Getting started
Go to either the Bandage website or the GitHub releases page to download pre-built binaries for Mac, Windows or Linux. The Mac and Windows versions should come with all necessary libraries included.
The Linux version is available in two flavours: dynamically-linked, which does not contain the graphical code, and statically-linked, which does. The dynamically-linked version is preferable, as it will use native GUI components. It may work immediately on modern Linux distributions, or it may be necessary to install the Qt5 library. The statically-linked version of Bandage has fewer dependencies, but uses non-native GUI components.
It is also possible to build Bandage from source – the instructions are in the Bandage readme.
Before you can do anything else in Bandage, you must load an assembly graph. Do this by choosing 'Load graph' from the 'File' menu. If you need a graph to examine, a small sample graph is included in the Bandage binary zip files. You can also download a couple of other graphs here:
After the graph is loaded, you can click the 'Draw graph' button to draw the graph to the screen. This step performs the graph layout, and the time it takes depends on the size and complexity of the graph.
For smaller graphs, such as a bacterial genome, drawing the entire graph is usually feasible. However, for a larger graph, such as a metagenome or eukaryote assembly, it may be necessary to reduce the graph scope before drawing the graph.
There are multiple ways to control the graph view using the mouse and keyboard.
Hold the Ctrl key (on Windows and Linux) or the Command key (on Mac) to use mouse controls:
- zoom in/out using the mouse wheel,
- pan by clicking and dragging,
- rotate by right-click dragging.
Keyboard controls are available if the focus is in the graph view (by clicking in the graph part of the Bandage GUI):
- pan using the arrow keys,
- zoom using Ctrl+plus and Ctrl+minus (Command+plus and Command-minus on Mac).
Clicking on a node will select/deselect that node. Holding the Ctrl key (Command on the Mac) will allow you to add to or subtract from a larger selection. Click and drag in the visualisation to draw a selection rectangle for selecting many nodes at once.
Clicking and dragging on a node will move it. Large nodes will move in a flexible manner, where the part closer to the mouse moves more than distant parts. If, however, you select a node before moving it, it will move in its entirety. If multiple nodes are selected, they will all move together. Right-click dragging (or control-click dragging on the Mac) will move a node one piece at a time – useful for fine control.
Many items in Bandage have a a help icon next to them:
Click these icons to read a description of that part of Bandage.