Welcome to Molsketch!

Pick your version and download! Currently, there is an installer offered for Microsoft Windows platform and source code for all other platforms. For Linux please note that your distribution may already provide a pre-packaged version.

Windows Installer

Starting from version Oxygen-17 0.7.2, the Windows installer is capable of updating using online repositories hosted at github.com. Hence, the installer will not be updated along with the regular Molsketch version, but will retrieve updates from these repositories. It is not necessary to re-download the installer for updating: just start the Molsketch installer from the start menu and select the update option.

Molsketch files

Molsketch has been restructured from its original version. Old versions are available in the Molsketch directory.

Version Oxygen-17 0.7.2

• Update location of OpenBabel adapter when updating Molsketch
• Minor fixes in translations build (cmake)

Version Oxygen-16 0.7.1

• Copy and cut actions also copy SVG image
• Fixed compilation with Qt 5 versions before Qt 5.14
• Fixed inclusion of translations for library part for qmake build
• Fixed inclusion of all translations for cmake build
• Fixed crashes/errors during copy/cut/paste and when opening files
• Windows: added installer
• Removed support for Qt 4; filenames changed!

Auxiliary files (Versions up to and including 0.7.0)

Important: Certain functionalities in Molsketch (mainly exporting to various file formats and import of molecules from Wikidata) rely on Open Babel, which in turn depends on some other basic libraries. Since these libraries are usually harder to obtain for Windows users, a compilation of those shared libraries and Open Babel format files is provided in the "Auxiliary" folder.

Version 0.7.0 Oxygen

• New localizations: Greek, German, and Chinese
• Direction of attached hydrogen atoms can be set explicitly by user
• Atom shape can also be a circle instead of a rectangle
• Bitmap export with adjustable resolution
• Support OpenBabel 3
• Fixes for sum formula and molecule tooltip
• Fix clipping of bonds
• Fixed OpenBabel support

Version 0.6.0 Nitrogen

• Levels on which items are drawn are accessible; bonds are indicated to cover other bonds if on higher level
• Broken bond indicator with same color as rest of bond
• Show sum formula of molecule during hover and after selection
• Closable wiki query
• Improved performance for drag-and-drop insertion of molecules
• Associated *.msm files with Molsketch
• Fixed crashes after undo/redo (changed linkage between molecule, bonds, atoms)
• Fixed global preferences (accidentally had no effect)
• Fixed number of hydrogens and charge in saving/loading molecules

Version 0.5.1 Boron-10

• Newman radius of atom to draw Newman-type projections
• New tools for aligning, spacing, and cleaning up molecules
• Better encapsulate calls to OpenBabel to avoid crashes
• Several fixes to qmake/cmake installation of files (including MIME types)

Version Boron 0.5.0

• change log displayed on startup
• lone pairs and radical electrons
• selection by type (not yet really useful as properties are usually edited only for single items)
• querying Wikidata for chemical structures (requires OpenBabel and InChI support)
• new packaging of Windows libraries (mainly OpenBabel)

Version Beryllium-7 0.4.1

• added text tool
• made cmake build possible without OpenBabel
• fixed import of legacy (pre-Lithium 0.3.0) stereo bonds

Version Beryllium 0.4.0

Usage improvements

• double bonds can now be chosen to be asymmetric/symmetric (legacy bonds will be converted upon opening a file)
• broken bonds (just delete the symbol of the atom at the "broken" end)
• frames/brackets: either as stand-alone items or for specific molecules via their context menu
• properties dock window for arrows, molecules, and atoms
• molecule library feature has been reworked: molecule libraries are now simply folders

Technical changes

• Qt4 will no longer be supported
• there will not be any Android build until there is time to improve its usability
• "windows dynamic" build will also take some more time to set up again
• tests are no longer part of the main distribution, but are a separate GitHub repo
• likewise, the molecule library has been removed from the project, likely to be replaced by a more generic version

Version Lithium-6 0.3.1

Unfortunately, and I (hvennek) sincerely apologize for that, there were some rather severe bugs in this version, which effectively renders almost useless. In preparation of the next version (Lithium-7 0.3.2 or Beryllium 0.4.0), these bugs have been fixed. There is a snapshot of that next version and I'd recommend using it instead, although some refinement in the treatment of the molecule library (which will be changed to use Molsketch's native format) is still to be done. Due to some issues in setting up my build system, I cannot provide a dynamic windows version at this time.

New features in queue (possibly for 0.4.0)

• broken bonds (e.g. "H3C-CH2-|")
• new format for text in atoms (allowing superscripts, isotopic numbers)
• flip stereo bonds
• molecule library working again

New version Lithium 0.3.0

After fixing some crashes and re-enabling settings, there is a new release version 0.3.0. Keep in mind that there will still be issues; any help in finding them is gratefully appreciated!

Types of files provided

• Windows static version (for use without Qt and without OpenBabel support) -- If you don't know the difference between "static" and "dynamic", you want static.
• Windows dynamic (requires Qt5, can be used with OpenBabel for additional file formats and other features)
• source (if you want/need to compile yourself)
• thanks to Qt for Android, there is also a very experimental version for android, but it requires at least API level 18 (Android 4.3 Jelly Bean MR2)

Snapshots

Snapshots of the next release(s) and developmental builds can be found in the snapshots directory. Please be advised that these are in a somewhat volatile state.

Keep in mind that these versions are not stable, but best efforts are undertaken to at least make the file format compatible with future versions. If you stumble over any bugs, please report them (Tickets section above).

Snapshots are also provided to give users an idea of what is being worked on. Feedback is greatly appreciated. (Also: try out the GitHub repository).