Message-ID: <200411190828.iAJ8SiUS016426@outmx018.isp.belgacom.be>
Date: 2004-11-19T08:28:43Z
From: Philippe GROSJEAN
Subject: The hidden costs of GPL software?
In-Reply-To: <20041119024548.EUZS1919.tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net@JohnDesktop8300>
John Fox wrote:
> [...] (sorry, this is long mail, and I want to comment only details)
> By the way, if there were
> something I could wish for here it would be a slightly
> broader set of Tk widgets to be included with the Tcl/Tk that
> installs with R for Windows, since using widgets outside of
> this set creates installation obstacles for lower-level users.
Then, take a look at the tcltk2 package in the SciViews bundle (probably, in
the next version, I will take it out of the bundle). You have there tile
(themable widgets with notebook tabs, progress bar, and many more... and
very soon combo boxes and lists/trees). You have also the famous tkTable,
and a separate combobox and a tree, and a support for tooltips everywhere...
Just propose if you need more! All this runs under Windows, but I still got
problems to compile it under other platforms.
> I doubt that many list
> members would look favourably on the statistical-methods
> "decision tree" in MicrOsiris, for example. One solution is
> to include PDF "manuals" with packages. I've done this, for
> example, with my effects and Rcmdr packages.
> The introductory manual supplied with Thomas Lumley's survey
> package is another, similar example. Maybe there's a better
> way of integrating such non-vignette manuals with the help
> system -- something like help(manual=package).
I tend to have the same opinion than John (although I thing that both a good
manual, and a better online help could be beneficial): a PDF manual is much
more readable than a wiki! Why not to propose PDF manuals in the \doc
section of CRAN which have a GNU Free Documentation License
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), so that the manual could be
progressively enhanced by many authors?
Best,
Philippe Grosjean