[rkward-devel] first draft/proposal: new graphics devices section

[Milan Bouchet-Valat]

Le dimanche 06 octobre 2013 à 21:55 +0200, meik michalke a écrit :
> hi,
> 
> a while ago, we were discussing the possible inclusion of the graphics devices 
> somewhere into the main window of RKWard, instead of (or in addition to) 
> opening it in a separate window.
> 
> i made a first draft of how this could look like:
>  http://reaktanz.de/stuff/R/RKWard_graphics_section.png
> 
> the most "difficult" decision is where to put the menu entries. in the draft 
> the graphics device has focus and its menu entries completely replaced the 
> usually available menu. but maybe the normal menu should simply be added to, 
> and not being replaced?
> 
> also, if there were more graphics devices active, you'd probably need tabs in 
> that section, too. alternatively, the "graphics devices" button could work as 
> a tab (i.e., be called "graphics device #1" instead and be added more bottons 
> for additional devices).
> 
> what do you think?
That's interesting, but in the end I'm not sure this is really a good
idea. I've used Rstudio a few times, and I found that the plot is always
either too small to see the contents correctly, or too big because it
takes place that would be useful for other things. It's nice to see the
result of graphics without switching to another window, but in practice
it is merely a preview, which is not always very useful. I guess it
depends on the kind of plot.

To make matters worse, in Rstudio the size of the R device is the size
of the plot pane, not that of the separate window you can open. This
means that when you open the window to get a bigger plot, the position
of graph elements is not as good as it would have been if the plot had
been drawn directly at full size. Unfortunately, R does not recompute
everything when resizing the plot (especially visible for legends, but
not only).

So I would be very careful before doing such a change. ;-)


My two cents