You can mix any type and number of vignette formats in a package. What vignette engine is used is solely specified by the %\VignetteEngine{<pkg>::<engine>} markup string. You don't need to specify this for the default Sweave format, but you can as:
%\VignetteEngine{utils::Sweave} For your knitr vignette you'd use: %\VignetteEngine{knitr::knitr} The <engine> part of the specification is the registered engine name and *not* a function name; in the above to cases this just happens to both. For example, %\VignetteEngine{R.rsp::asis} specifies engine 'asis' (for static pre-built PDF and HTML vignettes) of the vignette builder package R.rsp, but there is no asis() function in that package. (BTW, the % is a remnant from the time when everything was LaTeX based and when it was used to specify a LaTeX comment. However it is still needed, because it is part of the markup syntax. Ideally it would not have been needed in non-LaTeX-based formats, but it was kept due to tight deadlines on the design when this was first implemented.) The filename extension controls nothing (except that it is used as a fallback for the default Sweave engine for backward compatible reasons). However, each vignette engine recognizes a given filename pattern so you need to use an extension that is recognized by the engine of interest. Engines can recognize the same patterns/extensions, e.g. Sweave and knitr both recognizes *.Rnw. When a package is built, each engine is first asked what files it is interested in (think dir(pattern=pattern)) and among those a match for %\VignetteEngine{...} is then searched. If no match, then the next registered engine is checked. If a march, then the engine build the vignette. What engines are registered are controlled by what vignette-builder packages are used/loaded (see VignetteBuilder below). You can test build a single vignette manually using: tools::buildVignette(pathname) That will decide on the engine based on the %\VignetteEngine{...} markup. Don't forget to load the vignette builder package first so its engines are registered, e.g. library(knitr). That's a good way to test it without having to use R CMD build (which is when all vignette templates in vignettes/ are built and moved together with the vignette products to inst/doc/). Finally, for R CMD build to work, you need: VignetteBuilder: utils, knitr and specify those vignette builder packages also under Suggests (unless they're already under Depends or Imports) in your package's DESCRIPTION file. Hope this clarifies it further Henrik (I wrote a fair chunk of the original code for dealing with any type of vignettes) [[alternative HTML version deleted]] _______________________________________________ Bioc-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/bioc-devel