Hi Steve,
You might want to review the documentation on atom specification, but briefly: what follows an '@' sign has to be the atom name.  If you want to use the atom's element type or IDATM type, you don't precede it with '@', so:

sel H Selects all hydrogens (element H)
del Fe Deletes all irons (element Fe)
hide HC Hides all hydrogens bonded to carbon (IDATM type HC)

--Eric

Eric Pettersen
UCSF Computer Graphics Lab


On Jul 28, 2026, at 4:58 AM, Steven Brawer via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:

Newbie:

I ran

open 2zcp
delete /B
delete solvent

hide cartoons
show atoms


addh #1 hbond false  ----------- lots of H atoms,  colored white by default

color @HC pink   ------    NOTHING HAPPENS
hide @HC ---------  NOTHING HAPPENS
hide #1 @HC ---------  NOTHING HAPPENS
select @HC  ---------  NOTHING HAPPENS
select #1 @HC  ---------  NOTHING HAPPENS

delete #1 @H ------   does not work either.

How can I hide or delete the hydrogens?

My understanding (from the documentation) is that HC denotes hydrogens bonded to carbons, H denotes hydrogens bonded to N or O (as appropriate)

The following DOES work (sanity check)
select C3
delete sel


Thanks

Steve
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