[R-wiki] Summary of the discussion before creation of R-sig-wiki

[Philippe Grosjean]

Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> What I was suggesting was not really a wiki feature but just that
> there would be a (top level?) link to a page listing packages
> that package authors could edit to add their own home page
> or link to off-wiki home page.

Oohh yes, now I got your point. Excellent idea! We could add a default 
"homepage" for each CRAN/Bioconductor package in the Wiki, like:

packages:apackage

with minimal information. Also, we could suggest a modification to 
package.skeleton() so that it makes an automatic entry like:

URL: http://wiki.r-project.org/doku.php?id=packages:packagename

in the DESCRIPTION file, in order to encourage package maintainers to 
use a little bit bit more that feature.

> I assume this sort of major structuring should be put in place
> at the beginning rather than leaving it to users to add.

Yes, you are right! I try this for one of my packages (pastecs), with a 
draft for a default page as it should be automatically generated (see: 
http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/wiki/doku.php?id=packages:pastecs). 
Please, edit this page if you think it is not optimal!

> rcom and R.oo are the only packages off the top of my head with
> home pages but undoubtedly there are others that have
> home pages that I am not aware of.
> 
> Some other ideas for structuring might come from reviewing the
> table of contents of the Perl Cookbook or Python Cookbook
> or other tables of contents or web pages.  e.g.
> 
>   http://www.unix.org.ua/orelly/perl/cookbook/
> 
>   http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Python/Cookbook/
> 
> In the last one there is a categorization on the left side of the web page.

Yes, we will be able to do the same with "sidebars" in DokuWiki once 
this feature will be added (this is a patch to the plain DokuWiki 
engine; not on the top of my priorities, as soon as I know that a 
solution exists :-)

> If the major structuring gets done in a useful way right from the
> start that will likely help the wiki get off the ground.

Certainly! However, I just realize that a good structure could also come 
from a little bit of content. I am currently looking at "Rtips", "R 
Tcltk examples" and "Statistics with R" to get some inspiration.

> Regards.

Best,

Philippe Grosjean


> 
> On 1/18/06, Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean at sciviews.org> wrote:
> 
>>Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>>
>>>One thought for the wiki might be to have a place where
>>>package authors can logically put a home page for their
>>>package or a link to their off-wiki home page if they
>>>have one.
>>
>>This is automatic, because anybody can add namespaces / pages at will.
>>The simplest way to do that is to type:
>>
>>mypackage:mypage
>>
>>in the search text entry at top right in the Wiki (where "mypackage"
>>will become a new namespace, and "mypage", a new page in that
>>namespace). Click "search", and, in the search result page, you click
>>"Create this page". Start typing your text. Presumably, you will start
>>it with a top-level title, thus:
>>
>>====== This is my top-level title =====
>>Heres is **some text** added to my page...
>>
>>etc... So, the feature you are asking for is really built in the Wiki.
>>Best,
>>
>>Philippe Grosjean
>>
>>
> 
> 
>