- 1.7
- 1.6
- 1.5
- Beta
- Examples (for 1.6a)
- Misc
From a shell, running Aten with no arguments will start up the code in GUI mode and patiently wait for something nice to happen. If model files are provided on the command line, these will be loaded in so that, when the GUI starts, they may be hacked apart according to your desired tastes. The command-line is also a powerful way of editing without using the GUI at all. What follows is a description of the usage of command-line arguments, and a list of all recognised arguments.
Two important things. Firstly, short options (e.g. '-b', '-d', etc.) may not be concatenated into one long specification of a short option (i.e. '-bd') - they must be given separately as '-b -d' or they will not be recognised. Secondly, the order of the given switches is important! Commonly, the actions of command-line switches and arguments do not depend on order, however in Aten this is not the case. For example:
bob@pc:~> aten --nobond test1.xyz test2.xyz
will load the models 'test1.xyz' and 'test2.xyz', preventing recalculation of bonds between atoms in both. However:
bob@pc:~> aten test1.xyz --nobond test2.xyz
will only prevent recalculation of bonds for the second model. The reason for acting on switches and arguments in the order they are encountered on the command line is to allow for flexibility, especially when using Aten as a non-graphical processor (for examples of this type of usage, see the resources section of the website).
Note: The position of debug switches or those affecting the verbosity of the program has no bearing on the timeliness of their effect - they are dealt with first by Aten regardless of where they appear in the program's arguments.