[R-gui] pmg -- another try

[verzani at math.csi.cuny.edu]

For some reason, I found myself with some free nights and decided to
spend them rewriting my seemingly aborted pmg package. 

This package is an alternative to the RCmdr project using the RGtk
package instead of the tcltk package for its widgets. It's basic goal
is to give students a "simpler" way to learn and interact with R,
although it may be helpful to more knowledgeable users.

The main features of the newer version:

* only uses RGtk and asGtkDevice. So its much easier to install, and
  might possibly work under windows. (It was tested under gentoo linux
  and Mac OS X under 2.0.1 of R.) This version runs much faster as the
  dependency on OOP was dropped.
* the interface takes advantage of GTK's drag and drop abilities
* adds a plot notebook interface to X11 that allows one to store
  multiple graphs.
* the menu bar is easily extendable by the user. New menus can be
  "automagically" generated with a single command. (YMMV)

The current set of dialogs is not as complete as those for RCmdr, but
adding  your desired one is not really that difficult if you are
satisfied with the way they are easily created.


Instructions for installation are at
http://www.math.csi.cuny.edu/pmg. 

[i.e.,
> install.packages("pmg",contriburl="http://www.math.csi.cuny.edu/pmg")
]

Screenshots are in the manual
http://www.math.csi.cuny.edu/pmg/pmg.manual.pdf 


Although there aren't any really compelling reasons to use pmg over
RCmdr, some may appreciate the variety. I'd be interested to hear any
feedback about the package, especially notice of bugs. The package
hasn't had much testing, but seems to be behaving properly.