Prof Brian Ripley
2005-Feb-25 12:11 UTC
[Rd] How graphical an interface should the default be?
install/update.packages will have a lot of changes in 2.1.0, and I have been adding some widgets to go along with this. - Rather than just CRAN and BIOC, you have a character vector of repositories. There is a function setRepositories() to set the appropriate option(). - There is no default CRAN, but a function chooseCRANmirror() to set a mirror, which is invoked if you try to access CRAN without setting a mirror. - update.packages(ask="graphics") brings up a listbox for you to de-select packages (all available updates are pre-selected). - install.packages() with no/empty pkgs argument brings up a listbox of all available packages (including those inside bundles). - menu(graphics=TRUE) is implemented. These can be set up to use widgets where available (Windows, if Tk is available under X11, I hope Aqua before release), and have a text-mode fallback (better than the current menu(), but in that spirit). (Except that is install.packages: text-mode selection from 480 packages even in three columns is not useful to me, but a scrolling list works well as Windows users of R already know.) My question is: What should be default be? Options might be: - use the graphics widget if available. - make the graphics the default on Windows (it will always be available, but not necessarily on the right screen under DCOM uses). - make text-mode the default on Unix. - do different things for different tools. Currently setRepositories() and chooseCRANmirror() default to graphics-if-possible, and update.packages() defaults to text mode (which gives more detailed information). I am not really in favour of making the defaults a set of options, but that is possible. This is a request for input on what would be a good compromise for general R users (and not just the R-devel audience). -- Brian D. Ripley, ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595
Robert Gentleman
2005-Feb-25 12:54 UTC
[Rd] How graphical an interface should the default be?
On Feb 25, 2005, at 3:11 AM, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:> install/update.packages will have a lot of changes in 2.1.0, and I > have been adding some widgets to go along with this. > > - Rather than just CRAN and BIOC, you have a character vector of > repositories. There is a function setRepositories() to set the > appropriate option(). > > - There is no default CRAN, but a function chooseCRANmirror() to set a > mirror, which is invoked if you try to access CRAN without setting a > mirror. > > - update.packages(ask="graphics") brings up a listbox for you to > de-select > packages (all available updates are pre-selected). > > - install.packages() with no/empty pkgs argument brings up a listbox of > all available packages (including those inside bundles). > > - menu(graphics=TRUE) is implemented. > > These can be set up to use widgets where available (Windows, if Tk is > available under X11, I hope Aqua before release), and have a text-mode > fallback (better than the current menu(), but in that spirit). (Except > that is install.packages: text-mode selection from 480 packages even > in three columns is not useful to me, but a scrolling list works well > as Windows users of R already know.) > > My question is: > > What should be default be? > > Options might be: > > - use the graphics widget if available. > > - make the graphics the default on Windows (it will always be > available, > but not necessarily on the right screen under DCOM uses). > > - make text-mode the default on Unix. > > - do different things for different tools. Currently setRepositories() > and chooseCRANmirror() default to graphics-if-possible, and > update.packages() defaults to text mode (which gives more > detailed information). > > I am not really in favour of making the defaults a set of options, but > that is possible. > > > This is a request for input on what would be a good compromise for > general R users (and not just the R-devel audience). >Hi, Thanks for taking this on - it looks like a big step forward. I have some pretty minor comments/questions. We will, of course, try to adapt the BioC code in time... We probably want to be sure that any function calling one of these has complete control and can override user defined defaults. I am not completely clear on your model for how the repositories are searched though. Two questions come to mind: 1) How do I get the most recent version of a package, regardless of which repository it is in? 2) Can a package from one repository have its dependencies resolved in another repository, or not? (this last one is a real can of worms - in my view, as one might really prefer a same repository solution, but that means that repositories might need to completely contain CRAN - which is clearly less desirable). And of course this may be too fine a level of detail, but these problems have come up in our experience. I think it would be nice if getting dependencies had two (or more levels), so that I could get only those packages that the current package "Depends" on, and a second level where I could get both the "Suggests" and the "Depends". For me (at least) Suggests is weaker, and for many users the "Suggests" set of packages is not always needed - the "Depends" set, is though. Currently the dependencies option seems to only allow TRUE and FALSE. Robert> > -- > Brian D. Ripley, ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk > Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ > University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) > 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) > Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595 > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > >+----------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------+ | Robert Gentleman phone: (206) 667-7700 | | Head, Program in Computational Biology fax: (206) 667-1319 | | Division of Public Health Sciences office: M2-B865 | | Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center | | email: rgentlem@fhcrc.org | +----------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------+
Henrik Bengtsson
2005-Feb-25 18:50 UTC
[Rd] How graphical an interface should the default be?
Very nice additions you have made! Thanks.> -----Original Message----- > From: r-devel-bounces@stat.math.ethz.ch > [mailto:r-devel-bounces@stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Prof > Brian Ripley > Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 12:11 PM > To: R-devel@r-project.org > Subject: [Rd] How graphical an interface should the default be? > > > install/update.packages will have a lot of changes in 2.1.0, > and I have > been adding some widgets to go along with this. > > - Rather than just CRAN and BIOC, you have a character vector of > repositories. There is a function setRepositories() to set the > appropriate option(). > > - There is no default CRAN, but a function chooseCRANmirror() to set a > mirror, which is invoked if you try to access CRAN without > setting a > mirror. > > - update.packages(ask="graphics") brings up a listbox for you > to de-select packages (all available updates are pre-selected).Minor comment 1: Isn't ask=(TRUE|FALSE) and graphics=(TRUE|FALSE) more in line with the other updates? True, one more argument, but you can imagine update.packages(ask=TRUE) with a "fall-back" to a text-based selection menu. Until implemented, one could default to graphics=ask. Minor comment 2: Naming conventions, not discussed very often, but I would suggest chooseCranMirror() instead of chooseCRANmirror(). (I comment on this in under "3.1 General Naming Conventions" -> "Abbreviations and acronyms should not be uppercase when used as name" in my RCC draft at http://www.maths.lth.se/help/R/RCC/.)> - install.packages() with no/empty pkgs argument brings up a > listbox of all available packages (including those inside bundles). > > - menu(graphics=TRUE) is implemented. > > These can be set up to use widgets where available (Windows, if Tk is > available under X11, I hope Aqua before release), and have a > text-mode > fallback (better than the current menu(), but in that > spirit). (Except > that is install.packages: text-mode selection from 480 > packages even in > three columns is not useful to me, but a scrolling list works well as > Windows users of R already know.) > > My question is: > > What should be default be? > > Options might be: > > - use the graphics widget if available. > > - make the graphics the default on Windows (it will always be > available, > but not necessarily on the right screen under DCOM uses). > > - make text-mode the default on Unix.I would say that same/identical behaviour on as many platforms as possible should be favored. That will make it easier to write general instructions/help and have subsection with OS-specific features.> - do different things for different tools. Currently > setRepositories() > and chooseCRANmirror() default to graphics-if-possible, and > update.packages() defaults to text mode (which gives more > detailed information). > > I am not really in favour of making the defaults a set of > options, but that is possible.My feeling is that a global option is what you want. Not only in the above cases, it would be nice for any package developer to be able to query such an option. I also believe there are different users; some prefer GUIs some prefer command line, or even strongly dislike GUIs). If writing scripts for, say, automated installation of 450+ CRAN packages on various systems such Linux, Windows and OS X, it would be very useful to have a predictive behaviour of the above so that you can make it work the same on all systems. For example, I used to redefine readline() to automatically answer questions asked by install.packages() when installing many packages at the same time; this would be much harder if a GUI pops up. Maybe there should be a new options to start R with, e.g. --nogui. Best Henrik Bengtsson> This is a request for input on what would be a good > compromise for general R users (and not just the R-devel audience). > > > -- > Brian D. Ripley, ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk > Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ > University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) > 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) > Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595 > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel