[Rd] Script editor for Windows GUI

[Gabor Grothendieck]

I am not sure whether or not this is feasible or even
desirable but one thought, given the apparent substantial
effort you have already undertaken, would be whether you
move in the other direction, namely move the entire R core 
to Java (possibly using an automated converter if such 
exist) opening up R to new platforms not currently supported.

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Date:   Wed, 25 Feb 2004 17:41:37 +0100 
From:   Simon Urbanek <Simon.Urbanek at math.uni-augsburg.de>
To:   Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> 
Cc:   <r-devel at stat.math.ethz.ch>,Chris Jackson <chris.jackson at imperial.ac.uk> 
Subject:   Re: [Rd] Script editor for Windows GUI 

 
On Feb 25, 2004, at 4:52 PM, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:

> That's very interesting, but as you know Java installation can be quite
> problematic. (It looks like the current Sun JVM 1.4.2_03 has several
> issues, including not working with the R search engine, and a warning 
> on
> mozilla.org about its Windows plugin.)

I'm aware of the problems caused by various JVM versions. Although our 
Java code is not directly affected, we plan to supply an optional 
installer (for Windows) which will take care of the JVM and install an 
appropriate private JRE if necessary.

> We bundled a version of Tcl/Tk with the R Windows binary to try to 
> avoid
> compatibility issues, and even then I would prefer a native Windows
> solution for this one.

I'm definitely not against a native editor. I don't want to discourage 
Chris, especially if he has already a working prototype. To the 
contrary - one implicit point of my post was that we should stay in 
contact, since we have implemented an editor as well and thought about 
the interface and the features, so we could exchange our experiences.

I also wanted to say that we may want to talk about bigger scope here. 
My concern is that the number of scattered GUIs for various platforms 
is increasing and each GUI has own interfaces, inconsistent with 
others, making it hard to switch between GUIs. If one wants to add 
functionality to the 'preferred' GUI then others don't have any benefit 
from the extension. A platform-independent GUI would solve this 
problem, since an improvement would affect all platforms. Furthermore 
using Java, it is possible to offer the quite powerful Java widget set 
to R users, seamlessly integrated into the GUI, thus allowing users to 
extend the GUI as they please - using R. (Besides, users could even 
integrate their own Java code with R, but that's another story...). By 
now we also have an own, working Java graphics device allowing us to 
achieve really tight integration of all aspects of R. I don't claim 
that this should replace the Windows GUI, but I think it might be an 
interesting, flexible alternative. I know that the project is all but 
easy, nevertheless I believe that we got quite far by now.

Simon

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Simon Urbanek
Department of computer oriented statistics and data analysis
University of Augsburg
Universitätsstr. 14
86135 Augsburg
Germany

Tel: +49-821-598-2236
Fax: +49-821-598-2200

Simon.Urbanek at Math.Uni-Augsburg.de
http://simon.urbanek.info