MView Introduction

MView is a tool for converting the results of a sequence database search (BLAST, FASTA, etc.) into the form of a coloured multiple alignment of hits stacked against the query. Alternatively, an existing multiple alignment (MSF, PIR, ClustalW2, etc.) can be processed. In either case, the output is simply HTML, so the result is platform independent and does not require a separate application or applet to be loaded. MView is NOT a multiple alignment program, nor is it a general purpose alignment editor.

Get the software

The latest version of the software is available free for FTP from
ftp://mathbio.nimr.mrc.ac.uk/pub/nbrown/MView/ as a UNIX gzipped tar archive . This document can be read at
http://bio-mview.sourceforge.net/.

Further information

Frequently Asked Questions
Example output
Change log

System requirements

MView and its underlying class libraries are implemented in Perl, version 5, for UNIX, and should be easily portable to other systems.

As of MView release 1.40, the code requires a minimum of perl version 5.004 and has been tested with 5.004_03/04 and 5.005_02. However, if you only have perl 5.003, you can run older versions of MView, also available from the ftp site.

Formatting and colouring of HTML alignments requires a fixed-width font (eg., Courier) and support for the <FONT> tag, so a recent version of a browser such as Netscape is recommended. In particular, use of style sheets as of MView release 1.40 requires that your browser supports HTML 4.0.

Citation If you use MView in your work, please cite:

Brown, N.P., Leroy C., Sander C. (1998). MView: A Web compatible database search or multiple alignment viewer. Bioinformatics. 14(4):380-381. HTML MEDLINE

Copyright and Licensing

MView and associated libraries are free software, subject to restrictions concerning commercial use. All users must adhere to the licensing terms, acceptance of which is implicit when the software is downloaded.