file using:

scop:d1octc1

I am currently using the following code fragment to load scop PDB files, which are all available on the web:

PDBSTYLE_ADDRESS = "http://astral.stanford.edu/pdbstyle-1.59" domainfile = "%s/%s/%s.ent" % (PDBSTYLE_ADDRESS, self.domainName.get()[2:4], self.domainName.get()) print domainfile f = urllib.urlopen(domainfile) pdb = f.read() f.close() t = tempfile.mktemp() f = open(t, "w") f.write(pdb) f.close() mols = chimera.openModels.open(t, type="PDB")

A glance at the pdbstyle-1.59 page, http://astral.stanford.edu/pdbstyle-1.59.html also suggests that rather than retrieving by filename, this CGI script will retrieve the PDB file directly, without the need for knowing the directory structure schema:

<form method="get" action="pdbstyle.cgi"> <input type=submit value="Retrieve"> the PDB-style file for <b><font size=-1>SCOP</font></b> domain <input type ="text" maxlength=7 size=7 name=id> (i.e. "d1dlwa_")

I'm fairly confident the url won't change; I can check with the astral/scop developers to get an idea if this service will be consistent and that the interface is relatively stable. Thanks, Dave