JAM - Just Another Metafile

The new Genetics Computer Group Software version 8 has introduced a completely new Help-format: JAM
(The former versions used the common VMS helplibrary format)

So what to do?

The old help can be reached on our WEB-server with a helpscript, which formats .hlb-entries to HTML. The JAM-generator (as described below) can be used to format the site-accostumed entries to LaTeX or HTML (or plain text). I'm dealing with this (making the site-specific changes)now. The hypertext version of the GCGhelp is now available on this server (on the local help page). Also the version 7.* help is located there.

Why another format ?

The JAM format allows to adapt the guide to any individual site in a few minutes. All you need is to modify a few files and process these in the 'jam' processor, which is an application known to run on many opreating systems. The modifications are so easy that they can be made even by the end user.

What you get is what you deserve !

The JAM version of the guide can be used to produce RTF, LaTeX, or HTML files. If you want to add site-specific information or if you want to modify the guide, you must download the sourcefiles and the JAM source. JAM uses the NCBI VIBRANT Toolkit (Kahns et al., NCBI) which is required to compile and link the GUI version of the JAM processor. JAM compiles either with or without GUI on many platforms we use here (DEC VMS/OSF1, IRIX, Mac, Dos, Windows).

For more information on the JAM format, use this link.

Back to me!

alexander.binder@medunigraz.at