An Introduction To GUI Programming Using R

An Introduction to GUI Development
using R
Overview
Introduction
R Interfaces
GUIs for programming
Programming for GUIs

GUIs for teaching how to program
GUI task-oriented applications
gWidgets package
Integrating R into other applications

GUI deployment
Introduction
R Interfaces/Console alternatives
RStudio
Programmed in C++ and GTK+
JGR
Java
Revolution R Productivity Environment

(RPE)
MS Visual Studio
Red-R (Open Source visual

programming for R
SciViews (extends Komodo edit)
GUIs for Programming (code

editors)
R internal editor (on Mac!)

Emacs + ESS
Eclipse + StatET
Gvim/Vim-R
Notepad++ / NppToR
WinEdt/RWniEdt ($30!!!)
Tinn-R (MS Windows only)
jEdit (doesn't pass code to R)
GUIs to learn programming

R Commander (Rcmdr package)
Satistical analysis functions
RKWard (Linux only)
Poll from KDnuggets.com (data miners!)
GUI Programming using R

gWidgets package
written by J. Verzani
gWidgets provides a toolkit-independent API for building interactive
GUIs.
At least one of gWidgetstcltk, gWidgetsRGtk2, gWidgetsQt (on RForge only) and qWidgetsrJava needs to be installed.
i.e. GUI toolkits must be installed (except Tcltk, pre-installed, default)
the user can switch between GUI toolkits with relative

ease and can write code in a toolkit independent way
Well, not quite
GTK+ toolkit
www.gtk.org
gWidgets
functions
GUI contruction using gWidgets
Use containers (in ggroup, gwindow, gnotebook functions) to nest widgets

Handlers i.e. event handling, define the executed operation
Handlers can be added after the GUI is created e.g. addHandlerClicked()
Drag-and-drop is also featured in gWidgets
Demo....
library(gWidgets)
options("guiToolkit"="RGtk2")
win<gwindow("HelloWorld,adnauseum",visible=TRUE)
group<ggroup(horizontal=FALSE,container=win)
obj<gbutton("Hello...",container=group,handler=function(h,...)
gmessage("world"))
obj<glabel("Hello...",container=group,handler=function(h,...)
gmessage("world"))
obj<gcombobox(c("Hello","world"),container=group)
obj<gedit("Helloworld",container=group)
obj<gtext("Helloworld",container=group,font.attr=list(style="bold"))
Sample Problem
Survey conducted to see changes in HIV and
non-HIV services in sub-Saharan Africa
Conducted across health centres & hospitals, also
individual health-worker data, in several sub-saharan
Africa countries
Relatively small questionnaire resulting in 800

variables!
Variables names themselves are not very useful
e.g. Q001. Great scope for programming error
Variable labels (the actual questions) contain the

information on what is collected
With the concept of variable names dropped, an
interactive GUI might work better with variable labels
than programming!
Solution
Create new sets of labels
which work as indexes
These can be used to filter, manage and
analyze data
- Restructuring of data not required
Begin with a search & replace dialogue

screen
How would you design it (so that it would be a
better option than just using grep or regexpr)?
Demo...
Deducer
An intuitive, cross-platform graphical data
analysis system
Deducer is based upon rJava and provides
access to the Java Swing Network
Related Packages
Description
DeducerExtras
Additional dialogs and functions for Deducer
DeducerPlugIn Example Deducer Plug-in Example

DeducerPlugInScaling
Reliability and factor analysis plugin
DeducerSpatial
Deducer for spatial data analysis
DeducerSurvival
Add Survival Dialogue to Deducer
DeducerText
Deducer GUI for Text Data
gWidgets versus Deducer

Deducer has a slightly lower level library, but
more flexible and compatible with JGR
Deducer requires you to explicitly specify
positions of widgets, and is a little more
verbose when you come to add event
handling logic
Visit www.r-bloggers.com for a discussion
Other R GUI packages and tools

(which I know little about!)
PBS (Pacific Biological Station) packages

Rattle (data mining GUI)
Brodgar (used for class-room teaching etc.)
pmg (poor mans GUI, similar to Rcmdr)
Current List of Packages with

tools for GUI development or
utilize a programmed GUI*
*as of January 2013
Package
description
ade4TkGUI
GUI for ade4 package
AtelieR
Basic statistical inference & bayesian analysis
BiodiversityR
Biodiversity, suitability, community ecology analysis
biOpsGUI
Basic image operations
BiplotGUI
Interactive Biplots in R
CADStat
Statistical methods useful for causal assessment
caGUI
A Tcl/Tk GUI for the functions in the ca package
cncaGUI
Canonical Non-symmetrical Correspondence Analysis
DALY
Stochastic DALY calculations
detrendeR
Start the detrendeR Graphical User Interface (GUI)
digeR
GUI tool for analyzing 2D DIGE data
GGEBiplotGUI
GGEBiplotGUI: Interactive GGE Biplots in R
GrapheR
Multi-platform GUI for drawing customizable graphs
MDSGUI
A GUI for interactive MDS in R
MergeGUI
A GUI for Merging Datasets in R
Metabonomic
GUI for Metabonomic Analysis
Package
description
migui
Graphical User Interface of the mi Package
MissingDataGUI
A GUI for Missing Data Exploration
MSeasyTkGUI
A GUI for Missing Data Exploration
multibiplotGUI
Multibiplot Analysis in R
mutossGUI
A graphical user interface for the MuToss Project
PBSadmb
ADMB for R Using Scripts or GUI
PMSddesolve
Solver for Delay Differential Equations
PBSmapping
Mapping Fisheries Data and Spatial Analysis Tools
PBSmodelling
Interact with Models, Explore Data, Dynamic

Presentations
playwith
A GUI for interactive plots using GTK+
pmg
Poor Man's GUI
ProgGUIinR
book "Programming Graphical User Interfaces in R"
QCAGUI
QCA Graphical User Interface
R2STATS
Fit and compare GLM and GLMM in R
RandForestGUI
Random Forests
RenextGUI
GUI for Renext
Package
description
ResearchMethods
GUIs to help teach statistics to non-statistics students
reshapeGUI
A GUI for the reshape2 and plyr packages
RPMG
Interactive R analysis sessions
RunuranGUI
A GUI for the UNU.RAN random variate generators
Rz
GUI Tool for Data Management like SPSS or Stata
sculpt3d
A simple toolbar GUI for brushing RGL plots
sdcMicroGUI
Graphical user interface for package sdcMicro
SeqGrapheR
Graph based visualization of cluster of DNA seq reads
Sim.DiffProcGUI
Simulation of Diffusion Processes
speedR
A GUI based importing and filtering tool
TGUICore
Teaching GUI - Core functionality
TGUITeaching
Teaching GUI - prototype
tourrGUI
A Tour GUI using gWidgets
traitr
creating GUIs (traits UI module for python)
WMCapacity
Bayesian working memory models
x12GUI
X12 - Graphical User Interface
Package
description
Common JavaJars Useful libraries for building a Java based GUI

fgui
Function GUI
miniGUI
tktcl quick and simple function GUI
Considerations in GUI
development
&
deployment
Which Widget library?
GTK+, Java, Qt?
Program the UI or use a UI designer?

e.g. QtDesigner
Choice of software for GUI deployment?

R (gWidgets package etc.)
Python (wxPython, PyQt, PyQt4 libraries)
R/Python integration (call R using Rpy, Rpy2)
Sage (www.sagemath.org)?
Sage uses existing open-source libraries wherever they exist!
See sagemath.org, writen in Python & Cython, not supported by
MS Windows
Web-applications
rApache project (www.rapache.net)
Embed R in the Apache web server
Rook package
Provides an interface to build webapplications with rApache
gWidgetsWWW
Its independent of gWidgets!
Use JavaScript libraries, rapache
Shiny in Rstudio!!!
Documentation
Lots of material on the web
Journal of Statistical
Software (Vol. 49)
Special issue of R on GUIs
Lawrence and Verzani book

(2012)
gWidgets package vignette
Final comments
Dont write a GUI which you hope others will find
useful. Write one you use yourself and hopefully it may
be of use other people
A successful GUI will requires the right balance of detail
and simplicity
Writing a GUI using R may not be the optimal
deployment of a GUI, but it is nevertheless easy to do!
It is my opinion that programing from within R is a very good
way to get a working GUI quickly, but you are better served
leaving R for something polished and professional looking.
R-Blogger
Thank you!

An Introduction To GUI Programming Using R

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An Introduction To GUI Programming Using R

Uploaded by

An Introduction to GUI Development

Programming for GUIs

Integrating R into other applications

Revolution R Productivity Environment

Red-R (Open Source visual

GUIs for Programming (code

R internal editor (on Mac!)

GUIs to learn programming

RKWard (Linux only)

Poll from KDnuggets.com (data miners!)

GUI Programming using R

the user can switch between GUI toolkits with relative

GUI contruction using gWidgets

Use containers (in ggroup, gwindow, gnotebook functions) to nest widgets

Relatively small questionnaire resulting in 800

Variable labels (the actual questions) contain the

Begin with a search & replace dialogue

Additional dialogs and functions for Deducer

DeducerPlugIn Example Deducer Plug-in Example

Reliability and factor analysis plugin

Deducer for spatial data analysis

Add Survival Dialogue to Deducer

Deducer GUI for Text Data

gWidgets versus Deducer

Other R GUI packages and tools

PBS (Pacific Biological Station) packages

Current List of Packages with

*as of January 2013

GUI for ade4 package

Basic statistical inference & bayesian analysis

Biodiversity, suitability, community ecology analysis

Basic image operations

Statistical methods useful for causal assessment

A Tcl/Tk GUI for the functions in the ca package

Canonical Non-symmetrical Correspondence Analysis

Stochastic DALY calculations

Start the detrendeR Graphical User Interface (GUI)

GUI tool for analyzing 2D DIGE data

GGEBiplotGUI: Interactive GGE Biplots in R

Multi-platform GUI for drawing customizable graphs

A GUI for interactive MDS in R

A GUI for Merging Datasets in R

GUI for Metabonomic Analysis

Graphical User Interface of the mi Package

A GUI for Missing Data Exploration

A GUI for Missing Data Exploration

A graphical user interface for the MuToss Project

ADMB for R Using Scripts or GUI

Solver for Delay Differential Equations

Mapping Fisheries Data and Spatial Analysis Tools

Interact with Models, Explore Data, Dynamic

A GUI for interactive plots using GTK+

Poor Man's GUI

book "Programming Graphical User Interfaces in R"

QCA Graphical User Interface

Fit and compare GLM and GLMM in R

GUI for Renext

GUIs to help teach statistics to non-statistics students

A GUI for the reshape2 and plyr packages

Interactive R analysis sessions

A GUI for the UNU.RAN random variate generators

GUI Tool for Data Management like SPSS or Stata

A simple toolbar GUI for brushing RGL plots

Graphical user interface for package sdcMicro

Graph based visualization of cluster of DNA seq reads

Simulation of Diffusion Processes

A GUI based importing and filtering tool

Teaching GUI - Core functionality

Teaching GUI - prototype

A Tour GUI using gWidgets

creating GUIs (traits UI module for python)

Bayesian working memory models

X12 - Graphical User Interface

Common JavaJars Useful libraries for building a Java based GUI

tktcl quick and simple function GUI

Program the UI or use a UI designer?