On May 15, 2007, at 1:57 PM, Prof Brian Ripley wrote: > On Mon, 14 May 2007, Seth Falcon wrote: > >> Duncan Murdoch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>> I'm interested in making vignettes more visible. Putting them on >>> the >>> menu is not the only way, but since you're offering to do the >>> work, I >>> think it's a good idea :-). >> >> Excellent :-) >> >>> A few questions: >>> >>> - Should packages need to take any action to register their >>> vignettes, or should this happen automatically for anything that the >>> vignette() function would recognize as a vignette? > > I do think this should be optional, and preferably an option that > people have to opt in for. > > Some sort of vignette browser that packages can register with would > in my view be better, and that could have a single menu entry. > Menus can easily get swamped. >
I agree entirely. What puzzles me: why do we need yet another way to register vignettes? What is wrong with vignette()? Cheers, Simon >>> My recommendation would be for automatic installation. >> >> That seems ok to me. Currently, we have a system that requires >> package authors to register their vignette in .onAttach (more on that >> below). I can't really think of a case where a package provides >> vignettes and doesn't want them easily accessible to new users in a >> GUI environment. >> >>> - Should it happen when the package is installed or when it is >>> attached? >>> >>> This is harder. vignette() detects installed vignettes, which is >>> fine >>> if not many packages have them. But I think the hope is that most >>> packages will eventually, and then I think you wouldn't want the >>> menu >>> to list every package. Maybe default to attached packages, but >>> expose >>> the function below for people who want more? >> >> My feeling is that this is only appropriate for attached >> packages. As >> you point out, adding an entry for every installed package could >> create a cluttered menu (and present implementation challenges to >> avoid slowness). I also think that packages that get loaded via >> other >> packages name spaces should remain in stealth mode. >> >> There is another reason to only list vignettes for attached packages. >> One of the primary uses of a vignette is to allow the user to work >> through an example use case interactively. This requires the package >> to be attached in almost all cases. >> >>> - Should they appear in a top level Vignettes menu, or as a submenu >>> of the Help menu? >>> >>> I'd lean towards keeping the top level placement, since you've >>> already >>> got an audience who are used to that. >> >> Sounds good. >> >>> By the way, another way to expose vignettes is to have them >>> automatically added to the package help topic, with links in formats >>> that support them. I think we should do that too, but I don't >>> know if >>> it'll happen soon. >> >> Also sounds good, but one thing at a time, I guess. >> >> If there is some agreement about vignettes being automatically added >> and that this only happens when a package is attached, then I can >> look >> into modifying the existing function to handle this. >> >> + seth >> >> > > -- > Brian D. Ripley, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ > University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) > 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) > Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595 > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > > ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
