[R-gui] basic-statistics GUI for R

[Martin Maechler]

Thanks a lot! {finally something I can try on Linux! ;-)}

I think your general concept --- work with one *active dataset*
makes very much sense when a "simple easy GUI" is the goal.

A few notes from playing (on Linux):
- I miss the [Quit] or [Close] option in the [File] menu.

- I'm running with R-patched and seem unable to get a dataset
  from an attached package via the 1st entry of  [File].

  The error message is a bit embarassing (I don't know for whom):

  >> Warning: The use of _ is soon to be removed: you will be warned repeatedly
  >> Warning: The use of _ is soon to be removed: you will be warned repeatedly
  >> Error in parse(file, n, text, prompt) : parse error

- Hence I couldn't try much else but the [Distribution] menu
  which was quite nice.

- I wonder if the  [Data] and [File] menus shouldn't be merged
  or organized differently.  
  To play with Rcmdr, I'd want to load a standard dataset, i.e. 
  [File] -> [Read data set from attached package].
  But then, the  *list* of available data sets is not available
  there, but from the  [Data] menu only.

- "R CMD check Rcmdr"  (using R-patched on Linux) was ok apart
  from the fact that many files had "wrong permissions", namely
  they had the "x" (execution) flag set -- typical for files
  created in windows.
  
  To fix permissions for R packages, recently, Tony (Rossini)
  posted a small sh-script to one of the Bioconductor lists --
  which I have slightly improved and attach here.

-------------- next part --------------
#!/bin/sh
## Fix R permissions (unix shell script)
find . -type d -print | xargs chmod 755
find . -type f -a \! -name configure -print | xargs chmod 644
-------------- next part --------------

---

BTW, I started  "library(Rcmdr)"  from ESS  which is a bit
awkward, but I'm sure nobody in your target audience will have
this problem! ;-)
But in any case, for a non-Windows environment (maybe even
unconditionally for consistency ?), 
I think you (Rcmdr) should set
   options(pager = tkpager)
such that clicking the [Help] button will use a nice tcltk pager
window.
[Note that you should keep the previous pager setting and reset the
 pager to that, once Rcmdr is left]

High regards,
Martin

    <........>

    JohnF> R Commander menu tree:

    JohnF> File - Read data set from text file
    JohnF> |- Read data set from attached package
    JohnF> |- Import data - from SPSS data set
    JohnF> |             |- from Minitab data set
    JohnF> |- Save log as

    JohnF> Data - Select active data set
    JohnF> |- List data sets in packages
    JohnF> |- Recode variable
    JohnF> |- Compute new variable

    JohnF> Statistics - Summaries - Numerical summaries
    JohnF> |           |- Frequency distribution
    JohnF> |           |- Table of statistics
    JohnF> |           |- Correlation matrix
    JohnF> |- Contingency Tables - Two-way table
    JohnF> |                    |- Multi-way table
    JohnF> |- Means - Single-sample t-test
    JohnF> |       |- Independent-samples t-test
    JohnF> |       |- Paired t-test
    JohnF> |       |- One-way ANOVA
    JohnF> |       |- Multi-way ANOVA
    JohnF> |- Proportions - Single-sample proportion test
    JohnF> |             |- Two-sample proportions test
    JohnF> |- Variances - Two-variances F-test
    JohnF> |           |- Bartlett's test
    JohnF> |           |- Levene's test
    JohnF> |- Nonparametric tests - Two-sample Wilcoxon test
    JohnF> |                     |- Paired-samples Wilcoxon test
    JohnF> |                     |- Kruskal-Wallis test
    JohnF> |- Fit models - Linear regression
    JohnF> |- Linear model
    JohnF> |- Generalized linear model

    JohnF> Graphs - Histogram
    JohnF> |- Stem-and-leaf display
    JohnF> |- Boxplot
    JohnF> |- Scatterplot
    JohnF> |- Scatterplot matrix
    JohnF> |- Bar graph
    JohnF> |- Pie chart

    JohnF> Models - Select active model
    JohnF> |- Summarize model
    JohnF> |- ANOVA table
    JohnF> |- Basic diagnostic plots
    JohnF> |- Component+residual plots
    JohnF> |- Added-variable plots

    JohnF> Distributions - Normal distribution - Normal quantiles
    JohnF> |                     |- Normal probabilities
    JohnF> |- t distribution - t quantiles
    JohnF> |                |- t probabilities
    JohnF> |- Chi-squared distribution - Chi-squared quantiles
    JohnF> |                          |- Chi-squared probabilities
    JohnF> |- F distribution - F quantiles
    JohnF> |                |- F probabilities
    JohnF> |- Binomial distribution - Binomial quantiles
    JohnF> |- Binomial tail probabilities
    JohnF> |- Binomial probabilities


    JohnF> Buttons: Edit data set; View data set; Submit (lines from the log/script 
    JohnF> window)

    JohnF> Information fields: active data set; active model

    JohnF> Check box: Log commands

    JohnF> -----------------------------------------------------
    JohnF> John Fox
    JohnF> Department of Sociology
    JohnF> McMaster University
    JohnF> Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M4
    JohnF> email: jfox at mcmaster.ca
    JohnF> phone: 905-525-9140x23604
    JohnF> web: www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox