HI R users, I would appreciate information/examples/suggestions on building GUIs for R applications. I am currently working on a project that would require the following functionalities : 1) Display a window to the user. Provide a function to scan local drive and choose dataset file. 2) Display the column names for the user to choose the dependent variable and the independent variables. 3) Fit regression and display statistics. While researching the possibility of creating a GUI which would allow for the above mentioned computations, I came across: 1) rpanel: Simple Interactive Controls for R Functions Using the tcltk Package Found In: Journal of Statistical Software, January 2007, Volume 17, Issue 9. 2) Putting RGtk to Work, James Robison-Cox Found In:Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Distributed Statistical Computing (DSC 2003),March 20?22, Vienna, Austria ISSN 1609-395X http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/Conferences/DSC-2003/ Item 2 provides an example of creating a regression application with slider controls for a parameter in loess function used in the example application in that paper. For documentation on RGtk the author recommends reading the Gtk tutorial and documentation. I seem to have difficulty in making sense of the Gtk documentation since most of it is in C and documentation is available for use of Gtk with Perl and Python. I am not a C/Perl/Python programmer. Moreover, I am creating a Windows Application and is using RGtk2 the only way to create a GUI for an R application? Or should I use the the VB approach and create the GUI separately and call R scripts where required to do the back-end computation? Another approach (to make the visualization more rich and dynamic) is to use Adobe FLEX front end and communicate with R using the RSOAP library. There is very sparse documentation relevant to using RSOAP. I have not been able to find examples or tutorials using RSOAP. Any information in this regard will be highly appreciated. The Biocep project provides 'R for cloud computing' but unfortunately I have not been able to extract relevant 'juice' from their webpage. What i did get is their R workbench, but that has not answered my above mentioned queries. Regards, Harsh Singhal
Building GUI for custom R application
9 messages · Harsh, Barry Rowlingson, Gabor Grothendieck +5 more
It hasn't been updated in years but this page lists some possibilities for R GUI's: http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 4:23 AM, Harsh <singhalblr at gmail.com> wrote:
HI R users, I would appreciate information/examples/suggestions on building GUIs for R applications. I am currently working on a project that would require the following functionalities : 1) Display a ?window to the user. Provide a function to scan local drive and choose dataset file. 2) Display the column names for the user to choose the dependent variable and the independent variables. 3) Fit regression and display statistics. While researching the possibility of creating a GUI which would allow for the above mentioned computations, I came across: 1) rpanel: Simple Interactive Controls for R Functions Using the tcltk Package Found In: Journal of Statistical Software, January 2007, Volume 17, Issue 9. 2) Putting RGtk to Work, James Robison-Cox Found In:Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Distributed Statistical Computing (DSC 2003),March 20?22, Vienna, Austria ISSN 1609-395X http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/Conferences/DSC-2003/ Item 2 provides an example of creating a regression application with slider controls for a parameter in loess function used in the example application in that paper. For documentation on RGtk the author recommends reading the Gtk tutorial and documentation. I seem to have difficulty in making sense of the Gtk documentation since most of it is in C and documentation is available for use of Gtk with Perl and Python. I am not a C/Perl/Python programmer. Moreover, I am creating a Windows Application and is using RGtk2 the only way to create a GUI for an R application? Or should I use the the VB approach and create the GUI separately and call R scripts where required to do the back-end computation? Another approach (to make the visualization more rich and dynamic) is to use Adobe FLEX front end and communicate with R using the RSOAP library. There is very sparse documentation relevant to using RSOAP. I have not been able to find examples or tutorials using RSOAP. Any information in this regard will be highly appreciated. The Biocep project provides 'R for cloud computing' but unfortunately I have not been able to extract relevant 'juice' from their webpage. What i did get is their R workbench, but that has not answered my above mentioned queries. Regards, Harsh Singhal
______________________________________________ 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.
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 9:23 AM, Harsh <singhalblr at gmail.com> wrote:
HI R users, I would appreciate information/examples/suggestions on building GUIs for R applications. I am currently working on a project that would require the following functionalities : 1) Display a ?window to the user. Provide a function to scan local drive and choose dataset file. 2) Display the column names for the user to choose the dependent variable and the independent variables. 3) Fit regression and display statistics.
Item 2 provides an example of creating a regression application with slider controls for a parameter in loess function used in the example application in that paper. For documentation on RGtk the author recommends reading the Gtk tutorial and documentation. I seem to have difficulty in making sense of the Gtk documentation since most of it is in C and documentation is available for use of Gtk with Perl and Python. I am not a C/Perl/Python programmer.
You should say "I am not _yet_ a C/Perl/Python programmer". Don't limit yourself :)
Moreover, I am creating a Windows Application and is using RGtk2 the only way to create a GUI for an R application? Or should I use the the VB approach and create the GUI separately and call R scripts where required to do the back-end computation?
If you are to admit the possibility of becoming a Python programmer (strongly recommended) I'd say you could do it with Python, Rpy, and the Qt library. The basic example you've outlined (choose file, select X and Y values, plot, display stats) would take about twenty minutes. In fact, I've done half the work already, in adding almost just such functionality to Quantum GIS. See here: http://www.maths.lancs.ac.uk/~rowlings/Software/Spqr/ where the second screenshot shows variable selection and diagnostic plots of an lm from data in the GIS. Distributing such an application might be tricky since it requires R, Rpy, PyQt4 to be installed or available, but it can be possible to build Python code into Windows .exe files with some effort. Don't get the fear of learning Python - it's easy, and working with R in Python is easy too. Guess what this does: from rpy import r x = r.rnorm(1000) r.hist(x) The tricky part of your problem is probably going to be understanding whatever GUI system you end up using - they tend to all have different ideas of callbacks, events, signals and so on. In the past I've played with Tcl/Tk a bit and Gtk a teeny bit, but found Qt really easy and cleanly designed. Once you go beyond the simple examples you appreciate this. Okay, obligatory 'use a better language and gui system' rant over :) If you want it done with as little extras as possible, then it can probably be done purely using R's tcltk package. I've just found loads of examples here: http://bioinf.wehi.edu.au/~wettenhall/RTclTkExamples/ Barry
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 6:54 AM, Barry Rowlingson
<b.rowlingson at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 9:23 AM, Harsh <singhalblr at gmail.com> wrote:
HI R users, I would appreciate information/examples/suggestions on building GUIs for R applications. I am currently working on a project that would require the following functionalities : 1) Display a ?window to the user. Provide a function to scan local drive and choose dataset file. 2) Display the column names for the user to choose the dependent variable and the independent variables. 3) Fit regression and display statistics.
Item 2 provides an example of creating a regression application with slider controls for a parameter in loess function used in the example application in that paper. For documentation on RGtk the author recommends reading the Gtk tutorial and documentation. I seem to have difficulty in making sense of the Gtk documentation since most of it is in C and documentation is available for use of Gtk with Perl and Python. I am not a C/Perl/Python programmer.
?You should say "I am not _yet_ a C/Perl/Python programmer". Don't limit yourself :)
Moreover, I am creating a Windows Application and is using RGtk2 the only way to create a GUI for an R application? Or should I use the the VB approach and create the GUI separately and call R scripts where required to do the back-end computation?
?If you are to admit the possibility of becoming a Python programmer (strongly recommended) I'd say you could do it with Python, Rpy, and the Qt library. The basic example you've outlined (choose file, select X and Y values, plot, display stats) would take about twenty minutes. ?In fact, I've done half the work already, in adding almost just such functionality to Quantum GIS. See here: ?http://www.maths.lancs.ac.uk/~rowlings/Software/Spqr/ ?where the second screenshot shows variable selection and diagnostic plots of an lm from data in the GIS. ?Distributing such an application might be tricky since it requires R, Rpy, PyQt4 to be installed or available, but it can be possible to build Python code into Windows .exe files with some effort.
Since you are using Windows (based on the fact you are considering VB) note that rpy2 does not work with the recent versions of python (as of a few months ago when I checked).
Duncan Murdoch and Brian Ripley (I believe) have provided some limited but serviceable native Windows GUI functionality within R for Windows. See ?winMenuAdd, ?choose.files , ?select.list, ?getGraphicsEvent,?winProgressBar for examples and further links. Everything that you mention can be rather simply done using this functionality (I've done it). As others have said, much more extensive and powerful GUI functionality is available through tcltk and associated packages like gWidgets,TkWidgets, and others (including much stuff on Bioconductor). But beware! -- writing GUI's that provide complex functionality is difficult. Computer scientists, web designers, etc. have whole curricula devoted to this. Cheers, Bert Bert Gunter Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics 650-467-7374 -----Original Message----- From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Gabor Grothendieck Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 4:17 AM To: Barry Rowlingson Cc: r-help at r-project.org; Harsh Subject: Re: [R] Building GUI for custom R application On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 6:54 AM, Barry Rowlingson
<b.rowlingson at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 9:23 AM, Harsh <singhalblr at gmail.com> wrote:
HI R users, I would appreciate information/examples/suggestions on building GUIs for R applications. I am currently working on a project that would require the following functionalities : 1) Display a ?window to the user. Provide a function to scan local drive and choose dataset file. 2) Display the column names for the user to choose the dependent variable and the independent variables. 3) Fit regression and display statistics.
Item 2 provides an example of creating a regression application with slider controls for a parameter in loess function used in the example application in that paper. For documentation on RGtk the author recommends reading the Gtk tutorial and documentation. I seem to have difficulty in making sense of the Gtk documentation since most of it is in C and documentation is available for use of Gtk with Perl and Python. I am not a C/Perl/Python programmer.
?You should say "I am not _yet_ a C/Perl/Python programmer". Don't limit yourself :)
Moreover, I am creating a Windows Application and is using RGtk2 the only way to create a GUI for an R application? Or should I use the the VB approach and create the GUI separately and call R scripts where required to do the back-end computation?
?If you are to admit the possibility of becoming a Python programmer (strongly recommended) I'd say you could do it with Python, Rpy, and the Qt library. The basic example you've outlined (choose file, select X and Y values, plot, display stats) would take about twenty minutes. ?In fact, I've done half the work already, in adding almost just such functionality to Quantum GIS. See here: ?http://www.maths.lancs.ac.uk/~rowlings/Software/Spqr/ ?where the second screenshot shows variable selection and diagnostic plots of an lm from data in the GIS. ?Distributing such an application might be tricky since it requires R, Rpy, PyQt4 to be installed or available, but it can be possible to build Python code into Windows .exe files with some effort.
Since you are using Windows (based on the fact you are considering VB) note that rpy2 does not work with the recent versions of python (as of a few months ago when I checked). ______________________________________________ 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.
If the desired end-state is a regression model and the appropriate diagnostics, the Rcmdr package contains the necessary tools. Rcmdr is available for many Linux distribuitons as well as for Windows, and it is able to do much more than import-and-regress. I think the package was built from Tcl/Tk. If the goals, however, are learning to build a GUI and incorporating custom features within it, then the other posts are pointing in the appropriate direction. Mike
On Apr 14, 10:40?am, Bert Gunter <gunter.ber... at gene.com> wrote:
Duncan Murdoch and Brian Ripley (I believe) have provided some limited but serviceable native Windows GUI functionality within R for Windows. See ?winMenuAdd, ?choose.files , ?select.list, ?getGraphicsEvent,?winProgressBar for examples and further links. Everything that you mention can be rather simply done using this functionality (I've done it). As others have said, much more extensive and powerful GUI functionality is available through tcltk and associated packages like gWidgets,TkWidgets, and others (including much stuff on Bioconductor). But beware! -- writing GUI's that provide complex functionality is difficult. Computer scientists, web designers, etc. have whole curricula devoted to this. Cheers, Bert Bert Gunter Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics 650-467-7374 -----Original Message----- From: r-help-boun... at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-boun... at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Gabor Grothendieck Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 4:17 AM To: Barry Rowlingson Cc: r-h... at r-project.org; Harsh Subject: Re: [R] Building GUI for custom R application On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 6:54 AM, Barry Rowlingson <b.rowling... at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 9:23 AM, Harsh <singhal... at gmail.com> wrote:
HI R users, I would appreciate information/examples/suggestions on building GUIs for R applications. I am currently working on a project that would require the following functionalities :
1) Display a ?window to the user. Provide a function to scan local drive and choose dataset file. 2) Display the column names for the user to choose the dependent variable and the independent variables. 3) Fit regression and display statistics.
Item 2 provides an example of creating a regression application with slider controls for a parameter in loess function used in the example application in that paper. For documentation on RGtk the author recommends reading the Gtk tutorial and documentation. I seem to have difficulty in making sense of the Gtk documentation since most of it is in C and documentation is available for use of Gtk with Perl and Python. I am not a C/Perl/Python programmer.
?You should say "I am not _yet_ a C/Perl/Python programmer". Don't limit yourself :)
Moreover, I am creating a Windows Application and is using RGtk2 the only way to create a GUI for an R application? Or should I use the the VB approach and create the GUI separately and call R scripts where required to do the back-end computation?
?If you are to admit the possibility of becoming a Python programmer (strongly recommended) I'd say you could do it with Python, Rpy, and the Qt library. The basic example you've outlined (choose file, select X and Y values, plot, display stats) would take about twenty minutes.
?In fact, I've done half the work already, in adding almost just such functionality to Quantum GIS. See here:
?where the second screenshot shows variable selection and diagnostic plots of an lm from data in the GIS.
?Distributing such an application might be tricky since it requires R, Rpy, PyQt4 to be installed or available, but it can be possible to build Python code into Windows .exe files with some effort.
Since you are using Windows (based on the fact you are considering VB) note that rpy2 does not work with the recent versions of python (as of a few months ago when I checked).
______________________________________________ R-h... at r-project.org mailing listhttps://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guidehttp://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. ______________________________________________ R-h... at r-project.org mailing listhttps://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guidehttp://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text -
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 9:46 PM, mah <harwood262 at gmail.com> wrote:
If the desired end-state is a regression model and the appropriate diagnostics, the Rcmdr package contains the necessary tools. ?Rcmdr is available for many Linux distribuitons as well as for Windows, and it is able to do much more than import-and-regress. ?I think the package was built from Tcl/Tk. ?If the goals, however, are learning to build a
Rcmdr provides a handy plug-in system, and it's fairly easy to write your own plug-in in tcl/tk. There was also a recent discussion [1] on the subject of creating GUIs for R. Liviu [1] http://www.nabble.com/Creating-GUIs-for-R-td19862627.html
Hello Harsh, I found useful the fgui package ( http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~tjhoffm/fgui.html ). Regards, Gabriele Franzini ICT Applications Manager Nerviano Medical Sciences SRL Nerviano Italy -----Original Message----- From: Barry Rowlingson [mailto:b.rowlingson at lancaster.ac.uk] Sent: 14 April 2009 12:55 To: Harsh Cc: r-help at r-project.org Subject: Re: [R] Building GUI for custom R application
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 9:23 AM, Harsh <singhalblr at gmail.com> wrote:
HI R users, I would appreciate information/examples/suggestions on building GUIs for R applications. I am currently working on a project that would require the following functionalities : 1) Display a ?window to the user. Provide a function to scan local drive and choose dataset file. 2) Display the column names for the user to choose the dependent variable and the independent variables. 3) Fit regression and display statistics.
Item 2 provides an example of creating a regression application with slider controls for a parameter in loess function used in the example application in that paper. For documentation on RGtk the author recommends reading the Gtk tutorial and documentation. I seem to have difficulty in making sense of the Gtk documentation since most of it is in C and documentation is available for use of Gtk with Perl and Python. I am not a C/Perl/Python programmer.
Barry
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