Gene Construction Kit software review

Gene Construction Kit, GCK for short, is a commercial software mainly for making schematics of linear and circular DNA sequence (see screenshots on the right). There is a Windows and a Mac version.

Pricing

• typical academic single license just under $1000
• non-academic license ~$1800

PROs

• good graphical overview of sequences
• switch to DNA sequence
• import features from NCBI (starting v3.0)
• non-expiring license

CONs

• v3 files cannot be opened with v2.5
• slow development; no Mac Intel version as of 2010-11
• couple annoying bugs/feature shortcomings:

• some older GCK files cause v3 to hang; solution is to copy paste into new file and save in GCK3

• opening the font menu can take several seconds if you have many fonts installed; should be in a separate window not to slow down mouse movement every time one moves past the Font command in the Format menu;

• search only takes 255 chars; not enough for many DNA searches

Links

• Textco GCK product homepage