Magnus Manske wrote:
Whatever extension syntax we decide on, I hereby officially ask for the support of SMILES. SMILES are a simple (wiki-way!) syntax for describing molecular structures. For a tutorial and examples, see
http://www.daylight.com/dayhtml/smiles/smiles-intro.html
Automatic rendering should
- ease the addition of molecular structures to articles
- make uploaded structures obsolete (save space/avoid copyright
issues/reduce cluttering of image namespace)
- unified look'n'feel
There appears to be a toolkit at http://www.daylight.com/products/smiles_kit.html but I didn't look into it yet. There is also a Java app that can render SMILES into PNG, somwhere...
Magnus
I agree, SMILES looks excellent as a way of representing chemical diagrams as remarkably short and editable strings.
So, we would have something like...
---- QUOTE ----
Ethanol's [[chemical formula]] is [[Carbon|C]]<sub>2</sub>[[Hydrogen|H]]<sub>5</sub>[[hydroxyl|OH]] and its molecular structure is
:<smiles>CCO</smiles>
---- UNQUOTE ----
The Java app appears to be http://www.molinspiration.com/docu/mitools.html
Both appear to be closed-source software. Is there an open/free implementation of a SMILES renderer anywhere?
Perhaps this would make a good term project for a Computer Science student?
Can any of the existing TeX packages be used / adapted for this?
-- Neil