A long software webinar can be useful—and still be hard to learn from. If you are trying to solve one molecular-modeling problem, watching an entire recording from beginning to end may take time away from the work itself. A more practical approach is to treat the chapter list as a menu: choose the workflow closest to your current task, then watch only the relevant sections.
The SAMSON webinar recordings provide chapter links for exploring specific features. Here are three ways to use them as a focused learning guide.
When you need to select a specific part of a structure
Selection is often the first step before inspection, editing, or analysis. The SAMSON 2025 recording introduces the View and Point selection editors at 1:30, then shows Progressive Clipping for inspecting structures at 7:27. Quick Groups, for storing and controlling selections, follows at 14:42.
These chapters make a useful short sequence: start with the selection tools, see how clipping can help expose structure, and then learn about keeping selections organized. If you are coming to the recording with a particular selection challenge, you can jump straight to the chapter that sounds most relevant and use the surrounding sections for context.
When your work involves protein sequences and structures
For comparing proteins, the 2025 webinar includes a segment on the Protein Aligner at 20:33, described as a tool for aligning multiple protein sequences and structures. This is a good starting point when you want to understand where alignment fits into a modeling workflow. The chapter gives you a focused introduction without requiring you to search through the whole recording.
If the question you have is instead about finding residues or regions in a structure, the 2024 webinar offers a broader tour of selection methods. Its chapters cover selection through the Document View and Context Toolbar (13:15), the Viewport and Selection filters (16:29), Selection Commands (17:37), and the Node Specification Language and SAMSON AI (18:35). The Interactive Sequence Viewer is introduced at 21:26.
When you need to communicate a molecular interaction
Understanding an interaction is one thing; making it clear to someone else is another. The 2025 recording shows how to create and edit 2D and 3D protein–ligand interaction diagrams with the Interaction designer, beginning at 30:02. If your immediate goal is to make an interaction diagram, start there rather than watching unrelated sections first.
The 2024 recording also includes chapters on producing renderings with Cycles, the integrated path tracer from Blender (23:47), and creating visualizations with the Visual Preset Editor (26:32). These are distinct topics, but both can help orient you when your next challenge is presenting a molecular scene.
A simple viewing plan
- Name the task. For example: selecting a region, aligning proteins, or illustrating a ligand interaction.
- Open the matching chapter. Use the timestamp links to avoid searching through a full recording.
- Watch neighboring chapters only if useful. They may provide context, but you can keep the session focused on the problem at hand.
- Return to the recording when another question comes up. The chapter list can serve as a reference map rather than a one-time agenda.
This approach turns a webinar from a long viewing commitment into a set of small, task-oriented introductions. To browse the recordings and their full chapter lists, visit the SAMSON webinars documentation.
Note: SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Get SAMSON.