why is \alias{anRpackage} not mandatory?
It may not be much work for you, but I find any additional requirements to the package format to be a real pain. I have ~10 packages on CRAN and having to go through and add this extra information all at once is a big hassle. R releases tend to happen in the middle of the US academic semester when I have a lot of other things on my plate.
O.K., but the discussion with Duncan shows: - the required information is already available (in DESCRIPTION), - one can think about ways to generate the page automatically for existing packages, - the intro can be short and should link to other pages or PDFs, - one should avoid doubling and inconsistency.
I'm obviously not going to object if it's done automatically, and I already strive to avoid doubling and inconsistency by producing most my documentation algorithmically. I think you are being cavalier by not caring about the extra work you want package authors to do.
Additionally, I find that rdoc is the wrong format for lengthy explanation and exposition - a pdf is much better - and I think that the packages already have a abstract: the description field in DESCRIPTION.
o.k., but abstract may be (technically) in the wrong format and does not point to the other relevant parts of the package documentation.
Then I don't think you should call what you want an abstract.
The main problem with vignettes at the moment is that they must be sweave, a format which I don't really like. I wish I could supply my own pdf + R code file produced using whatever tools I choose.
I like Sweave, and it is also possible to include your own PDFs and R files and then to reference them in anRpackage.Rd.
Yes, but they're not vignettes - which means they're not listed under vignette() and it's yet another place for people to look for documentation. Hadley