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ChemSpider Mobile is a free iOS app (iPhone, iPod, iPad) for searching the ChemSpider online chemical database. It provides the ability to search by drawing a chemical structure, or entering a compound name. The app is very straightforward and easy to learn. Search results are shown in a list showing structure and names. Any search result can be examined in more detail by launching the mobile browser and viewing the structure on the ChemSpider web page.

Although the ChemSpider web page is designed to work well on mobile browsers, the mobile app is more convenient to use, and is currently the best way to search by structure from a mobile device. The structure drawing capabilities are provided by the embedded version of the Mobile Molecular DataSheet. The app was built by Molecular Materials Informatics, on behalf of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Contents 1 Technical Details 1.1 Structure page 1.2 Text page 1.3 Results page 2 Logistics 2.1 Licensing & Availability 2.2 External links 2.3 User Reviews

Technical Details

The ChemSpider Mobile app has a very simple design. The app is split into pages, each of which is controlled by a tab:

• Structure
• Text
• Results

Structure page

The opening page shows the current structure. Along the top is a button-bar, which contains the following options:

• New
• Edit
• Recent
• Search

The New button brings up the structure editor, and starts with a blank slate for providing a new structure to search for. The Edit button opens the structure editor and allows the current structure to be modified. The Recent button brings up a list of structures that have been used recently, and allows any of them to be reselected as the current structure.

The Search button initiates the search-for-structure process, and switches to the results page.

The the present time, there are two kinds of structure searches: Exact and Skeleton. An exact search matches the search structure exactly, and usually returns one result (or none, if the compound is not in ChemSpider), while searching by skeleton will return all compounds that have the same basic atom connectivity. This is an effective way to find tautomers, protomers and isotopically enriched materials.

Text page

Compound can be searched for by name. Enter the name, or identifying synonym, for a structure, then press the Search button to locate it.

Results page

When a search has been initiated (either structure or text), the app will jump to the results page. Most searches do not proceed instantly, so an in-progress status update will be provided, with an option to cancel the search. Once the search is complete, the results will be listed in the page, as a scrollable list, showing the structure and name for each of the results.

The information shown in the app is minimal - just enough to make sure you have the right compound. For more information, select the entry, and use the Open in Browser button. This will launch the mobile browser, and point it to the structure entry on the ChemSpider website.

Logistics

Licensing & Availability

ChemSpider Mobile is available for free from the iTunes AppStore, and runs on all iOS-based touch devices (iPhone, iPod, iPad). It has been available since 25 Aug 2011.

External links

• ChemSpider
• Royal Society of Chemistry
• Molecular Materials Informatics, Inc.
• Product Overview (MMI)
• Blog: Interacting with the ChemSpider Mobile app
• See also: Mobile Molecular DataSheet, Reaction101, Yield101, MolPrime

User Reviews

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