In Schrödinger Suite 2010, scheduled for release later this spring, longtime Maestro users will notice a few obvious changes the first time they launch the software. Not only does Maestro 9.1 implement many commonly requested features, the menus themselves have been substantially revised. The changes are organizational in nature – all of the tried-and-true old features are still there – but they’ve been grouped in a way that’s more intuitive. Below, we highlight a few features implemented in response to our most frequent user feedback.
Revised menus
A revised menu layout is perhaps the most obviously apparent change in Maestro 9.1. Many new features have been added to Maestro over the years, and as features were incrementally added, menu items were placed in the context of earlier menu layouts.
In Maestro 9.1, menu items have been reorganized so that the hierarchy better corresponds not just to the program’s current feature set, but to the way that chemists do their work. The new arrangement is designed to be very intuitive – long-time users won't need much time to adapt to the new layout at all.
The changes include:
- A new View menu. This menu controls Workspace views – Workspace orientation and zoom level, clipping, stereo 3D, and other effects.
- A new Workspace menu. The Workspace menu allows you to adjust the appearance of objects in the Workspace. Items in this menu allow you to color atoms and bonds, create and adjust surfaces, label atoms, and more.
- A new Window menu. This menu allows you to manage the panel layout.
In addition to the changes that you'll notice straight away, the new Customize Menus interface allows you to move items from menu to another, and even add new menu items for custom Python scripts. You can also assign or change custom shortcut keys for any menu item, including drop-down menus in the Maestro toolbar.
Save multiple views
Maestro has long supported the ability to save and restore views – a particular orientation, zoom level, and clipping of the Workspace contents. However, this feature was somewhat limited by the fact that only one view could be saved at a time. The new Views feature in Maestro 9.1 is a significant enhancement over the old version. Users can save and name an arbitrary number of views, and even export them as movies. This is especially useful when working with large, complex structures: after saving an ideal view of a target's active site, it's a simple and nearly instant task to restore that saved view after examining protein-ligand interactions from other vantage points. Views are saved as part of a Maestro project, so they'll be there whenever you resume work on a saved project.
Scenes
Anybody who uses modeling tools to explain hypotheses or simulation results to colleagues will likely be interested in Maestro 9.1's ability to save "scenes." A saved scene is like a saved view, but it's a bit more inclusive. Unlike a saved view, a saved scene stores a snapshot of everything in the Workspace, including structures, surfaces, and representation modes. This is an ideal mode for sharing a step-by-step overview of your project. Simply save the scenes one at a time, and then export a presentation – a zipped Maestro project that only contains your saved scenes. When your colleague opens the zipped project, he or she can simply step through the saved scenes.
Improved tiling
Although previous versions of Maestro supported tiling, the ability to view a collection of structures in a grid form, the feature has been greatly enhanced in Maestro 9.1. Each tiled structure now exists in its own "Workspace," and structures in the grid can be rotated independently or in unison. Tiling mode can now be turned on and off without changing the coordinates of your structures – in other words, if you tile a series of target-bound ligands, they'll still be placed in the target's active site when you turn off tiling.
Find toolbars
As modeling methods are employed for more and more tasks, Maestro users may see their projects grow in size and complexity. Managing large numbers of structures – or finding certain substructures in large models, for that matter – is significantly easier in Maestro 9.1 with the new Find toolbars. The search settings are self-explanatory; just press Ctrl+F to bring up the toolbar and then run your search.
Additional new features in Maestro 9.1 include:
- The ability to cut, copy, and paste atoms in the Workspace
- Select entries by matching to a SMARTS pattern
- Manually edit any atom property
- Track or rank entries by marking them with one, two, or three stars