Dear Bill,, On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 07:18:05PM -0700, William G. Scott wrote: > I'm actually one of those whom has struggled unsuccessfully to install > Sharp. I can't even remember why, and I am certain it was entirely my > fault, but this did get me wondering...
I guess this is often a more general problem: when we're dealing with a crystallographic problem that our current set of practices doesn't deal satisfactorily with and we would like to try out another program, this is usually also a time of great stress and pressure (competitors, supervisors, finishing PhD etc). Ideally one would want to install and learn how to use a new software package when there is a half day or day time ... seldom happens. Without getting into details of installation, usually (> 90%) it is enough to download our packages and then run "./installSHARP -F". I might be wrong - but this could be a problem of not getting enough feedback about failed attempts (time pressure?). So please tell us about installation problems (or any problems) - hopefully this is a small price to pay for getting the software for free. If you feel like sending us positive feedback - even better (especially since crystallographic software doesn't get citations anymore these days ... maybe hidden in supplementary material that isn't easily visible through any search system I know of). > mlphare and MIR/MAD phasing seems to me the weak point in the ccp4 > distribution. (I've often switched over to CNS to calculate phases and > solvent-flatten them.) > > Is there any chance your team might be inspired, persuaded or bribed to > create a drop-in replacement for mlphare, maybe a "sharp light" for > boneheads like me? Something that uses the same I/O and interface as ccp4? A drop-in replacement would be very tricky: the concepts of SHARP are quite different (there is no such thing as 'native' or 'derivative') - but this adds a huge amount of flexibility. However, in the next 6.1 release there will be a autoSHARP CCP4i interface already in the CCP4 distribution (it's already there in the latest 6.0.99 prerelease or the CVS sources). Although this will still require the installation of SHARP/autoSHARP itself, at least one could run autoSHARP without the need of running a httpd. But be aware that using the CCP4i interface does limit you somewhat - a lot of the additional tools (regarding density modification, checking/finding sites via LLG maps, fine-tuning SHARP and viewing maps directly) aren't easily accessible this way. But autoSHARP should deal with all the situations that mlphare etc are dealing with: SIRAS, SAD, MIRAS, MAD etc. And if you want to do (or need to do) MAD+native+derivative or TaBr-cluster phasing or site-specific radiation damage or other more complex phasing scenarios: SHARP itself is the tool for doing all that. Cheers Clemens -- *************************************************************** * Clemens Vonrhein, Ph.D. vonrhein AT GlobalPhasing DOT com * * Global Phasing Ltd. * Sheraton House, Castle Park * Cambridge CB3 0AX, UK *-------------------------------------------------------------- * BUSTER Development Group (http://www.globalphasing.com) ***************************************************************
