[R-gui] Feedback about SciViews?

[Zed Shaw]

Hi Phileppe,

Wow, SciViews looks pretty good.  I downloaded it and played with it, 
and took notes while I was doing it.  I hope you'll do the same when 
Obversive comes out in a couple of weeks.  Here's what I came up with:


FIRST IMPRESSIONS
1.  Nice web site.  Well laid out, good colors.  Very ambitious 
project.
2.  It was a little hard to figure out how to download it.  It took me 
a while to find the "Click here to download it." portion of the first 
page among all the other text.  Maybe a link at the top 
saying "Downloads"?
3.  It's kind of a slow download.  You should find some mirrors.
4.  Installed quickly and easily.  No problems there.

USING
1.  Your RPlug wizard takes over the entire screen, so it was really 
hard for me to open other windows while trying to find my R install.
2.  I didn't have the right version installed, so I had to quit, but 
your RPlug wizard does not have a Cancel button.
3.  After installing R and re-running SciViews, it doesn't show me the 
RPlug wizard again.  I have to use the initial window, run something, 
then it gives me the RPlug wizard.
4.  The initial SciViews window (with "New","Open","Install",etc.) 
seems a little confusing.  It took me a while to figure out how to 
actually get to SciViews.  Maybe some short instructions as a first 
tab?

INSIDER
1.  I like the R shortcuts thing.  It took me a little while to figure 
out what the "^" meant.
2.  It would be nice to be able to do a "list vars", then highlite one 
of the vars in the output and click one of the other "^" shortcuts and 
have the selected var put in.
3.  I tried clicking on the, then on the pull down in the top left 
with "R #1" listed, and then I tried clicking into the text entry to 
the right, but when I did I got an "Unspecified error" and SciViews 
crashed.  I could repeat it though.
4.  What's the Xchanger for?
5.  When I open a Code window, and type some code in I want to run, 
how do I run it?
6.  Doing "New Graph" from the Open icon's pulldown pops open a window 
really quick and then closes it.  Is this working yet?

LOOK AND FEEL
1.  It looks good.  People are going to think we stole your GUI when 
they see the new Obversive (we just added MDI also, maybe).
2.  The icons in the bottom left corner (where the Pi is) seem to take 
up a lot of space and are not clearly visible.  You should consider 
moving them to the top of that panel like a mini-toolbar.  That would 
follow what people are used to with buttons and take up less space.
3.  Your "Messages Toolbar" is a little confusing.  Is that "(I) 
bubble" icon in the left text panel always there?  It seems to take up 
a lot of space and provide little information value.
4.  The right text panel of the Messages Toolbar (last output?) seems 
nice, but limited in that I can't go back.  It basically shows me 
what's already in my R output window.  What would be nicer is if you 
had a pulldown that let me go back and see previous outputs in the 
past.
5.  Better yet, I think previous outputs are not nearly as useful as 
previous inputs.  Maybe turn it into a kind of scrolling previous 
inputs panel, or add a pulldown to your input field at the top so I 
can just grab stuff I've entered in the past and edit it.
6.  Icons are good, no complaints there.
7.  Can I add shortcuts?

That's about all I could find Philippe.  Really good so far, and I 
hope you'll review Obversive the same way when we release it.  We can 
use all the feedback we can get.

Talk to you soon.

Zed


> A preview version of SciViews (a Graphical User Interface for R under
> Windows, http://www.sciviews.org) was released a few weeks ago. 
Since then,
> the Web site recorded several thousands of downloads. I would really
> appreciate your feedback:
> - What you like,
> - What you don't like,
> - Wich features you would like to get in the next release.

-----
Zed A. Shaw
http://www.zedshaw.com/