Dear All, RasTop has found a new home on sourceforge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/rastop/. A release package, version 2.2, is available for download and the source is accessible through a subversion repository. I came recently to the conclusion that this was the best opportunity for this software to continue its road as it becomes quite clear that I don't have the time anymore to take care of it. Just to remind you, RasTop is a molecular visualization software derived from rasmol. Its main characteristics are a very friendly graphical user interface and the possibility to save working sessions for latter uses. Otherwise RasTop is pretty much like rasmol and uses similar scripting methods. In term of statistic, RasTop has a download rate of 10,000 per year which hasn't changed much over the last 3 to 4 years. There is also a French version which is a sort of standard in school although I lost contact with the person who developped it. After calculation (following a recent a hot thread of Molvist list (http://bioinformatics.org/lists/molvis-list in the last few days regarding download statistics of varied molecuar visualization packages), it appears that around 10% of all rasmol users are in fact RasTop users! Bravo! At the center of the software package, we have the rasmol molecular engine written in c, essentially by Roger Sayle (see www.rasmol.org for history). The piece almost acts like a library and is completely independent from the GUI; it is slightly improved over the current rasmol version for handling multiple molecules and has a rendering a little better (although this has nothing to compare of course with software based on OpenGL or other dedicated graphics libraries). The user interface is in c++ based on Microsoft Foundation Classes and has been mostly written by myself. The restriction to Windows and use of MFCs has certainly created an obstacle for larger developments but it wouldn't be too difficult to port the user interface to a different langage. The possibilities of extension are countless and a community of users is certainely lacking, but there is definitively a number fans waiting for it. Anyway, if you feel that this is a project you would like to take care in part or in all, please let me know. There is room for new ports, new translations, new improvments, a new web site (the current one needs a new home), a community, and most of all, new *administrators*. Just contact me. Thanks, Philippe Valadon