[Rd] [R-gui] R GUI considerations (was: R, Wine, and multi-threadedness)
Peter Dalgaard
p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk
Mon Oct 17 17:09:12 CEST 2005
Hin-Tak Leung <hin-tak.leung at cimr.cam.ac.uk> writes:
> Hi,
>
> Since you mentioned tcltk2 and python+wxWidgets, what about Tkinter
> (python's built-in binding to tk)? It is somewhere between the two,
> and is shipped as standard these days with python 2.x. Also, if Perl/Tk
> works, and Tkinter works, there is no reason why one can't do R/Tk,
> without the Tcl (or the obvious Tcl-ish stuff) in the middle.
As far as I know, Tkinter does use Tcl as a glue language, just like
R. Perl/Tk tried the stunt of bypassing Tcl, which I think mainly has
bought them difficulties in keeping up with new Tk versions. Notice
that a direct Tk interface needs to map each and every piece of Tk
functionality, whereas you otherwise just need to implement tcl() and
a handful of object conversion routines. (OK, so it wasn't all _that_
simple, but you get the point...)
The Tcl C interface that gets used by the tcltk package is actually
one of the strong points of Tcl/Tk (as opposed to Tcl as a scripting
language for entire applications, which can be a bit of a pain.)
Especially with the Tcl_EvalObjv interface in place, things really
work quite smoothly, since the "quoting hell" of the string-based
interface is bypassed.
> Just an idea.
>
> Hin-Tak Leung
>
> Philippe Grosjean wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Following a discussion initiated on r-devel, that mentions SciViews-R
> > and other GUIs issues for R, I would like to make comments (and would be
> > happy if these comments would initiate interesting initiatives).
> >
> > A big, big problem with SciViews-R is that a part of it is written in
> > Visual Basic 6, a M$$$$ language, not supported any more, buggy, non
> > transposable to other platforms, etc, etc. Last year, I started to
> > rewrite SciViews-R, using much more native R code, which will ultimately
> > give what I call a "R GUI API", currently partly implemented in the
> > SciViews bundle available on CRAN. That "R GUI API" is a lot of work:
> > thousands of lines of code for the full API, and as I said, only a part
> > of it is currently implemented. That API is developed with reusability
> > in mind: platform-independent, better basis to rewrite SciViews-R in a
> > different language, and freely available for use by other GUIs. However,
> > nobody seems to be interested by this API (may be because it is not
> > documented enough?). Even simple functions like progress() in the svMisc
> > package are ignored, although they could be useful to some people. Well,
> > I regret this situation, but I don't care much more than that: after
> > all, the main goal is to make it the basis of the future
> > platform-independent implementation of SciViews-R.
> >
> > Now, regarding the rewritting of SciViews-R itself in a
> > platform-independent environment (i.e., language + graphical widget),
> > this is not undertaken currently for the reason I am not satisfied
> > enough with all curerently existing solutions for various reasons. I
> > give just a few explanations here:
> >
> > 1) R + Tcl + Tk. The tcltk R package is widely available and largely
> > debugged. However, there are still problems to make a 100% Tcl console
> > for R (look at Peter Dalgaard's attempt in the package, not complete,
> > not 100% operational, currently). Another problem: the Tk widgets are a
> > little bit old-fashion, and I miss a lot of features provided by more
> > advanded graphical widgets like wxWidgets, for instance. However, it
> > seems to be the best bet, currently. So, I explore various kinds of
> > additions that could make Tcl + Tk a better and more modern GUI
> > implementation. Look at http://www.sciviews.org/SciViews-R... the
> > "tcltk2" package. In that package, I add "Tile", a series of themable
> > and more modern widgets, the famous "tkTable", a tooltip widget, a text
> > widget with synthax colouring, a tree widget, etc. + some Windows
> > specific stuff that help regarding problems like focusing on a Tk
> > window, and communicating with other apps. However, I face the problem
> > of installing all these additional widgets seemlessly under all
> > paltforms supported by R. For the pure Tcl widgets, no problems. But for
> > widgets with compiled code, like Tile or tkTable, this is much more
> > difficult... And since I mainly work on Windows...
> >
> > 2) wxWidgets. This is a really great, very capable and
> > platform-independent solution. I like very much James Wettenhal attemps
> > of using wxPython (wxWidgets + Python) through RSPython and the
> > experimental wxPython R package. However, it is still alpha, there are
> > problems to finalize it, and his author is not continuing its
> > development for reasons that are personal to him. So, I am not sure we
> > will have a usable version available soon to integrate wxWidgets with R
> > and use it for a R GUI.
> >
> > 3) JAVA. There is a good R GUI written in JAVA: JGR. Moreover, something
> > like the Eclipse platform is a very promizing environment for a
> > rich-featured R IDE. JAVA specialists in my University say such a GUI,
> > written in JAVA will be relatively slow compared to other solutions.
> > However, JGR is a good actual counter-example.
> >
> > 4) GTK2. Great widgets... but forgets Windows. I installed and used Gimp
> > under Windows. This is certainly the best demonstration on what can be
> > done with GTK2 under Windows. I must admit I am very disappointed as a
> > Windows user: look&feel is very different, and irritating in several
> > aspects.
> >
> > So, a long mail to conclude that, if I still haven't started to
> > implement the platform-independent version of SciViews-R, it is because
> > I am not convinced that any of the currently available R + rich-featured
> > and platform-independent widgets solutions available is the one that
> > will make it possible to reimplement SciViews-R in a streamless and
> > relatively bug-free manner. To summarize, the currently best candidate
> > is R + tcltk + tcltk2. I am convinced that R + Python + wxWidgets is by
> > far a much better solution, but it is still in alpha development.
> > Eclipse + JGR looks promising, and GTK2 is there too, but not enough
> > integrated under Windows for me to start using such a solution, as a
> > Windows user.
> >
> > I don't have much time to dedicate to SciViews-R and to the Sciviews R
> > GUI API for the moment, and I will certainly focus on four hot topics:
> > (1) developing the actual SciViews-R as a better teaching aid (I use and
> > need it for my own courses!), (2) contributing to the development of
> > Tinn-R, (3) further integrating R Commander with SciViews-R, and (4)
> > integrating Rpad with SciViews-R. However, I will have various contracts
> > in 2006-2007 where the development of SciViews-R is a part of the job.
> > So, I will have the opportunity to hire one or two developers, and this
> > will hopefully speed up SciViews-R development in a directly that will
> > satisfy more users.
> >
> > Otherwise, I am open to any suggestion, and more importantly, to any
> > idea of collaboration with other R GUI developers, as it is currently
> > the case with John Fox (R Commander integration with SciViews-R),
> > Jose-Claudio Faria (Tinn-R developement and Tinn-R compatibility with
> > SciViews-R), and Tom Short (Rpad developments and compatibility with
> > SciViews-R). I think it is important to insist on this, in a world
> > populated with a myriad of slowly developed, half finished, half
> > featured R GUIs, made by people that look too individualist in my view
> > to be able of working all together and to write a single R GUI that has
> > any chance to be full-featured, well-documented, reasonnably bug-free,
> > truly platform-independent, in a near future.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Philippe Grosjean
> >
> > ..............................................<°}))><........
> > ) ) ) ) )
> > ( ( ( ( ( Prof. Philippe Grosjean
> > ) ) ) ) )
> > ( ( ( ( ( Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
> > ) ) ) ) ) Mons-Hainaut University, Pentagone (3D08)
> > ( ( ( ( ( Academie Universitaire Wallonie-Bruxelles
> > ) ) ) ) ) 8, av du Champ de Mars, 7000 Mons, Belgium
> > ( ( ( ( (
> > ) ) ) ) ) phone: + 32.65.37.34.97, fax: + 32.65.37.30.54
> > ( ( ( ( ( email: Philippe.Grosjean at umh.ac.be
> > ) ) ) ) )
> > ( ( ( ( ( web: http://www.umh.ac.be/~econum
> > ) ) ) ) ) http://www.sciviews.org
> > ( ( ( ( (
> > ..............................................................
> >
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>
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--
O__ ---- Peter Dalgaard Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
(*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen Denmark Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk) FAX: (+45) 35327907
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