TreeCon is no longer maintained or supported. This manual is still online for reference, but many links will not work anymore.
You can still download the last release of TreeCon at the Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Genomics website.
Keep in mind that TreeCon will not install on Windows 7 or newer. Good alternatives are the wine platform on Linux or a virtual machine running Windows XP. More info at the virtualization section.
In pairwise distance methods, the dissimilarity (fraction of substitutions) is usually converted into evolutionary distance by correcting for multiple mutations. The most frequently used equations to convert dissimilarities into distances are implemented in TREECON. On the basis of these distances, a phylogenetic tree can be inferred. Different algorithms are available to construct a phylogenetic tree and a few of them are implemented in TREECON. Programs for rooting the unrooted evolutionary trees, for drawing the tree on the screen, and for saving the tree are also included, as well as several other tools.
TREECON is very simple to use and prior knowledge about computers is restricted to an absolute minimum. Therefore, the package should be particularly suited for molecular biologists and evolutionists who want to build evolutionary trees based on their own molecular data. Starting from a simple ASCII text file, containing nucleic acid sequences with gaps required for mutual alignment, one can produce publishable trees in a user-friendly and straightforward way.
Initially, TREECON was developed to run under the DOS operating system. However, in the meantime, the package has been adapted for the Microsoft Windows environment. Because of the fact that Microsoft Windows is becoming more and more popular, the DOS version will not be distributed anymore.
The main advantages of TREECON for Windows over the old DOS version of the program are device-independence, the multitasking environment, and the possibility of displaying large trees containing hundreds of sequences. Furthermore, due to the standard Windows interface, the software package becomes more user-friendly.
TREECON for Windows costs 75$ or a comparable amount in local currency. Usually, an invoice is send with the TREECON software package. This fee is mainly to support my work and to buy new computer hard- and software. This fee should be paid only once and includes updates and new releases of the package. Users who are registered will be informed about improvements and new releases (see Important information for registered users !!!).
At the moment, over 400 TREECON packages have been ordered.
If you have any further questions or if you want to order the TREECON for Windows package, please contact me at the following address:
TREECON for Windows is compiled in 32-bit. Therefore, if your computer runs under Windows 3.1 or 3.11, it is necessary to install Win32, which is an operating-system extension to Windows 3.1 that provides support for developing and running 32-bit Windows executables. 32-bit executables run faster, make use of all available RAM, and will run on both 16 and 32-bit versions of Windows and on future processors hosting Windows. (If you run Windows 95 or NT, you do not have to install the 32-bit extension).
TREECON for Windows is compiled in 32-bit. Therefore, if you don't run Windows 95 or NT, it is necessary to install the Win32 extension first (see System requirements). If you need to install the Win32 extension (if it's not already installed on your computer), fetch the file with the Win32 extension. This file, named pw1118.exe is a self-extracting one and running the executable will produce all necessary files. Running the setup.exe file will then automatically install the Win32 extension. When this is done, your computer is ready to run 32-bit applications.
Testing TREECON
The TREECON package also includes two test files. During installation,
these files are copied in the directory \treeconw\data\. The test files
contain some aligned small ribosomal subunit RNA sequences and can be used
to test the package.
When one of the options is chosen from the main menu, a different program is loaded into memory. For example, if the option 'Distance estimation' is chosen from the main menu, the program MATRIXW.EXE is loaded into memory and the computation of distance matrices begins. When the matrix program is finished by selecting QUIT from the menu, control is given back to the principal menu. When the main menu is active again, the user can select a different option, e.g. 'Infer tree topology'.
Van de Peer, Y., De Wachter, R. (1994) TREECON for Windows: a software package for the construction and drawing of evolutionary trees for the Microsoft Windows environment. Comput. Applic. Biosci. 10, 569-570.
A reprint of the article in which TREECON is mentioned is highly appreciated!
last updated September 1st, 1998