[R-gui] R GUI question from new member

[Philippe Grosjean]

hadley wickham wrote:
> Hi Philippe,
> 
> I disagree -

With WHAT do you disagree? Did I said something that is contradictory to 
what you tell hereunder?

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.

That is what I say:  "If you want more advanced features, I agree that 
there are better solutions (GTK, wxWidgets, etc)."

> 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

Thank you for your link and suggestion, just try to disagree a little 
bit less ;-)
Best,

Philippe Grosjean

> 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The explanation on this page is a little outdated.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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>>
> 
> 
>