Hi Madi, As I understand it, selecting any part of a residue, even one atom, means that the residue is selected, and hence also the ribbon representation of the residue is shown with a selection outline. The "suppress" option only controls whether the backbone atoms can be displayed at the same time as the ribbon representation. It has nothing to do with the selection outline. If you really want to show both ribbon and atoms but only put a selection outline on the atoms, my only idea is to open the structure twice. In one copy show the ribbon but not the atoms, in the other copy show the atoms (with certain ones selected) but not the ribbon. Example commands: open 1zik open 1zik hide #2 ribbons show #2 & sidechain hide #2.1 select #2:tyr When you show the sidechains only of #2 in the above example, there are "chain trace" pseudobonds model #2.1 shown as thin lines connecting the alpha-carbons. That's why I have I have "hide #2.1" --- to get rid of the chain trace. You can see what models you have in the Models list, by using the disclosure triangle to see submodels of models. I hope this helps, Elaine ----- Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D. UCSF Chimera(X) team Resource for Biocomputing, Visualization, and Informatics Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry University of California, San Francisco

On Sep 2, 2025, at 12:26 PM, Madi McCloud via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:

Hello all! I can't seem to figure out how to apply selected graphics to give a silhouette on residues of interest without it adding a silhouette to the side chain and the respective backbone cartoon. Is it possible to just select the sidechain atoms only? I've tried my usual tricks but can't seem to get it to work. I've tried "cartoon suppress true" & selecting the individual atoms of the sidechain but it always also selects the cartoon backbone.

Thanks! Madi _______________________________________________ ChimeraX-users mailing list -- chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu To unsubscribe send an email to chimerax-users-leave@cgl.ucsf.edu Archives: https://mail.cgl.ucsf.edu/mailman/archives/list/chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu/