[R-gui] R GUI for Linux (using Java)

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 29 October 2006 at 17:50, Sander Oom wrote:
| Dear GJR(?),
| 
| Great initiative to start a platform independent GUI for R focussed on
| Linux. I'm sure many users could benefit from this.
| 
| I have limited time for science, including R, since I started a job as a
| consultant. However I am a member of the R GUI mailing list
| (r-sig-gui at stat.math.ethz.ch). Send your messages to this mailing list,
| and I am sure you will get helpful response. You will also get negative
| responses! Some people are happy the way things are. Do not pay too much
| attention to these and focus on the constructive critism. That will help
| the make LinR a good program.
| 
| I would stick to the KISS principle. 'Keep it simple, stupid'
| (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_Principle). A good editor with syntax
| highlighting and commands to run R code in different ways. Stick to the
| shortcut commands as used by other editors like KATE. A package manager
| will be very useful. Be ware that ROOT priviliges are required!
| 
| If you would like to contribute to an existing program, than have a look
| at JGR (http://rosuda.org/JGR):
| JGR (speak 'Jaguar') is a universal and unified Graphical User Interface
| for R (it actually abbreviates Java Gui for R). JGR was introduced at
| the useR! meeting in 2004.
| They seem to need support with the Linux port!

I think you may be unaware that it installs and runs fine on a fully-featured
Linux distribution.  On Debian or Ubuntu, all you need to do is to install
the sun-java5-jdk (and to click once through the Java license thingie) as
well as a recent R such as r-base-core_2.4.1. After which all you need to is

$ sudo R CMD javareconf			# to set or refresh Java paths for R
$ echo "install.packages("JGR",repos="http://cran.r-project.org",depend=TRUE)"\
	| sudo R --slave

and you have a working JGR --- which happens to be a working 'R GUI for Linux
(using Java)" as per the Subject line :)

I am sure that a FC, SuSE, Gentoo, ... system can be setup similarly.

| Is this just a coincidence with these letters J G R?
| 
| Hope this helps!
| 
| Sander.
| 
| gjr wrote:
| > Hello.
| > I've seen that You are interested in developing R GUI for Linux.
| > 
| > I'm a student and i'm angry at lack of full R-project linux port.

R has been developed and supported on Linux since "forever", i.e. the early
1990s. What exactly do you think is missing?

| > I decided to wrote something myself. Best choice is Java.
| > But i don't know what commponents add to this program.
| > I knot Tinn-R on Windows and i can take some ideas from.
| > But is it usable ?
| > I think things like hashing selected R code or sending only parts of code
| > is a standard. I would like to do a tool to easy manage of R packages.

Most of us are happy to send code snippets, regions, functions, buffers, ...
to R using ESS from (X)Emacs.  

A graphical package manager would be nice. JGR has one. 

RGtk2 (or was it John's pmg?) has basic examples for it. The logic is already
available inside R (install.packages(), available.packages(), etc) so I
wouldn't reinvent that wheel.

Dirk

-- 
Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something. 
                                                  -- Thomas A. Edison