[R-gui] Platform-independent GUI for R... again

[Philippe Grosjean]

A.J. Rossini wrote:
> I'm quite stalled on work until I settle into a permanent 
> flat in late december  (I just relocated to Basel, 
> Switzerland), but at that point I'll have a bit of time to 
> finish up some of the IDE work that I've coded bits and pieces for.

Good! As I previously said, I intend to design the R GUI API in a way it
could be reused among GUI clients, and on all platforms supported by R
itself. I want to make sure you will find there functions that will help you
to add some GUI features to Emacs-ESS. I think you should look, among
others, at svDialogs (dialog boxes), the various guiObjXXX functions in
svGUI (to implement an object explorer), and the view/report methods in
svViews. I am currently working on a manual that explains how all these
functions work, and how they can be used to help implementing GUI features
for R.

Regarding the rest of the discussion, with various suggestions in favor of
such or such graphical toolkit done by other people, I think I have to
mention that the R GUI API is made in a way it is also independent from a
particular graphical toolkit. In svDialogs, dialog boxes can be build using
different graphical toolkits very easily and remain compatible with one
other. As an example, I have dialog boxes build with tcltk, and the same
ones build using R-wxPython (but this can be done with little effort using
Gtk, KDE, etc... too, as soon as they are accessible from withing R!). With
svDialogs, it is the end user that ultimately decides which graphical
toolkit he prefers to use, not the programmer. The end user does so simply
by specifying 'options(guiWidgets = "XXX")', where "XXX" could be "tcltk" or
"wxPython" (currently), but also "Gtk", "Qt", "Fox" or whatever in the
future... (see page 98 of the manual: 'toolkit-independent API and toolkit
implementations', at ftp://ftp.umh.ac.be/pub/ftp_econum/Manual.pdf). In case
a particular dialog box is not implemented in the choosen graphical toolkit,
the program switches back automatically to the default one, defined using
the plain 'tcltk' package only. Here we just need volunteers to implement
toolkit-specific features of these dialog boxes.

Well, I would say to conclude this little discussion that nobody really
catches my request about a platform-independent solution for the GUI
clients... It is not just menus and dialog boxes, it is something more
complex, as SciViews R Console is... but only for Windows currently. It
needs very sophisticated widgets, like a HTML browser widget CSS and
javascript capabilities, an advanced code editor widget like Scintilla,
etc...  These can be found in different places, but considering the coding
difficulties, I am not yet convinced to switch to a different
language/graphical toolkit/IDE than the ones I currently use. I think it is
still too soon to move to another solution for that particular GUI client. I
realize that the best I have to do is to continue its development until
version 1.0 as it stands (i.e., a Windows-only solution), but to prepare the
future and to devote more time and energy in buiding the
platform-independent R GUI API, and as the utmost priority, to document,
promote and collaborate with everybody wanting to discover or use the R GUI
API I am setting up.

The various topics I am willing to offer collaboration with the R GUI API
are:
1) help to further develop, debug and enhance the R GUI API itself, of
course. In particular, I would be particularly happy with any initiative to
implement dialog boxes proposed in svDialogs for various other graphical
toolkits. Also, I have a first trial using AutoIt
(http://www.hiddensoft.com/autoit3/; under Windows only, unfortunatelly) to
automate tests of R functions involving GUI stuff (together with RUnit?).

2) help in developing simple platform-independent GUI interfaces for most
important features in this GUI API using the plain tcltk package provided
with R (+ possibly the tcltk2 package in the SciViews bundle once it will be
made platform-independent). Among others, this would consist in: (1) an
object explorer, (2) a "views" display window (in the sense of those defined
in svViews) and (3) menus/graph galeries/electronic reference cards, etc...
as currently implemented in the docking windows of SciViews R Console.

3) any initiative to continue the integration of Python + wxWidgets with R
(it still remains my preferred way!), that is: either to continue James
Wettenhall's project using RSPython + R-wxPython package, or a different
solution, possibly using Rpy. I would definitely support dialog boxes with
such a solution in my svDialogs package.

4) I am interested by integration of various projects together. It is no
longer a secret that I support R Commander and work on solutions to
integrate it with SciViews-R. The SciViews R GUI API could possibly benefit
to R Commander by means of its graphical toolkit-independent dialog boxes in
the future. Also, I think Rpad could be a better choice for the report
editor than the current SciViews R Report application (of course, Rpad is
more than that...).

5) I like the idea of an addition of GUI features to Emacs-ESS because this
user interface is platform-independent, mature and powerful. I would be
happy if the R GUI API could help somehow here. 

As you can see, there is a lot to do, in addition to the writing and
documentation of the R GUI API itself. It will ony make its way if I get
help... So, it is up to you, "R-SIG-GUI-GUYS" to decide if it is worth
developing and implementing solutions with the R GUI API or not!

Best,

Philippe Grosjean

..............................................<°}))><........
 ) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( (    Prof. Philippe Grosjean
 ) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( (    Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
 ) ) ) ) )   Mons-Hainaut University, Pentagone
( ( ( ( (    Academie Universitaire Wallonie-Bruxelles
 ) ) ) ) )   6, av du Champ de Mars, 7000 Mons, Belgium  
( ( ( ( (       
 ) ) ) ) )   phone: + 32.65.37.34.97, fax: + 32.65.37.33.12
( ( ( ( (    email: Philippe.Grosjean at umh.ac.be
 ) ) ) ) )      
( ( ( ( (    web:   http://www.umh.ac.be/~econum
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