Chemistry Drawings

This weekend was supposed to be a time to relax, but I have many things to rant about!

I was trying to install a 2-D molecule drawing program. It is called XDrawChem. There were several system requirements:

• Qt by Nokia - website
• OpenBabel - website
• C++ Compiler - website
• BUILD3D - found under XDrawChem Sourceforge site.

I didn't read the introduction page about XDrawChem carefully. In the first paragraph there is a link saying 'Windows'. That link would allow a 5-min download for WinDrawChem.

What I did download were:

• The UNIX version, which does't run on my operating system;
• Qt, a 1.6 GB download that finished my bandwidth quota for the month;
• OpenBabel at dial up speed;
• C++ compiler at snail's pace;
• BUILD3D way after my bed time :'(

Just now I downloaded and installed WinDrawChem. It crashed when I input SMILES or try to open an example. I wish I know more about computers.

Half an hour of hair pulling later...

I can use it now. The import function has some bugs but a partially working application is better than none. Yay!