Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 2:46 PM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote:
That's a good point. Okay, I'll add it (with some sort of addition to the
man page to say how it's intended to be used), and perhaps with some special
casing for base packages.
Duncan Murdoch
If it is being added, could you change the man page attribution from:
\author{
David Scott d.sc...@auckland.ac.nz from code on R-help originally
due to Sharpie ch...@sharpsteen.net.
}
To:
\author{
David Scott d.sc...@auckland.ac.nz from code on R-help originally
due to Charlie Sharpsteen sou...@sharpsteen.net.
}
Thanks!
-Charlie
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PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
[R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
Hello dear R users, *Here is the background for my question:* I just had a look at the help file for ? Yeast in the HistData package. In it, I found a small spelling mistake where the word *c*istribution was written instead (so I imagin) *d*istribution. I thought maybe I should e-mail the developer. Since there is no link to contacting the developer inside that help page, I went and googled the package name. Found it's place on cran (in the third result), where I found the maintainer to be Michael Friendly friendly at yorku.ca (Whom I am corresponding to this e-mail). So it took me three steps to send a tiny typo: search the package on google, find the maintainer e-mail (where at should be changed to @), and writing an e-mail. How could this have been faster? *Proposed solutions:* One (simple) way, is for the help page to have the maintainer e-mail present at the bottom of every help page. Where upon clicking the link - an e-mail will popup with the e-mails subject header containing the package and the relevant help page title. Another (more complex, but more scalable) way, is if the help page could have been also present on some wiki. Inside the help page, there would be a link to an edit section on the online wikipedia (R-help-epidia)- where I could have just went and fixed the type. What do you think, and who should I propose this to? Best, Tal Contact Details:--- Contact me: tal.gal...@gmail.com | 972-52-7275845 Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) | www.r-statistics.com (English) -- [[alternative HTML version deleted]] __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 5:44 AM, Tal Galili tal.gal...@gmail.com wrote: Hello dear R users, *Here is the background for my question:* I just had a look at the help file for ? Yeast in the HistData package. In it, I found a small spelling mistake where the word *c*istribution was written instead (so I imagin) *d*istribution. I thought maybe I should e-mail the developer. Since there is no link to contacting the developer inside that help page, I went and googled the package name. Found it's place on cran (in the third result), where I found the maintainer to be Michael Friendly friendly at yorku.ca (Whom I am corresponding to this e-mail). So it took me three steps to send a tiny typo: search the package on google, find the maintainer e-mail (where at should be changed to @), and writing an e-mail. How could this have been faster? *Proposed solutions:* One (simple) way, is for the help page to have the maintainer e-mail present at the bottom of every help page. Where upon clicking the link - an e-mail will popup with the e-mails subject header containing the package and the relevant help page title. Another (more complex, but more scalable) way, is if the help page could have been also present on some wiki. Inside the help page, there would be a link to an edit section on the online wikipedia (R-help-epidia)- where I could have just went and fixed the type. What do you think, and who should I propose this to? Best, Tal Contact Details:--- Contact me: tal.gal...@gmail.com | 972-52-7275845 Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) | www.r-statistics.com (English) -- [[alternative HTML version deleted]] __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. Duncan Murdoch On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 5:44 AM, Tal Galili tal.gal...@gmail.com wrote: Hello dear R users, *Here is the background for my question:* I just had a look at the help file for ? Yeast in the HistData package. In it, I found a small spelling mistake where the word *c*istribution was written instead (so I imagin) *d*istribution. I thought maybe I should e-mail the developer. Since there is no link to contacting the developer inside that help page, I went and googled the package name. Found it's place on cran (in the third result), where I found the maintainer to be Michael Friendly friendly at yorku.ca (Whom I am corresponding to this e-mail). So it took me three steps to send a tiny typo: search the package on google, find the maintainer e-mail (where at should be changed to @), and writing an e-mail. How could this have been faster? *Proposed solutions:* One (simple) way, is for the help page to have the maintainer e-mail present at the bottom of every help page. Where upon clicking the link - an e-mail will popup with the e-mails subject header containing the package and the relevant help page title. Another (more complex, but more scalable) way, is if the help page could have been also present on some wiki. Inside the help page, there would be a link to an edit section on the online wikipedia (R-help-epidia)- where I could have just went and fixed the type. What do you think, and who should I propose this to? Best, Tal Contact Details:--- Contact me: tal.gal...@gmail.com | 972-52-7275845 Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) | www.r-statistics.com (English) -- [[alternative HTML version deleted]] __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. By Index page I was referring to the page you get when you click Index at the bottom of any HTML help file. After clicking Index you get an HTML page that gives a clickable list of help pages for that package. You don`t get the description of the package, the name and contact info to the maintainer, or a link to such info. For the helloJavaWorld package this is what you get (where I have added a star after each link): Hello Java World Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-6 User Guides and Package Vignettes Read overview* or browse directory*. Help Pages helloJavaWorld* Function to say hello from a Java class __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On 28/02/2010 9:08 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. By Index page I was referring to the page you get when you click Index at the bottom of any HTML help file. After clicking Index you get an HTML page that gives a clickable list of help pages for that package. You don`t get the description of the package, the name and contact info to the maintainer, or a link to such info. For the helloJavaWorld package this is what you get (where I have added a star after each link): Hello Java World Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-6 User Guides and Package Vignettes Read overview* or browse directory*. Help Pages helloJavaWorld* Function to say hello from a Java class That looks like 2.10.x or earlier. In R-devel (to be 2.11.0) you get: Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-7 * DESCRIPTION file. * Overview of user guides and package vignettes; browse directory. Help Pages helloJavaWorld Function to say hello from a Java class The only addition for that particular package is the link to the DESCRIPTION file, which contains most of the additional information that's on the CRAN page. Other pages will also show links to demos and package NEWS. __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 9:08 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. By Index page I was referring to the page you get when you click Index at the bottom of any HTML help file. After clicking Index you get an HTML page that gives a clickable list of help pages for that package. You don`t get the description of the package, the name and contact info to the maintainer, or a link to such info. For the helloJavaWorld package this is what you get (where I have added a star after each link): Hello Java World Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-6 User Guides and Package Vignettes Read overview* or browse directory*. Help Pages helloJavaWorld* Function to say hello from a Java class That looks like 2.10.x or earlier. In R-devel (to be 2.11.0) you get: Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-7 * DESCRIPTION file. * Overview of user guides and package vignettes; browse directory. Help Pages helloJavaWorld Function to say hello from a Java class The only addition for that particular package is the link to the DESCRIPTION file, which contains most of the additional information that's on the CRAN page. Other pages will also show links to demos and package NEWS. That's great. Looks like you have already anticipated this. Would still be nice to have - a second link to the Index at the top of each help page since its typically off the screen otherwise. - also if the DESCRIPTION could be HTMLized with links that would be nice. The software that puts the DESCRIPTION file info up onto CRAN already can do that so the capability seems to exist. - a link from the Index or possibly right from each help page to the help.start() page so that once you are in HTML you can just click about rather than having to go back to R and then back into help. Its normal in web pages that there is a link on every one of them back to the home page. Typically clicking the site name or logo at the top gets you there. __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 9:08 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. By Index page I was referring to the page you get when you click Index at the bottom of any HTML help file. After clicking Index you get an HTML page that gives a clickable list of help pages for that package. You don`t get the description of the package, the name and contact info to the maintainer, or a link to such info. For the helloJavaWorld package this is what you get (where I have added a star after each link): Hello Java World Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-6 User Guides and Package Vignettes Read overview* or browse directory*. Help Pages helloJavaWorld* Function to say hello from a Java class That looks like 2.10.x or earlier. In R-devel (to be 2.11.0) you get: Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-7 * DESCRIPTION file. * Overview of user guides and package vignettes; browse directory. Help Pages helloJavaWorld Function to say hello from a Java class The only addition for that particular package is the link to the DESCRIPTION file, which contains most of the additional information that's on the CRAN page. Other pages will also show links to demos and package NEWS. That's great. Looks like you have already anticipated this. Would still be nice to have - a second link to the Index at the top of each help page since its typically off the screen otherwise. Yes, I agree. In fact, I think the whole system needs to be updated. Anyone like doing HTML design? - also if the DESCRIPTION could be HTMLized with links that would be nice. The software that puts the DESCRIPTION file info up onto CRAN already can do that so the capability seems to exist. Sure, but remember that CRAN is not part of R, so the code needs to be extracted from the CRAN code (which I don't have a copy of), and rewritten to suit the new context. It may not be any easier to do that than to redo it from scratch, but in any case, it needs someone to volunteer to do it (and I think it should be part of the HTML design mentioned above. - a link from the Index or possibly right from each help page to the help.start() page so that once you are in HTML you can just click about rather than having to go back to R and then back into help. Its normal in web pages that there is a link on every one of them back to the home page. Typically clicking the site name or logo at the top gets you there. Currently from any help page you can get there in two clicks: the Index link at the bottom of the page takes you to the package index, the up arrow on the package index takes you to the help.start() page. But I agree this could be improved: see above. Duncan Murdoch __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 9:08 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. By Index page I was referring to the page you get when you click Index at the bottom of any HTML help file. After clicking Index you get an HTML page that gives a clickable list of help pages for that package. You don`t get the description of the package, the name and contact info to the maintainer, or a link to such info. For the helloJavaWorld package this is what you get (where I have added a star after each link): Hello Java World Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-6 User Guides and Package Vignettes Read overview* or browse directory*. Help Pages helloJavaWorld* Function to say hello from a Java class That looks like 2.10.x or earlier. In R-devel (to be 2.11.0) you get: Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-7 * DESCRIPTION file. * Overview of user guides and package vignettes; browse directory. Help Pages helloJavaWorld Function to say hello from a Java class The only addition for that particular package is the link to the DESCRIPTION file, which contains most of the additional information that's on the CRAN page. Other pages will also show links to demos and package NEWS. That's great. Looks like you have already anticipated this. Would still be nice to have - a second link to the Index at the top of each help page since its typically off the screen otherwise. Yes, I agree. In fact, I think the whole system needs to be updated. Anyone like doing HTML design? - also if the DESCRIPTION could be HTMLized with links that would be nice. The software that puts the DESCRIPTION file info up onto CRAN already can do that so the capability seems to exist. Sure, but remember that CRAN is not part of R, so the code needs to be extracted from the CRAN code (which I don't have a copy of), and rewritten to suit the new context. It may not be any easier to do that than to redo it from scratch, but in any case, it needs someone to volunteer to do it (and I think it should be part of the HTML design mentioned above. - a link from the Index or possibly right from each help page to the help.start() page so that once you are in HTML you can just click about rather than having to go back to R and then back into help. Its normal in web pages that there is a link on every one of them back to the home page. Typically clicking the site name or logo at the top gets you there. Currently from any help page you can get there in two clicks: the Index link at the bottom of the page takes you to the package index, the up arrow on the package index takes you to the help.start() page. But I agree this could be improved: see above. Duncan Murdoch Couldn't this be separated into short term and long term. Surely its trivial to add a second link to the Index at the top of every help page and that is the most important of all the wish list items. That shouldn't have to wait for a redesign (which could take some time) since its such an annoyance. __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On 28/02/2010 12:04 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 9:08 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. By Index page I was referring to the page you get when you click Index at the bottom of any HTML help file. After clicking Index you get an HTML page that gives a clickable list of help pages for that package. You don`t get the description of the package, the name and contact info to the maintainer, or a link to such info. For the helloJavaWorld package this is what you get (where I have added a star after each link): Hello Java World Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-6 User Guides and Package Vignettes Read overview* or browse directory*. Help Pages helloJavaWorld* Function to say hello from a Java class That looks like 2.10.x or earlier. In R-devel (to be 2.11.0) you get: Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-7 * DESCRIPTION file. * Overview of user guides and package vignettes; browse directory. Help Pages helloJavaWorld Function to say hello from a Java class The only addition for that particular package is the link to the DESCRIPTION file, which contains most of the additional information that's on the CRAN page. Other pages will also show links to demos and package NEWS. That's great. Looks like you have already anticipated this. Would still be nice to have - a second link to the Index at the top of each help page since its typically off the screen otherwise. Yes, I agree. In fact, I think the whole system needs to be updated. Anyone like doing HTML design? - also if the DESCRIPTION could be HTMLized with links that would be nice. The software that puts the DESCRIPTION file info up onto CRAN already can do that so the capability seems to exist. Sure, but remember that CRAN is not part of R, so the code needs to be extracted from the CRAN code (which I don't have a copy of), and rewritten to suit the new context. It may not be any easier to do that than to redo it from scratch, but in any case, it needs someone to volunteer to do it (and I think it should be part of the HTML design mentioned above. - a link from the Index or possibly right from each help page to the help.start() page so that once you are in HTML you can just click about rather than having to go back to R and then back into help. Its normal in web pages that there is a link on every one of them back to the home page. Typically clicking the site name or logo at the top gets you there. Currently from any help page you can get there in two clicks: the Index link at the bottom of the page takes you to the package index, the up arrow on the package index takes you to the help.start() page. But I agree this could be improved: see above. Duncan Murdoch Couldn't this be separated into short term and long term. Surely its trivial to add a second link to the Index at the top of every help page and that is the most important of all the wish list items. That shouldn't have to wait for a redesign (which could take some time) since its such an annoyance. That's one argument. Another is that the more of an annoyance it is, the more likely someone will be motivated to fix it. If we do a partial job to remove the annoyance, the long term improvement might never happen. Duncan Murdoch __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
Or both the short and and the long term won't happen. On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 12:24 PM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 12:04 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 9:08 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. By Index page I was referring to the page you get when you click Index at the bottom of any HTML help file. After clicking Index you get an HTML page that gives a clickable list of help pages for that package. You don`t get the description of the package, the name and contact info to the maintainer, or a link to such info. For the helloJavaWorld package this is what you get (where I have added a star after each link): Hello Java World Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-6 User Guides and Package Vignettes Read overview* or browse directory*. Help Pages helloJavaWorld* Function to say hello from a Java class That looks like 2.10.x or earlier. In R-devel (to be 2.11.0) you get: Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-7 * DESCRIPTION file. * Overview of user guides and package vignettes; browse directory. Help Pages helloJavaWorld Function to say hello from a Java class The only addition for that particular package is the link to the DESCRIPTION file, which contains most of the additional information that's on the CRAN page. Other pages will also show links to demos and package NEWS. That's great. Looks like you have already anticipated this. Would still be nice to have - a second link to the Index at the top of each help page since its typically off the screen otherwise. Yes, I agree. In fact, I think the whole system needs to be updated. Anyone like doing HTML design? - also if the DESCRIPTION could be HTMLized with links that would be nice. The software that puts the DESCRIPTION file info up onto CRAN already can do that so the capability seems to exist. Sure, but remember that CRAN is not part of R, so the code needs to be extracted from the CRAN code (which I don't have a copy of), and rewritten to suit the new context. It may not be any easier to do that than to redo it from scratch, but in any case, it needs someone to volunteer to do it (and I think it should be part of the HTML design mentioned above. - a link from the Index or possibly right from each help page to the help.start() page so that once you are in HTML you can just click about rather than having to go back to R and then back into help. Its normal in web pages that there is a link on every one of them back to the home page. Typically clicking the site name or logo at the top gets you there. Currently from any help page you can get there in two clicks: the Index link at the bottom of the page takes you to the package index, the up arrow on the package index takes you to the help.start() page. But I agree this could be improved: see above. Duncan Murdoch Couldn't this be separated into short term and long term. Surely its trivial to add a second link to the Index at the top of every help page and that is the most important of all the wish list items. That shouldn't have to wait for a redesign (which could take some time) since its such an annoyance. That's one argument. Another is that the more of an annoyance it is, the more likely someone will be motivated to fix it. If we do a partial job to remove the annoyance, the long term improvement might never happen. Duncan Murdoch __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
Duncan Murdoch wrote:
Yes, I agree. In fact, I think the whole system needs to be updated.
Anyone like doing HTML design?
If I had the time, I would raise my hand for this one-- unfortunately
school, work and other commitments leave me with a full schedule for the
foreseeable future. Now that all R man pages are presented using a HTML
server, it would be nice to overhaul the presentation. Perhaps something
like the output of Python's Sphinx:
http://docs.python.org/3.1/tutorial/
The key elements I'm thinking of are:
- A sidebar with table of contents/navigation
- A search box
Personally, I try to put an \author{} field with an email in all of my .Rd
files-- adding this as a requirement to R CMD check could enforce this
behavior. It could also break 99% of all the package builds on CRAN.
Another way package author/maintainer emails can be quickly obtained is
through the packageDescription() function:
packageDescription('packageName')$Maintainer
-Charlie
--
View this message in context:
http://n4.nabble.com/R-help-question-How-can-we-enable-useRs-to-contribute-corrections-to-help-files-faster-tp1572568p1572854.html
Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
__
R-help@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On 28/02/2010 1:23 PM, Sharpie wrote:
Duncan Murdoch wrote:
Yes, I agree. In fact, I think the whole system needs to be updated.
Anyone like doing HTML design?
If I had the time, I would raise my hand for this one-- unfortunately
school, work and other commitments leave me with a full schedule for the
foreseeable future. Now that all R man pages are presented using a HTML
server, it would be nice to overhaul the presentation. Perhaps something
like the output of Python's Sphinx:
http://docs.python.org/3.1/tutorial/
The key elements I'm thinking of are:
- A sidebar with table of contents/navigation
- A search box
Yes, that looks like a nice design. But it looks as though nobody has
the time to do it.
Duncan Murdoch
Personally, I try to put an \author{} field with an email in all of my .Rd
files-- adding this as a requirement to R CMD check could enforce this
behavior. It could also break 99% of all the package builds on CRAN.
Another way package author/maintainer emails can be quickly obtained is
through the packageDescription() function:
packageDescription('packageName')$Maintainer
-Charlie
__
R-help@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
I wonder if this could be made pluggable in the sense that anyone could develop a CRAN package that hooks into the help system and takes over. If its already like that perhaps all that is needed is some documentation/guidance on how to develop such a package. There could be multiple alternative help packages that hook into the help system on CRAN. That might be the best way to involve the community since it involves less coordination to accomplish once the documentation was written. On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 1:24 PM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 1:04 PM, Tal Galili wrote: Duncan, As much as I agree with your remark in the general case, in this case - the annoyance is mostly for the next user and not the current one. If I spot a typo, after I figure what it had meant - my annoyance is over. I don't have any personal motivation to share the knowledge, asides from my good intentions. It would seem to me that making my life easier in reporting the error - would only do good to the general community. I agree, and I welcome your contribution. Take a snapshot of the package index page, the DESCRIPTION page, and one or two topic pages from the current R-devel. Redesign them, put them online, respond to comments until everyone is convinced (or at least I am) that they can't be substantially improved. If you convince me of that, I'll put them (or some approximation to them) into the sources. I think the idea of adding a second link to the Index at the top of every help, is easy to do and would benefit the community member who wishes to contact the author. That's not enough. It will take about the same amount of work on my end to do *each* small change or a single big change, so I'm not going to do a sequence of incremental changes. I also think that adding the e-mail of the maintainer might even be better (since I remember that when I started using R, I didn't even know I had someone to contact regarding problems with it). It is already there. Duncan Murdoch This is the place people turn to for help, it makes sense (at least in my humble opinion) to help the users find other help from that location. (the same way we provide see also and other useful links) Tal Contact Details:--- Contact me: tal.gal...@gmail.com | 972-52-7275845 Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) | www.r-statistics.com (English) -- On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 7:24 PM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.cawrote: On 28/02/2010 12:04 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 9:08 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. By Index page I was referring to the page you get when you click Index at the bottom of any HTML help file. After clicking Index you get an HTML page that gives a clickable list of help pages for that package. You don`t get the description of the package, the name and contact info to the maintainer, or a link to such info. For the helloJavaWorld package this is what you get (where I have added a star after each link): Hello Java World Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-6 User Guides and Package Vignettes Read overview* or browse directory*. Help Pages helloJavaWorld* Function to say hello from a Java class That looks like 2.10.x or earlier. In R-devel (to be 2.11.0) you get: Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-7 * DESCRIPTION
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On 28/02/2010 12:29 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: Or both the short and and the long term won't happen. That's one interpretation. I'd prefer to think that the short term changes happened in November. All the content is there; it just needs to be made prettier. Duncan Murdoch On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 12:24 PM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 12:04 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 9:08 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. By Index page I was referring to the page you get when you click Index at the bottom of any HTML help file. After clicking Index you get an HTML page that gives a clickable list of help pages for that package. You don`t get the description of the package, the name and contact info to the maintainer, or a link to such info. For the helloJavaWorld package this is what you get (where I have added a star after each link): Hello Java World Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-6 User Guides and Package Vignettes Read overview* or browse directory*. Help Pages helloJavaWorld* Function to say hello from a Java class That looks like 2.10.x or earlier. In R-devel (to be 2.11.0) you get: Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-7 * DESCRIPTION file. * Overview of user guides and package vignettes; browse directory. Help Pages helloJavaWorld Function to say hello from a Java class The only addition for that particular package is the link to the DESCRIPTION file, which contains most of the additional information that's on the CRAN page. Other pages will also show links to demos and package NEWS. That's great. Looks like you have already anticipated this. Would still be nice to have - a second link to the Index at the top of each help page since its typically off the screen otherwise. Yes, I agree. In fact, I think the whole system needs to be updated. Anyone like doing HTML design? - also if the DESCRIPTION could be HTMLized with links that would be nice. The software that puts the DESCRIPTION file info up onto CRAN already can do that so the capability seems to exist. Sure, but remember that CRAN is not part of R, so the code needs to be extracted from the CRAN code (which I don't have a copy of), and rewritten to suit the new context. It may not be any easier to do that than to redo it from scratch, but in any case, it needs someone to volunteer to do it (and I think it should be part of the HTML design mentioned above. - a link from the Index or possibly right from each help page to the help.start() page so that once you are in HTML you can just click about rather than having to go back to R and then back into help. Its normal in web pages that there is a link on every one of them back to the home page. Typically clicking the site name or logo at the top gets you there. Currently from any help page you can get there in two clicks: the Index link at the bottom of the page takes you to the package index, the up arrow on the package index takes you to the help.start() page. But I agree this could be improved: see above. Duncan Murdoch Couldn't this be separated into short term and long term. Surely its trivial to add a second link to the Index at the top of every help page and that is the most important of all the wish list items. That shouldn't have to wait for a redesign (which could take some time) since its such an annoyance. That's one argument. Another is that the more of an annoyance it is, the more likely someone will be motivated to fix it. If we do a partial job to remove the annoyance, the long term improvement might never happen. Duncan Murdoch
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
Duncan, As much as I agree with your remark in the general case, in this case - the annoyance is mostly for the next user and not the current one. If I spot a typo, after I figure what it had meant - my annoyance is over. I don't have any personal motivation to share the knowledge, asides from my good intentions. It would seem to me that making my life easier in reporting the error - would only do good to the general community. I think the idea of adding a second link to the Index at the top of every help, is easy to do and would benefit the community member who wishes to contact the author. I also think that adding the e-mail of the maintainer might even be better (since I remember that when I started using R, I didn't even know I had someone to contact regarding problems with it). This is the place people turn to for help, it makes sense (at least in my humble opinion) to help the users find other help from that location. (the same way we provide see also and other useful links) Tal Contact Details:--- Contact me: tal.gal...@gmail.com | 972-52-7275845 Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) | www.r-statistics.com (English) -- On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 7:24 PM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.cawrote: On 28/02/2010 12:04 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 9:08 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. By Index page I was referring to the page you get when you click Index at the bottom of any HTML help file. After clicking Index you get an HTML page that gives a clickable list of help pages for that package. You don`t get the description of the package, the name and contact info to the maintainer, or a link to such info. For the helloJavaWorld package this is what you get (where I have added a star after each link): Hello Java World Documentation for package helloJavaWorld version 0.0-6 User Guides and Package Vignettes Read overview* or browse directory*. Help Pages helloJavaWorld* Function to say hello from a Java class That looks like 2.10.x or earlier. In R-devel (to be 2.11.0) you get: Documentation for package helloJavaWorld version 0.0-7 * DESCRIPTION file. * Overview of user guides and package vignettes; browse directory. Help Pages helloJavaWorld Function to say hello from a Java class The only addition for that particular package is the link to the DESCRIPTION file, which contains most of the additional information that's on the CRAN page. Other pages will also show links to demos and package NEWS. That's great. Looks like you have already anticipated this. Would still be nice to have - a second link to the Index at the top of each help page since its typically off the screen otherwise. Yes, I agree. In fact, I think the whole system needs to be updated. Anyone like doing HTML design? - also if the DESCRIPTION could be HTMLized with links that would be nice. The software that puts the DESCRIPTION file info up onto CRAN already can do that so the capability seems to exist. Sure, but remember that CRAN is not part of R, so the code needs to be extracted from the CRAN code (which I don't have a copy of), and rewritten to suit the new context. It may not be any easier to do that than to redo it from scratch, but in any case, it needs someone to volunteer to do it (and I think it should be part of the HTML design mentioned above. - a link from the Index or possibly right
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On 28/02/2010 1:04 PM, Tal Galili wrote: Duncan, As much as I agree with your remark in the general case, in this case - the annoyance is mostly for the next user and not the current one. If I spot a typo, after I figure what it had meant - my annoyance is over. I don't have any personal motivation to share the knowledge, asides from my good intentions. It would seem to me that making my life easier in reporting the error - would only do good to the general community. I agree, and I welcome your contribution. Take a snapshot of the package index page, the DESCRIPTION page, and one or two topic pages from the current R-devel. Redesign them, put them online, respond to comments until everyone is convinced (or at least I am) that they can't be substantially improved. If you convince me of that, I'll put them (or some approximation to them) into the sources. I think the idea of adding a second link to the Index at the top of every help, is easy to do and would benefit the community member who wishes to contact the author. That's not enough. It will take about the same amount of work on my end to do *each* small change or a single big change, so I'm not going to do a sequence of incremental changes. I also think that adding the e-mail of the maintainer might even be better (since I remember that when I started using R, I didn't even know I had someone to contact regarding problems with it). It is already there. Duncan Murdoch This is the place people turn to for help, it makes sense (at least in my humble opinion) to help the users find other help from that location. (the same way we provide see also and other useful links) Tal Contact Details:--- Contact me: tal.gal...@gmail.com | 972-52-7275845 Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) | www.r-statistics.com (English) -- On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 7:24 PM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.cawrote: On 28/02/2010 12:04 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 9:08 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. By Index page I was referring to the page you get when you click Index at the bottom of any HTML help file. After clicking Index you get an HTML page that gives a clickable list of help pages for that package. You don`t get the description of the package, the name and contact info to the maintainer, or a link to such info. For the helloJavaWorld package this is what you get (where I have added a star after each link): Hello Java World Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-6 User Guides and Package Vignettes Read overview* or browse directory*. Help Pages helloJavaWorld* Function to say hello from a Java class That looks like 2.10.x or earlier. In R-devel (to be 2.11.0) you get: Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-7 * DESCRIPTION file. * Overview of user guides and package vignettes; browse directory. Help Pages helloJavaWorld Function to say hello from a Java class The only addition for that particular package is the link to the DESCRIPTION file, which contains most of the additional information that's on the CRAN page. Other pages will also show links to demos and package NEWS. That's great. Looks like you have already anticipated this. Would still be nice to have - a second link to the Index at the top of each help page since its typically off the screen otherwise. Yes, I agree. In fact, I think the whole system needs to be updated. Anyone like doing
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
After reading some more, I think Tal's Wiki idea was also a good one-- conceivably a server could be set up that pulled tarballs from CRAN, unpacked them, and converted the man folders to HTML. Then the server could provide a sort of a master list version of help.start() where each page was editable using some sort of wiki system. Users could fix documentation and developers could download patchfiles that contained the diff between the current wiki page and the their version of the documentation that was stored on CRAN. Sigh, my lack of free time is frustrating this morning... -Charlie -- View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/R-help-question-How-can-we-enable-useRs-to-contribute-corrections-to-help-files-faster-tp1572568p1572865.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 1:32 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: I wonder if this could be made pluggable in the sense that anyone could develop a CRAN package that hooks into the help system and takes over. If its already like that perhaps all that is needed is some documentation/guidance on how to develop such a package. There could be multiple alternative help packages that hook into the help system on CRAN. That might be the best way to involve the community since it involves less coordination to accomplish once the documentation was written. That's a good idea. The documentation has been published here: http://journal.r-project.org/archive/2009-2/RJournal_2009-2_Murdoch+Urbanek.pdf I'd be happy to elaborate on any of the missing bits, or add what's missing so that others can do this in a package. Since its already like that this might also be a possible SoC project. __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On Feb 28, 2010, at 1:04 PM, Tal Galili wrote: Duncan, As much as I agree with your remark in the general case, in this case - the annoyance is mostly for the next user and not the current one. If I spot a typo, after I figure what it had meant - my annoyance is over. I don't have any personal motivation to share the knowledge, asides from my good intentions. It would seem to me that making my life easier in reporting the error - would only do good to the general community. I think the idea of adding a second link to the Index at the top of every help, is easy to do and would benefit the community member who wishes to contact the author. I also think that adding the e-mail of the maintainer might even be better (since I remember that when I started using R, I didn't even know I had someone to contact regarding problems with it). This is the place people turn to for help, Well, I got help. Sharpie gave an answer that was easily turned into a function that I put in my .Rprofile: maintainer function(pkg=) packageDescription(pkg)$Maintainer maintainer(brew) [1] Jeffrey Horner jeff.hor...@vanderbilt.edu it makes sense (at least in my humble opinion) to help the users find other help from that location. (the same way we provide see also and other useful links) David Winsemius, MD Heritage Laboratories West Hartford, CT __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On 28/02/2010 1:32 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: I wonder if this could be made pluggable in the sense that anyone could develop a CRAN package that hooks into the help system and takes over. If its already like that perhaps all that is needed is some documentation/guidance on how to develop such a package. There could be multiple alternative help packages that hook into the help system on CRAN. That might be the best way to involve the community since it involves less coordination to accomplish once the documentation was written. That's a good idea. The documentation has been published here: http://journal.r-project.org/archive/2009-2/RJournal_2009-2_Murdoch+Urbanek.pdf I'd be happy to elaborate on any of the missing bits, or add what's missing so that others can do this in a package. Duncan Murdoch On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 1:24 PM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 1:04 PM, Tal Galili wrote: Duncan, As much as I agree with your remark in the general case, in this case - the annoyance is mostly for the next user and not the current one. If I spot a typo, after I figure what it had meant - my annoyance is over. I don't have any personal motivation to share the knowledge, asides from my good intentions. It would seem to me that making my life easier in reporting the error - would only do good to the general community. I agree, and I welcome your contribution. Take a snapshot of the package index page, the DESCRIPTION page, and one or two topic pages from the current R-devel. Redesign them, put them online, respond to comments until everyone is convinced (or at least I am) that they can't be substantially improved. If you convince me of that, I'll put them (or some approximation to them) into the sources. I think the idea of adding a second link to the Index at the top of every help, is easy to do and would benefit the community member who wishes to contact the author. That's not enough. It will take about the same amount of work on my end to do *each* small change or a single big change, so I'm not going to do a sequence of incremental changes. I also think that adding the e-mail of the maintainer might even be better (since I remember that when I started using R, I didn't even know I had someone to contact regarding problems with it). It is already there. Duncan Murdoch This is the place people turn to for help, it makes sense (at least in my humble opinion) to help the users find other help from that location. (the same way we provide see also and other useful links) Tal Contact Details:--- Contact me: tal.gal...@gmail.com | 972-52-7275845 Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) | www.r-statistics.com (English) -- On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 7:24 PM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.cawrote: On 28/02/2010 12:04 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 9:08 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Duncan Murdoch murd...@stats.uwo.ca wrote: On 28/02/2010 7:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote: The name of the package is at the top of each help page and then library(help = myPackage) would get you the maintainer info. Or in place of the last step googling for CRAN myPackage would get to a page like this: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html so it could be done in two steps. What would be nice would be if the R help systems HTML help page for each command had a link to a local version of the above page for the associated package (and perhaps the HTML Index page for the package would also link to it). Then it would just be a matter of bringing up the help page and clicking on the package name at the top. Not all of the information on that page would make sense locally. Some of it is there to help you decide whether to download the package, or to actually download it. The things I see that aren't available in the package index page in R-devel: - CRAN checks - download links - reverse dependencies Am I missing something? None of those seem like they'd be sensible locally. By Index page I was referring to the page you get when you click Index at the bottom of any HTML help file. After clicking Index you get an HTML page that gives a clickable list of help pages for that package. You don`t get the description of the package, the name and contact info to the maintainer, or a link to such info. For the helloJavaWorld package this is what you get (where I have added a star after each link): Hello Java World Documentation for package ‘helloJavaWorld’ version 0.0-6 User Guides and Package Vignettes Read overview* or
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
What about the short-term solution of having a function package.bug.report - along the lines of bug.report? E.g. see attachment Claudia -- Claudia Beleites Dipartimento dei Materiali e delle Risorse Naturali Università degli Studi di Trieste Via Valerio 2 I-34127 Trieste ITALY email: cbelei...@units.it phone: +39 (0 40) 5 58-34 68 __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On 28/02/2010 2:09 PM, Claudia Beleites wrote: What about the short-term solution of having a function package.bug.report - along the lines of bug.report? That has already been added: see the news here: http://developer.r-project.org/blosxom.cgi/R-devel/NEWS/2009/11/30#n2009-11-30 Duncan Murdoch __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Re: [R] R help question: How can we enable useRs to contribute corrections to help files faster ?
On 03/01/2010 05:47 AM, David Winsemius wrote: ... maintainer function(pkg=) packageDescription(pkg)$Maintainer maintainer(brew) [1] Jeffrey Horner jeff.hor...@vanderbilt.edu This is a great solution and deserves to go into the utils or tools package. When I first saw Tal's message, I immediately thought, How many times have I seen a typo or poorly worded sentence in the help pages I maintain, let alone those of other maintainers? Unless it's a real blooper, I decide that it's not worth the trouble of tracking the maintainer down to fix a spelling mistake. An email address that was obtainable during that brief spasm of motivation would enable me to use it productively, and even better, might result in other people notifying me of my mistakes before I manage to notice them. Jim __ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
