By default, BlastViewer is configured to use a maximum of 128 Mb of memory computer. However, when dealing with large data files, you may need to use more memory. Here is the easy procedure that tells you how to do this for MacOS X, Windows and Linux platforms.

MacOS X users

Start the Finder and go to the /Applications folder. Right-right on the BlastViewer icon, then choose the Explore Package command to open a new Finder window. There, double-click on the Contents folder and you will see a file called Info.plist. Double-click on that file to open it using the Property List Editor application. This editor displays a list of key/value pairs defining some very important BlastViewer properties. Unroll the Root node (click on the little arrow located on the left side of that node), then unroll the Java node. Locate the VMOptions key, then click on its associated value:

To save the new memory settings, choose the command Save in the File menu of the Property List Editor. Then, you can close that application, as well as all the Finder windows.

Updating Info.plist only takes effect after restarting BlastViewer. You can check the memory usage update by looking at the bottom right corner of the BlastViewer frame: you can see there a Memory Meter.

Windows users 

Start the Windows File Manager and enter the directory where BlastViewer has been installed. Usually, this directory is C:\Program Files\BlastViewer. In that directory, you can see a file called BlastViewer.vmoptions (if it does not exist, you can create one; be careful to respect letter case). Open that file in your favorite text editor, then update the memory requirements as needed.

As an example, if you want BlastViewer to use 512 Mb of memory, modify BlastViewer.vmoptions as follows:

Updating BlastViewer.vmoptions only takes effect after restarting BlastViewer. You can check the memory usage update by looking at the bottom right corner of the BlastViewer frame: you can see there a Memory Meter.

Linux users 

Open a terminal window, then enter the directory where BlastViewer has been installed. Usually, this directory is /opt/BlastViewer. In that directory, you can see the BlastViewer starter script. Open that file in your favorite text editor, then update the memory requirements as needed by updating that line of the shell script (located at the end of the file):

As an example, if you want BlastViewer to use 512 Mb of memory, modify blastviewer.sh as follows:

Updating BlastViewer shell script only takes effect after restarting BlastViewer. You can check the memory usage update by looking at the bottom right corner of the BlastViewer frame: you can see there a Memory Meter.