Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-15 Thread Philippe Grosjean
Ironically, this function is present since the beginning, although a little buggy. If you try this in R on a computer that is connected to the Internet: wikihelp - function(topic) browseURL(paste(http://wiki.r-project.org/rwiki/rhelp.php?id=;, topic, sep = )) wikihelp(barplot) You got

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-15 Thread Philippe Grosjean
Oh, I forgot to tell that svMisc package already implements since a long time a full-text search in R Wiki from within R, e.g., install.packages(svMisc) library(svMisc) helpSearchWeb(RSiteSearch, wiki) ?helpSearchWeb There are parts here that could be merged probably in the RSiteSearch

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-15 Thread baptiste auguie
I knew I had seen this in action! But as you mention, most pages only display ~~RDOC~~ at the moment. I second the idea of using the wiki for such collaborative work. If the current (r-devel) version of all help pages could be automatically copied to the wiki, users would have a convenient way

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-15 Thread Philippe Grosjean
baptiste auguie wrote: I knew I had seen this in action! But as you mention, most pages only display ~~RDOC~~ at the moment. I second the idea of using the wiki for such collaborative work. If the current (r-devel) version of all help pages could be automatically copied to the wiki, users

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-15 Thread Jim Lemon
I was studiously ignoring this thread (I have way too much to do already) but Gabor's suggestion reminded me that I have often found the PHP/MySQL online help pages very ... well, helpful. I can't recall the number of times I have scrolled down when I didn't quite get it, and found a comment

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-15 Thread John Sorkin
R 2.8.1, Firefox 3.0.11, windows XP Philippe, I suspect there are more substantial problems with the link to the WIKI then you thought. When I tried your code I got a page that contained nothing more than (excluding the nice graphic header and the index on the left-hand page): Trace: ยป barplot

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-15 Thread Philippe Grosjean
John Sorkin wrote: R 2.8.1, Firefox 3.0.11, windows XP Philippe, I suspect there are more substantial problems with the link to the WIKI then you thought. When I tried your code I got a page that contained nothing more than (excluding the nice graphic header and the index on the left-hand

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-15 Thread Philippe Grosjean
Sorry, after a second request, I got the ==Rwiki file not found!== again. Obviously, I have to solve this bug first! PhG Philippe Grosjean wrote: John Sorkin wrote: R 2.8.1, Firefox 3.0.11, windows XP Philippe, I suspect there are more substantial problems with the link to the WIKI then you

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-15 Thread Henrique Dallazuanna
On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 5:42 AM, Philippe Grosjean phgrosj...@sciviews.orgwrote: Ironically, this function is present since the beginning, although a little buggy. If you try this in R on a computer that is connected to the Internet: wikihelp - function(topic)

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-15 Thread John Sorkin
Below I have pasted an example from the R WIKI (which is a copy of a man page), that illustrates a typical problem with the help system. A naive reader who wants to know something about the tcltk package will know little more after reading the page than before he, or she, looked at the page.

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread Peter Flom
Patrick Burns pbu...@pburns.seanet.com wrote Proposal That a new mailing list be established that pertains exclusively to R documentation. The purpose of the list would be to discuss weak sections of the documentation and establish fixes for those weak spots. Pro If it works, there would be

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread John Sorkin
Issues (1) Will people use the new listserver? (2) Will developers respond to postings Question (1) Are there any guidelines for creating documentation? If not should they be developed? It seems to me that every help page should include (a) examples, and when approprate (b) a reference to an

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread stephen sefick
I have a package StreamMetabolism. I believe that documentation is the toughest part. I find it to be straight foward, but then I wrote the package. Lets try one? I don't m ind helping. Stephen Sefick On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 7:23 AM, John Sorkinjsor...@grecc.umaryland.edu wrote: Issues

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread Patrick Burns
I neglected to say that I don't have the time to be one of the drivers for the proposed list. Pat Patrick Burns wrote: Proposal That a new mailing list be established that pertains exclusively to R documentation. The purpose of the list would be to discuss weak sections of the documentation

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread Patrick Burns
I had only envisioned the scope of the list to be the packages that R-core are responsible for. Expanding to contributed packages would expand both potential usefulness and certain complexity exponentially. Pat stephen sefick wrote: I have a package StreamMetabolism. I believe that

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread stephen sefick
That make sense to just do the R-core documentation. I was suggesting using my package because I understand it and could have a dialog about the design choices for the documentation, which would also improve the package itself. I am starting my PhD program tomorrow and will probably not have

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread spencerg
The documentation for the nlme package was improved a few years ago by an informal process of this nature. When I first started following r-help, I answered many questions suggesting in part the the person read some portion of Pinheiro and Bates (2000). At that time, none of the help

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread John Sorkin
Perhaps help pages should have links to relevant portions of the WIKI. John John David Sorkin M.D., Ph.D. Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics University of Maryland School of Medicine Division of Gerontology Baltimore VA Medical Center 10 North Greene Street GRECC (BT/18/GR) Baltimore, MD

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread Peter Flom
, John Sorkin jsor...@grecc.umaryland.edu Subject: Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation I had only envisioned the scope of the list to be the packages that R-core are responsible for. Expanding to contributed packages would expand both potential usefulness and certain complexity exponentially

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread Philippe Grosjean
John Sorkin wrote: Perhaps help pages should have links to relevant portions of the WIKI. John John David Sorkin M.D., Ph.D. Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics University of Maryland School of Medicine Division of Gerontology Baltimore VA Medical Center 10 North Greene Street GRECC

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread Peter Flom
I certainly don't have anything against the WIKI, but I think that the documentation is where the action is, especially for newbies. It's the natural first step when you want to learn about a function or when you get an error message you don't understand. Peter Peter L. Flom, PhD

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread spencerg
I agree that the documentation is a primary source, made now more accessible with the availability of the RSiteSearch package that allows more structures searches of the help pages in contributed packages than previously available. On the other hand, it can sometimes be difficult to get

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread Gabor Grothendieck
In PHP and also in MySQL the manual has a wiki capability so that users can add notes at the end of each page, e.g. http://www.php.net/manual/en/functions.variable-functions.php http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/update.html That would combine documentation and wiki into one. Here it would

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread Ted Harding
On 14-Jun-09 22:23:24, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: In PHP and also in MySQL the manual has a wiki capability so that users can add notes at the end of each page, e.g. http://www.php.net/manual/en/functions.variable-functions.php http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/update.html That

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread Gabor Grothendieck
On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 6:41 PM, Ted Hardingted.hard...@manchester.ac.uk wrote: That is an interesting and potentially very fruitful idea. I'd like to propose a quasi-readonly mode in which wiki users could interpolate the comments at chosen points within the original text of a help-page (but

Re: [R] a proposal regarding documentation

2009-06-14 Thread Peter Flom
Well, suppose I wanted to suggest changes to some documentation, or write an alternate help file for some function. Where would I put it? Let's say I type, in R, ?median. Now suppose I have suggestions. If I look at http://wiki.r-project.org/rwiki/doku.php?id=idx=rdoc:base I don't see the