[RkWard-devel] plug-in

[Thomas Friedrichsmeier]

Hi Stefan,

> I'm new here. However, I'll try to help you to get with some new plug-in
> (manly for charting).  Though I'm not a coder I hope to get in the hole
> stuff with your "Preliminary Introduction to writing plugins for RKWard". I
> have some little experience with R and almost no with XML. Therefore in any
> case it will take me some time to learn. So for the case that you have any
> hints what else to read before I start you are welcome to tell me. Moreover
> I have not yet figured out if there are others who also write plug-ins. If
> so I'm interested to know which they work on not to double work.

as far as I am aware, nobody is actively working on plugins at the moment. In 
fact, not much at all has happened over the past two months, but I will have 
some time to work on rkward again, soon. BTW, what I will continue working on 
is a re-design of the internal workings of the plugin-system. This will add 
some flexibility (esp. reusing common parts of plugins will be possible), but 
I expect existing plugins to continue working (maybe some small changes will 
be needed), so even if you start now, your work will not be wasted.

For XML: You shouldn't need to read anything on that. RKWard does not use any 
nifty syntax here, just some standard ideas. Probably you should have a look 
at some of the simpler plugins provided with rkward, and modify them to your 
needs. That should get you started very quickly. The basic concepts:

1) Nested hierarchy of "tags"/"elements":
<first_level_tag>
	<second_level_tag>
		<third_level_tag>
			...
		</third_level_tag>
		...
	</second_level_tag>
	<another_second_level_tag/>
	...
</first_level_tag>

Note that each "element" (<tag_name>) needs to be closed (</tag_name>). As a 
shorthand, if a tag does not have any child-elements, you can write 
<tag_name/> for a tag that is closed instantly.

2) "Attributes":
Some elements have attributes:
<tag_name attribute_number_one="some value" attribute_number_two="some other 
value"/>

And that's basically it. Refer to the introduction to writing plugins to find 
out, which tag names and attributes to use, and where to place each element.

For R: I'm not aware of any good documentation besides what's listed on the 
r-project homepage. You can always ask on r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch or on this 
list, if you have a specific problem.

For all the rest: Don't hesitate to ask, if you get stuck, or you need more 
information. I'll try to help as much as possible. Some work on plugins is 
really appreciated!

Regards
Thomas
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