Installing the Jmol Applet on a Server

Because Jmol/JSmol functionality depends on a either the JSmol javascript code or the Jmol Java applet, it is only easy to install pages containing Jmol/JSmol on plain vanilla web servers (ie. Apache, ngnix).  These instructions may not work for Microsoft servers (anybody with access to one who tests this let me know the results). If you are using a content management system (CMS) these instructions are likely to fail as most CMS installations don't allow random applets or javascript to function within them.  CMSs are also difficult to load a whole directory structure into.  Some of the Jmol team is working on embedding Jmol in wikis (see the Jmol wiki for more information). If you do not know how to add content to your web server you should discuss this with your web administrator before attempting to install Jmol or pages that use Jmol.

You will need to load a number of files onto your server.  The best way to accomplish this is to make an ftp or sftp connection to your web server.
Some possible software choices for file transfer are Filezilla for Windows, MacOS or LINUX, MacOS Finder for ftp, Fugu for sftp on MacOS, and the standard fileviewer in most LINUX distributions.

Upload the jsmol.zip file onto your server in the appropriate place, usually somewhere near the top of the directory structure you have access to.  Then unzip jsmol.zip.  This will create a directory with both the javascript and Java applets you need to serve the javascript of Java version of Jmol/JSmol.  You only need to do this once or if you want to upgrade.  Make sure you know where you are installing the jsmol directory as you will have to specify the path to Jmol/JSmol in web pages you create.

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Last Update: February 3, 2014
Expires: --
by J. Gutow