R devel - Feb 2005 - 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

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
>
>
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----------------+
| 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                                 
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| email: rgentlem@fhcrc.org                                              
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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