From version 2.11.3.0 Jalview processes a new set of command line arguments which allow more powerful and flexible combinations of arguments, though can also be used for very simple use cases too.
These new arguments are all accessed with a --doubledash
form of
command line argument (with the one exception where simply opening one or more
files can be performed without any arguments other than the filenames).
The old command line arguments can still be used (see the old page on command line arguments) so existing scripts utilising them should not break.
However, you cannot mix old and new style arguments, so if you use any
-singledash
arguments, they will all be interpreted as
old style arguments with the new --doubledash
arguments being ignored. If you have a script
that uses the old arguments without any dashes, and uses the bare-word
open
then these will also be interpreted as old style arguments.
Note! If you use command line arguments without any dashes and
don't use the bare-word argument open
then all
your arguments will be interpreted as alignment files to be opened by the
new command line argument process.
Not everything that can be done with the old arguments is currently implemented in the new arguments but functionality of the new command line arguments will increase over releases. Significant new functionality, particularly allowing batch processing of files, is available in the new arguments.
To launch Jalview from the command line, see running Jalview from the command line.
Jalview no longer necessarily processes arguments sequentially, although
in typical use cases you may still want to think of it as doing so.
For more advanced use please see
Advanced Command Line Arguments.
--open
, --append
, --new
)To simply open one or more alignment files in different frames just put the filenames as the first arguments:
jalview filename1 filename2 ...
You can use shell-expanded wildcards:
jalview this/filename* that/filename* other/filename*and URLs:
jalview https://rest.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/P00221.fasta
(Using initial filenames is the same as using the --open
argument, and further arguments can be used
after the initial filenames.)
--open
Use the --open
argument to open alignment files each in their own frame.
The following are equivalent:
jalview --open filename1 filename2 ... jalview --open filename* jalview --open filename1 --open filename2 --open ... jalview filename1 filename2 ...
Similarly you can open URLs:
jalview --open https://rest.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/P00221.fasta
--append
To append several alignment files together use:
jalview --open filename1.fa --append filename2.fa filename3.faor, if you haven't previously used
--open
then you can use --append to open one new frame and keep appending each set of alignments:
jalview --append these/filename*.fa --append more/filename*.fa jalview --append https://rest.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/P00221.fasta https://www.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/A0A0K9QVB3/entry
Note that whilst you can include a Jalview Project File (.jvp
) as an --append
value, the items in the file will always open in their original frames and not append to another.
--new
To append different sets of alignment files in different frames, use --new
to move on to a new alignment frame:
jalview --append these/filename*.fa --new --append other/filename*.fa
--open
is like using --new --append
applied to every filename/URL given to --open
--colour, --wrap
)--colour
You can specify a residue/base colouring for the alignment using the --colour
option (note spelling -- Jalview is made in Scotland!):
jalview --open examples/uniref50.fa --colour gecos-flowerThere are several colour schemes that you can use. See the page on Colour Schemes for details. The names to use on the command line for colour schemes are:
clustal
,
blosum62
,
pc-identity
,
zappo
,
taylor
,
gecos-flower
,
gecos-blossom
,
gecos-sunset
,
gecos-ocean
,
hydrophobic
,
helix-propensity
,
strand-propensity
,
turn-propensity
,
buried-index
,
nucleotide
,
nucleotide-ambiguity
,
purine-pyrimidine
,
rna-helices
,
t-coffee-scores
,
sequence-id
--wrap
An alignment should open with your usual preferences stored in the .jalview_properties
file. To open an alignment with the sequences (definitely) wrapped, following your --open
(or first --append
) argument use the argument --wrap
:
jalview --open examples/uniref50.fa --wrapTo ensure an alignment is not wrapped use
--nowrap
:
jalview --open examples/uniref50.fa --nowrap
--annotations
You can specify whether the currently opened alignment frame should show alignment annotations (e.g. Conservation, Quality, Consensus...) or not with either --annotations
or --noannotations
. If you don't specify then your saved preference will be used.
jalview --open examples/uniref50.fa --noannotations
--title
If you would like to give the alignment frame a specific title you can do so with the --title
option:
jalview --open examples/uniref50.fa --title "My example alignment"
--structure
You can add a 3D structure file to a sequence in the current alignment frame with the --structure
option:
jalview --open examples/uniref50.fa --structure examples/AlphaFold/AF-P00221-F1-model_v4.pdb
seqid
:
By default this attaches to the first sequence in the alignment but most likely you will want to attach it to another sequence.
To do this you can specify a sub-value with the sequence ID, by preceding the value with square brackets and seqid=SequenceId
like this:
jalview --open examples/uniref50.fa --structure [seqid=FER1_SPIOL]examples/AlphaFold/AF-P00221-F1-model_v4.pdbRemember that you might need to escape any spaces in the sequence ID or enclose the ID in quotation marks.
index
:
You can alternatively specify the (zero-indexed) index of the sequence within the alignment, although this is less precise. So to attach the structure to the 8th sequence use:
jalview --open examples/uniref50.fa --structure [7]examples/AlphaFold/AF-P00221-F1-model_v4.pdb
viewer
:
You can specify which structure viewer (or not) to use to open the structure using the viewer
sub-value. Multiple sub-values can be specified, separated by a comma ','. Possible values for the viewer
sub-value are:
none
,
jmol
,
chimera
,
chimerax
,
pymol
.
none
and jmol
will always be available, but to use the others you must have the appropriate software already set up on your computer and in Jalview. See the page Discovering and Viewing PDB and 3D-Beacons structures for more details.
jalview --open examples/uniref50.fa --structure [seqid=FER1_SPIOL,viewer=none]examples/AlphaFold/AF-P00221-F1-model_v4.pdb
)
--
Jalview processes arguments on the command line sequentially. If
you would like to pass a 'JVL' file containing
memory settings or any other launch
parameters, then include it at the beginning of the command line to
ensure they are processed before any remaining arguments.
Typical command line execution follows the following pattern:
jalview -open <Alignment File/URL> [additional import arguments] [export arguments]
-nodisplay |
Run Jalview without
User Interface. (automatically disables questionnaire, version
and usage stats checks) |
-nowebservicediscovery |
Do not query configured servers to
discover web services (Since 2.11.2.0) |
-open FILE/URL |
Specify the alignment file to
open or process by providing additional arguments. |
-props FILE/URL |
Use the given Jalview properties
file instead of users default. |
-setprop PROPERTY=value |
(JalviewJS ONLY) sets the given
property to the given value |
-features FILE/URL |
Use the given file to add sequence features to an alignment. See Features File (Known as Groups file prior to 2.08) description. |
-colour COLOURSCHEME
|
Set the colourscheme for the alignment. This can be any of the built-in colourschemes, a name of a predefined colourscheme (defined in the Jalview properties file), or an 'inline' colourscheme (see the applet's colour parameter for more information). |
-annotations FILE/URL
|
Add precalculated annotations to the alignment. See Annotation File description. |
-no-annotation
|
Do not display annotation below the alignment. |
-tree FILE/URL
|
Load the given newick format tree file
onto the alignment
|
-questionnaire URL
|
Queries the given URL for information
about any Jalview user questionnaires
|
-noquestionnaire
|
Turn off questionnaire check
|
-nonews
|
Disable check for Jalview
news on startup (not recommended other than for classroom /
demo usage)
|
-nousagestats
|
Turn off google analytics usage tracking
|
-[no]sortbytree
|
Enable or disable automatic sorting of
associated view when a new tree is displayed
|
-groovy FILE/URL
|
Execute groovy script in FILE (where
FILE may be 'STDIN' to read from the standard input) after all
other arguments have been processed
|
-jabaws URL
|
Specify the URL of the preferred JABAWS
server
|
-fasta FILE
|
Create alignment file FILE in Fasta
format.
|
-clustal FILE |
Create alignment file FILE in
Clustal format. |
-msf FILE |
Create alignment file FILE in MSF
format. |
-pileup FILE |
Create alignment file FILE in
Pileup format. |
-pir FILE |
Create alignment file FILE in PIR
format. |
-pfam FILE |
Create alignment file FILE in
PFAM format. |
-blc FILE |
Create alignment file FILE in BLC
format. |
-json FILE |
Create alignment file FILE in
JSON format. |
-jalview FILE |
Create alignment file FILE in
Jalview format. |
-png FILE |
Create PNG image FILE from
alignment. |
-imgMap FILE |
Create HTML file FILE with image
map of PNG image. |
-eps FILE |
Create EPS file FILE from
alignment. |
-svg FILE |
Create Scalable Vector Graphics
file FILE from alignment. |
-biojsMSA FILE |
Write an HTML page to display
the alignment with the
BioJS MSAviewer MSA
|
-jvmmempc=PERCENT |
Only available with standalone executable jar or jalview.bin.Launcher.
Limit maximum heap size (memory) to PERCENT% of total physical memory detected.
This defaults to 90 if total physical memory can be detected.
See Memory usage settings for Jalview for more details.
|
-jvmmemmax=MAXMEMORY |
Only available with standalone executable jar or jalview.bin.Launcher.
Limit maximum heap size (memory) to MAXMEMORY. MAXMEMORY can be specified in bytes, kilobytes(k), megabytes(m),
gigabytes(g) or if you're lucky enough, terabytes(t).
This defaults to 32g if total physical memory can be detected, or to 8g if total physical memory cannot be detected.
See Memory usage settings for Jalview for more details.
|