TCS

All living organisms from the smallest to the most complex have points in common and this relationship has developed throughout centuries of evolution. Mankind started to record and study changes in an attempt to create medicine, tools and other influential factors targeting more harmony and better living conditions. This branch of science is called Phylogenetic and is exactly what applications like TCS aim to help with.

Since the application is built using the Java engine, it is highly compatible with a wide array of configurations and machines. What's more, practicality is further increased because you don't need to install it on your system, thus keeping registries intact.

If you're looking for an application designed to give you the required tools to create phylogenetic data, note that this one is only aimed at analysis. As such, you need NeXus or PHYLIP generated files so that the application can be properly put to use.

Once a sequence or distance file is loaded, you have the possibility to choose the method used for generating the graph, which can either be done through calculus you set to a percentage, or input the number of steps to limit fix connections.

Although there are no implemented options to create phylogenetic data files from scratch, the application lets you modify existing nodes and edges. These are all displayed in your preview panel, which is one of the two sections your workspace is split into, while the other holds all available functions.

In terms of editing, you can arrange and resize all elements as you see fit, and with little programming knowledge options horizon broadens. What's more, this type of data can also be read text-wise, so a built in editor gives you the possibility to modify sequences, which can lead to completely altered versions of the original project.

In case you're not happy with overall arrangement of elements around the workspace, there's an implemented option that springs the tree in order to better identify changes and representation. What's more, you can then export your graph as GML for further analysis.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that TCS might not be the best of its kind, but analysis tools it comes equipped with are easy to use. Practicality is further enhanced since you can take it anywhere you go and can run on a large variety of machines. Even though you can't use it to create, editing tools are a decent alternative, making it worth a try.