[R-gui] Re: R-SIG-GUI digest, Vol 1 #18 - 5 msgs

[Mark Myatt]

Peter Dalgaard BSA <p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk> writes:

>To the above discussion, just let me add that there is nothing in
>principle keeping you from writing a substantial body of GUI code as
>Tcl functions and call those from R, nor is it impossible -- although
>what is in the current implementation is rudimentary at best -- to
>reverse the roles of the two languages and make calls from Tcl into R.
>You could in fact have R load as a Tcl extension, while still
>retaining the possibility for the embedded R to add GUI elements, etc.

I am not sure whether you are being personal with the use of "you" in
the above. I will, however, cast my reply in personal terms ... What is
stopping ME from getting my hands dirty is that, without agreement that
this is the way to go, it might be a lone enterprise which will amount
to so much wasted effort. If there is agreement amongst some of us that
this is the way to go then I will do what I can to help the effort.

>The basic thing to avoid is the "ESS approach" (don't get me wrong,
>some of my best friends are ESS users ;-) ) where the interface must
>try to learn about the internal state of R by parsing printed output
>(and then make the command and its output disappear from the eyes of
>the end user). There needs to be a direct interface at the level of
>the language objects.

I have not got into R below the language level and I have been guilty of
the ESS approach myself.

>I'm not all that happy with the idea of encoding menu structures in
>external files either. I really do think that you need a handle on
>(say) the system menubar, so that a function can say "Please add these
>items to the toplevel menu", etc. However, there is not necessarily a
>contradiction between the two - the R side can edit the XML
>description and ask the GUI shell to reload it; it just feels a bit
>clunky.

These are details ... I rather like a resource file approach since
configuration can be done in an editor rather than requiring function
calls. I am not sure how essential is the ability to add menus and items
on the fly. I think most users will be happy to stick with menus as
defined at application start.

Best wishes,

Mark


--
Mark Myatt