Your first molecule

Make an ethanol drawing, check its identity, save the document and export a figure. No naming engine, queue or calculation program is required.

Start the app

Install vibe-sketch using the installation guide, then activate its environment and start the browser app:

source .venv/bin/activate
vibe-sketch serve --open

Use the address printed by the command if a browser does not open. In the desktop app, open vibe-sketch and use the same controls below.

Import and inspect ethanol

  1. Click New if another drawing is open. Save any work you want to keep before leaving it.

  2. Choose Import ▾ → SMILES…, enter CCO, and accept the dialog. This draws ethanol with two carbon atoms and a terminal oxygen. Hydrogens on carbon are implicit in the skeletal drawing.

  3. Click Clean up. The bonds adopt standard lengths and angles. You can use the canvas bond, element and ring palettes to edit the structure; Undo restores an edit you want to discard.

  4. Read the species card on the right. It should show C2H6O, charge 0, multiplicity 1, and SMILES CCO. A message that the naming engine is not installed does not prevent drawing, saving or exporting.

Ethanol on the drawing canvas, with its formula, charge, multiplicity and identifiers in the properties panel.

After importing CCO, compare the properties panel with the expected formula and charge before saving or preparing a calculation.

Keep an editable document

Click Save and keep the download as ethanol.qvf when qvf-writer is installed, or ethanol.vsk otherwise. Use the format actually downloaded; changing the suffix alone does not convert it. Both document formats retain the drawing and sketch metadata. In the desktop app, the first save asks for a destination; later saves write back to that file.

Click Open…, choose the saved file, and check that ethanol returns with the same formula and charge. This is the editable document to keep alongside your figure. If you want a ready-made starting point, download ethanol.vsk, which also contains the 3D geometry prepared in the calculation tutorial.

Export a figure

Choose Export ▾ → SVG and save the download as ethanol.svg. Open it in a browser or vector editor: the result is a publication-style structure with a transparent background. The server renders this figure from the document; it is a separate output from the editable sketch. PNG is also available for this single molecule.

The same example’s SVG is downloadable. For a molecule with a defined stereocentre, draw the appropriate wedge or hashed bond before exporting; the sketcher cannot infer a configuration you have not specified.

Continue with calculation preparation, or draw several species in the reaction tutorial. The app reference describes the remaining drawing tools and keyboard shortcuts.