Hi. I'm looking to create a user-friendly program built around some R methods I've written. The program should be as easy to install and use as possible and will be built around a GUI. This program will be cross-platform; that's crucial. I'm familiar with Java and its GUI packages, I've been looking at the JRI package (interfaces R with Java) but I'm a little uneasy about asking my users to go through its installation (necessitates mingw, among other things, in Windows). Though, once installed, it could work very well. I have a little exposure to Tcl/TK. Though I'm not as big of a fan of this as I am of Java, I could suck it up and use it, but I'm not sure that its installation is a whole lot simpler? What, in your experience, is the easiest way to accomplish something like this? To recapitulate, my criteria are: 1.) Easy installation 2.) Ease of use (GUI) 3.) Interface with functions written in R 4.) Cross-platform I'm willing to learn a new language (scripting or otherwise) if necessary. Thanks so much. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/R-GUI-question-tp16149624p16149624.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 12:56:13PM -0700, jeffreya wrote:> > Hi. > > I'm looking to create a user-friendly program built around some R methods > I've written. The program should be as easy to install and use as possible > and will be built around a GUI. This program will be cross-platform; that's > crucial. > > I'm familiar with Java and its GUI packages, I've been looking at the JRI > package (interfaces R with Java) but I'm a little uneasy about asking my > users to go through its installation (necessitates mingw, among other > things, in Windows). Though, once installed, it could work very well. > > I have a little exposure to Tcl/TK. Though I'm not as big of a fan of this > as I am of Java, I could suck it up and use it, but I'm not sure that its > installation is a whole lot simpler?Should be. It comes with R. I believe that it is still the only cross-platform solution that requires nothing, but the base R installation.> What, in your experience, is the easiest way to accomplish something like > this? > > To recapitulate, my criteria are: > 1.) Easy installationTcl/Tk wins here, IMHO.> 2.) Ease of use (GUI)Tcl/Tk is not the most modern GUI, so it might be a little clumsy.> 3.) Interface with functions written in RThat's no problem for any of the R GUI options, i believe.> 4.) Cross-platformTcl/Tk is. Furthermore, Tcl/Tk is quite poorly documented, even if you can usually use its "normal" (not R) documentation. Sometimes it is hard to find the right way of doing things. Gabor> I'm willing to learn a new language (scripting or otherwise) if necessary. > > Thanks so much. > -- > View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/R-GUI-question-tp16149624p16149624.html > Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.-- Csardi Gabor <csardi at rmki.kfki.hu> UNIL DGM
Look at Rcmdr as the base for your additional menu functions. I am using it for my introductory courses and have added my own menu items.>From CRAN, download and install Rcmdr and read it's documentation.Also from CRAN you can download and install my addin library RcmdrPlugin.HH The latter will show how easy it is to add additional functions to the Rcmdr menu. Rich
On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 12:56 PM, jeffreya <jeff_a_10487 at yahoo.com> wrote:> > Hi. > > I'm looking to create a user-friendly program built around some R methods > I've written. The program should be as easy to install and use as possible > and will be built around a GUI. This program will be cross-platform; that's > crucial. > > I'm familiar with Java and its GUI packages, I've been looking at the JRI > package (interfaces R with Java) but I'm a little uneasy about asking my > users to go through its installation (necessitates mingw, among other > things, in Windows). Though, once installed, it could work very well. >rJava/JRI does not require mingw. It's just a matter of installing Java (which many users have already) and the rJava package.> I have a little exposure to Tcl/TK. Though I'm not as big of a fan of this > as I am of Java, I could suck it up and use it, but I'm not sure that its > installation is a whole lot simpler? > > What, in your experience, is the easiest way to accomplish something like > this? > > To recapitulate, my criteria are: > 1.) Easy installation > 2.) Ease of use (GUI) > 3.) Interface with functions written in R > 4.) Cross-platform >I would suggest using the gWidgets package, an abstraction over RGtk2 (best supported by gWidgets but requires user to install the cross-platform GTK+ library), tcltk and rJava/Swing. All the backends are cross-platform and support callbacks into R. The user may choose which backend to use. So if they want a slicker GUI they could install GTK+ and RGtk2 or they could just use the built-in support for tcl/tk.> I'm willing to learn a new language (scripting or otherwise) if necessary. >gWidgets would only require you to know R.> Thanks so much. > -- > View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/R-GUI-question-tp16149624p16149624.html > Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >
Thanks so much for all the input; I appreciate it. I think I'll stick with Tcl/Tk for now primarily on the basis of installation issues. I'm not sure that many of these users would have Java, so the other alternatives all seemed to add another level of complexity on to the installation task (again, this is aimed at a very non-computer savvy audience). Thanks again for the advice! Jeff -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/R-GUI-question-tp16149624p16262820.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.