Convenient way of changing bond order

[Juanes]

IQmol has a cool functionality best explained by an example:

1. Begin with a single carbon atom and create a new one from it. The default bond order is one and hydrogen atoms adjust automatically, yielding ethane.
2. Go over the same bond again. It increases the bond order by one, decreases the number of hydrogen atoms accordingly, planarizes the molecule, yielding ethene.

Is there some way to conveniently change the bond order as you’re drawing a molecule in Avogadro? I find it clunky to have to go to the drop down “Bond Order” in the Draw panel every time I must do so.

[ghutchis]

@Juanes

Is there some way to conveniently change the bond order as you’re drawing a molecule in Avogadro? I find it clunky to have to go to the drop down “Bond Order” in the Draw panel every time I must do so.

Yep. There are two ways to do this:

• the easiest is to just click on the same bond. It’ll go single → double → triple → single and adjust hydrogens accordingly
  • in recent versions, from a user suggestion, it will also ajust the distance by default
• you can change the bond order by typing 1, 2, 3 with the draw tool activated

I’ll be finishing up a YouTube video outlining this soon.

[Juanes]

Works beautifully, thank you!