[R-gui] R GUI question from new member

[hadley wickham]

Hi Philippe,

I disagree - with the new RGtk2 package (http://ggobi.org/rgtk2/) it
is very easy to work cross platform with an attractive GUI.  RGtk2
works on Windows, Mac and Linux and (in my opinion) is much more
aesthetically pleasing the Tcl/Tk.

Rgtk2 supports libglade so if you are familiar with glade, it is a
very easy transition, and it is very easy to port work done in other
programming languages if you are comfortable converting your (eg.)
python code to R.

Hadley


On 2/19/06, Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean at sciviews.org> wrote:
> Hi Luca,
>
> I would suggest to work/enhance existing code rather that reinventing
> the wheel. There are a couple of RGui projects, and you may found what
> you are looking for in there. Look, at http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/
> for a listing of various projects. You have GUIs written in Java,
> Tcl/Tk, GTK, etc... there. Tcl/Tk is often used for convenience, because
> the tcltk R package is available with (almost) all R distributions. So,
> you don't need to install additional stuff. That is what makes Rcmdr so
> easy to run on all platforms. If you want more advanced features, I
> agree that there are better solutions (GTK, wxWidgets, etc).
>
> May I suggest you to look here:
> http://bioinf.wehi.edu.au/folders/james/wxPython/. This is a solution
> using R and Python... in development and desperately seeking for a new
> maintainer. This is not GTK, but wxWidgets, which is also a very good
> solution. Regarding a substitute for Glade, you could consider Boa
> Constructor. Look here: http://bioinf.wehi.edu.au/folders/james/RBoa/.
> The explanation on this page is a little outdated. The latest version of
> Boa Constructor is now compatible with wxPython 2.5.X. So, you don't
> need to install Python/wxPython twice as explained in the page. Anyway,
> using RSPython, you should be able to do what you want (mixing R, Python
> and GTK).
>
> Best,
>
> Philippe Grosjean
>
> Luca Manini wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm new to this list (and to the whole R world); I've started to read
> > some threads in the archives to get acquinted with the community but I
> > have some questions ready to be asked "now".  So please keep with me
> > even if the mail is not that short.
> >
> >
> > I'm a software developer and I've been asked to "write a GUI for R".
> > The customer(s) are (could be in the near future) some departments of
> > the local university where R is used both for teaching and research
> > (in various areas).  So the problem is always the same: users find CLI
> > difficult to learn/use and/or the time to learn them is greater than
> > the total available time (for introductory courses in statistics, for
> > example).
> >
> > As I said, I don't know much of R but it clear that is a big
> > language/environment and that just thinking (let alone writing) a
> > "full GUI" for it is a major undertaking well beyond the time (and
> > money) budget I have at hand.
> >
> > So, what I have in mind is, instead of using/customizing big GUIs, to
> > just write some small apps with a dedicated and minimal GUI for any
> > single and simple task (think for example of some students'
> > "exercises" on regression, or a series of computations or analysis or
> > drawing steps needed to complete a research paper).
> >
> > Of course I will not directly write them myself (sorry to say that)
> > but instead I have to check whether that approach is feasible and, if
> > it is, to "set up" the environment (docs, tools, examples, ...) so
> > that "junior programmers" (or smart users) can write the single apps
> > in a reasonable time.
> >
> > I'm thinking about Python + GTK + Glade for the interface stuff with
> > some "glue" to get Python speak to R (and trap the answers).  Python
> > is my preferred language, it is easy to learn (and I'm happy to teach
> > it) and Glade is easy to use.
> >
> > My biggest concern at the moment is to check that I'm not offering to
> > write something to solve an already solved problem and **for that**
> > I'm asking this list's help.
> >
> >         TIA for any help/suggestion, Luca
> >
> > PS: the second biggest is to check that my idea is feasible/reasonable
> >     (and for that I've already started experimenting).
> >
>
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