A Web interface generator for molecular biology programs in Unix

Catherine Letondal (1)

1 IP - Institut Pasteur [Paris]

Motivation: Almost all users encounter problems using sequence analysis programs. Not only are they difficult to learn because of the parameters, syntax and semantic , but many are different. That is why we have developed a Web interface generator for more than 150 molecular biology command-line driven programs, including: phy-logeny, gene prediction, alignment, RNA, DNA and protein analysis, motif discovery, structure analysis and database searching programs. The generator uses XML as a high-level description language of the legacy software parameters. Its aim is to provide users with the equivalent of a basic Unix environment, with program combination, cus-tomization and basic scripting through macro registration. Results: The program has been used for three years by about 15 000 users throughout the world; it has recently been installed on other sites and evaluated as a standard user interface for EMBOSS programs.

Mots clés: scripting; web; sequence analysis

Domaines: Interface homme-machine [cs.HC]; Bio-informatique [q-bio.QM]

Catherine Letondal. A Web interface generator for molecular biology programs in Unix. Bioinformatics, 2001, 17 (1), pp.73-82. ⟨10.1093/bioinformatics/17.1.73⟩. ⟨hal-01290961⟩