[RkWard-devel] 0.4.6+ and beyond: comments and ideas

[Prasenjit Kapat]

Hi,

Generic comments and ideas (I have written plugins for , but have NOT 
committed them to svn yet. Should I do them for any/every one to check?)

[1] Set/Change default Working directory. May be under Settings > General tab. 
Though this might as well go under, Console. Then change is from Workspace 
menu, using setwd(). Ok, I have written a plugin which seems to do the job. 
But it has some isues:

The <browser> GUI element accepts type="dir" as a field. But, the the dialog 
box DOES NOT accept directories, rather it accepts only files. Moreover, the 
main button is a "Save" button, as opposed to "Open" for type="file" field.

Barring this, if you enter the directory name into the input box then my 
plugin works. But, what would be better is NOT to use a plugin at all. Rather 
hard code it into cpp (like how Open/Save Workspace works now) which will be 
more intuitive. So ideally it would be realised as: Workspace > Change 
Working directory > (Choose the directory using a file open dialog) > Open > 
(Change/Add some message to either the status bar or the Title bar of the 
main RKWard window where the workspace name is displayed. )

[2] X11 Device export: We need separate plugins for exporting 
postscript/pdf/png/jpeg. Using ghostscript (dev2bitmap) produces low quality 
outputs. I have written a plugin for doing the png/jpeg export. It is under 
Device > Export to PNG/JPEG. Again, it is no where near complete but works. I 
am using dev.print(device=png,...) for this purpose. I am planning to add two 
more plugins for pdf and ps, unless someone else is already working on it.

[3] CLT: This is one more "set of plugins" on my ToDo: 
Now that preview rocks, I was wondering to add plugins to visualise, the 
approach to Normality under CLT for different distributions. I am planning to 
add it under Distribution > Beta > CLT. Suggestions for any other appropriate 
hierarchy for these plugins and a proper label for the meny entry are 
welcome. Of course, the foremost question is: Though this is conceptually 
nice, whether such a plugin is needed for the current project?

[4] I am sure this is on the TODO: 
Toggle keys for the four tabs (Command Logs, Pending Jobs, R Console, Help 
Search) at the bottom; say F4, F5, F6 and F7 respectively. The current F8 
which is supposed to take the focus away from RConsole, when in RConsole, 
does not seem to work! It just enters a "Enter/Return" character at the 
RConsole prompt.

[5] Remove "Preview" from TODO ?
	- Preview of plots
		- Maybe use a button (along the submit / close / etc. buttons instead)?
		- The preview window should be a specialized RKCaughtWindow
			- It should show info on state (up to date / updating / error / etc).

[6] 	- create grid() plugin
   I saw this in the current TODO file. What exactly is this grid() plugin? 
Has this anything to do with Trellis grpahics?

[7] TODO: Implementing the Lattice (based on trellis) packge using menus. Lets 
just keep this as a long term todo, not for immediate concerns. The trellis 
graphics is one hell of a complicated but rather powerfull mess.

Regards
PK