Re: [rkward-devel] feedback
just to make sure: do you know that you can export plots in various formats directly from the graphics window? this was *not* possible in previeous versions of RKWard on mac, only after thomas added the RK() device. 1) Mind = blown 2) Last time I knew, this did not work, so I never touched it again! 3) Looks like I need to update that section of my manual as well... -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ RKWard-devel mailing list RKWard-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rkward-devel
Re: [rkward-devel] feedback
Hi Aaron, On Sunday 23 November 2014 10:35:24 Aaron Batty wrote: Piggybacking on Meik's feedback comments, I though I'd let you guys know what's going on in my undergraduate stats class, where we're using RKWard. thanks for your detailed feedback. But it's growing over my head. Posting to the list is a great way to get my attention, but a terrible way to track issues that will need some time to resolve. Now the feature tracker is not really suitable for this type of feedback, either. So let's try a wiki page. Since our own wiki hosting on SF.net is unbearably slow for editing (I'm so much looking forward to migrating that!), I've set up a page at https://community.kde.org/RKWard , and copied in most of your mail as a start. Meik, please add your stuff, too. Feel free to restructure. I'm watching that page, so I will be aware of updates. All interested others are encouraged to do so, too. Forums might be a good way of tracking ideas, too, but the wiki simply was easiest to set up, right now. Some comments inline: 2) Data import This is just rather confusing. You go to File or the Open... menu in the toolbar, and go to Import, and then there are a bunch of options. You have Import Data, then a line, then Import format, which is a submenu about importing data. If you use the first one, it just opens up the SPSS data importer, and there's no way to tell it otherwise. Well, actually, there is a way. I sort of agree it may be a tiny bit unintuitive that you'd need to change the bottom-most control before clicking on any file name, though... Once they navigate to Import text / CSV data, however, the problems continue, because despite the fact that we've already ostensibly told the software that we're working with .csv or whatever, there are a bunch of options where we have to tell it again. The default format is None, and the options for the quick formats (which are likely all anyone will need in most cases, especially in a class where a teacher is providing the data set) are on the bottom left, looking not-very-important. This could maybe be fixed just by moving elements around, like putting the format selection settings in a dropdown menu at the top, labeled with Please select the format of your data or something. Then rename None to Custom and put it at the bottom of the list. Yes, that makes a lot of sense, and is easy to do. So: done. 4) R Console It would be great if there were a way to permanently set text size there, or at least have a keyboard shortcut to change it. It's tiny by default, and the only way to get it bigger is to keep going up to View and clicking Enlarge font over and over. Then upon restart of RKWard, it's back to tiny again. This is another teaching issue more than anything. If I need the students to do something in R, it's very hard to demonstrate without bumping that way up, but it takes forever as I keep going up to that menu over and over until I see the students stop squinting at the projector screen! Yes, it would be good, if the enlarged font size would be saved. Two notes to make your life easier, today: - Use Ctrl + Scroll-wheel (or whatever the equivalent may be on Mac) to adjust font size _very_ quickly. - To get saved font size (and other customizations), here's a totally intuitive solution (ahem): Open a script editor. Go to Settings-Configure Editor, and make adjustments. Quit RKWard and restart. You should now see the new font size in both script windows, and the console. A big part of this, of course, is that RKWard is running KDE, not the host OS, really. But this is a lot of steps for an undergrad or not-terribly-savvy user to complete correctly. Every time I've taught with RKWard, whether it be to undergrads or colleagues, everyone gets lost here. They can see the graphic right there in front of them. They don't understand why they can't just export it directly from the output (they'd love to just drag it out, but I point out that even SPSS doesn't do this, and JMP is a pain, too). Not to say that this solves, everything, but dragging out graphics (to file browser, or openoffice) works just fine, here. What are the symptoms on Mac, when you try to do so? - Do you see a drag symbol / mouse pointer at all? - Does the drag symbol disappear when leaving the RKWard window? - Does the target refuse to accept the drop? Last comment about the outputs is one that has already come up here before: The tables are, by and large, very ugly. There needs to be more of a margin inside cells, and it would be nice if there were borders by default. Also, many of them have far, far too many decimal places. The contingency table/crosstabs are the worst for this. If any of the values need decimal places, they all get them. So even though most of the cells are actually just counts/sums, they all have approximately one million zeros behind them. It's just very hard to read. Yes, the decimal places are downright
Re: [rkward-devel] feedback
Not to say that this solves, everything, but dragging out graphics (to file browser, or openoffice) works just fine, here. What are the symptoms on Mac, when you try to do so? - Do you see a drag symbol / mouse pointer at all? - Does the drag symbol disappear when leaving the RKWard window? - Does the target refuse to accept the drop? K, I just tested. It turns out that it works okay in Windows, so I will now go yell at all those students who told me it didn't. It does not, however, work on the Mac. Here is what happens when trying to drag something out of the output: http://aaronbatty.net/media/RKWardDrag.png Thanks! Aaron -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ RKWard-devel mailing list RKWard-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rkward-devel
Re: [rkward-devel] feedback
Am Sonntag, 23. November 2014, 21:14:16 schrieb Aaron Batty: K, I just tested. It turns out that it works okay in Windows, so I will now go yell at all those students who told me it didn't. It does not, however, work on the Mac. Here is what happens when trying to drag something out of the output: http://aaronbatty.net/media/RKWardDrag.png just to make sure: do you know that you can export plots in various formats directly from the graphics window? this was *not* possible in previeous versions of RKWard on mac, only after thomas added the RK() device. in most plot dialogs, you can use the preview checkbox to get the graphics device, and once it fits your needs, click device - export. you can then save your plot wherever you want and don't have to search hidden folders for that, and you're free to chose from various formats (PNG, PDF, SVG, EPS, even TikZ...). viele grüßen :: m.eik -- dipl. psych. meik michalke institut fur experimentelle psychologie abt. fur diagnostik und differentielle psychologie heinrich-heine-universitat d-40204 dusseldorf signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ RKWard-devel mailing list RKWard-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rkward-devel
Re: [rkward-devel] feedback
Piggybacking on Meik's feedback comments, I though I'd let you guys know what's going on in my undergraduate stats class, where we're using RKWard. 1) Installation issues. I was surprised to see that there is a problem in OSX Yosemite, as most of my students use Macs (as do I), and I haven't heard any caterwauling from those who have updated. I know that the one student who actually seems capable of following screenshot-laden instructions for things in RKWard is running it under Yosemite seemingly without issue... The struggle I've run into with many Mac users, though, is just that they have to install R and then RKWard. This is very unintuitive for people who aren't used to installing anything more involved than the Facebook app on their cellphones. I.e., digital native undergrads. It would be great if those could be bundled together again. With the Windows package, the issue is that it's just a .zip and you can run it from anywhere. People really aren't used to that, and they don't know how to add a shortcut to the Start menu/giant-useless-screen-with-live-advertisements. Also, many people are confused/freaked-out when a scary-looking black terminal window comes up upon starting it. The Windows package also seems pretty fragile. Most of the Windows students have tossed it and reinstalled it at least once. It's intermittent, and I haven't been able to reproduce it, but it just stops working at some point. The terminal window comes up, and that's all. I'd give you guys more information if I had it. Just generally speaking, the Windows version is not as reliable as the Mac, I'm finding. 2) Data import This is just rather confusing. You go to File or the Open... menu in the toolbar, and go to Import, and then there are a bunch of options. You have Import Data, then a line, then Import format, which is a submenu about importing data. If you use the first one, it just opens up the SPSS data importer, and there's no way to tell it otherwise. I have started providing my classes with .sav files for everything to just spare myself the headache of pointing out again and again, that they actually need to go to Import → Import format → Import text / CSV data. It doesn't make sense because the way that menu is organized, it looks like that is some sort of separate function from importing data, because it's under the line separating it from Import Data. Once they navigate to Import text / CSV data, however, the problems continue, because despite the fact that we've already ostensibly told the software that we're working with .csv or whatever, there are a bunch of options where we have to tell it again. The default format is None, and the options for the quick formats (which are likely all anyone will need in most cases, especially in a class where a teacher is providing the data set) are on the bottom left, looking not-very-important. This could maybe be fixed just by moving elements around, like putting the format selection settings in a dropdown menu at the top, labeled with Please select the format of your data or something. Then rename None to Custom and put it at the bottom of the list. Every time I try to use a CSV in class, I import it in front of god and everyone on the projector, then demonstrate running the analysis, and say, Okay, is everyone with me? and half of the students' hands shoot up and I go look at their screens and they have the entire table in one column and the analysis won't run, of course. The quickest/easiest fix right away for this would be to just kill the Import Data entry, rename Import format to Import data format and move it above the line in the menu, separating it from the script options. Just doing that would at least avoid the problem of people finding themselves stuck in the SPSS format importer, trying to feed it CSV data or whatever. 3) Distributions dialogs I only started using these this semester, so I hadn't noticed, but these are unintuitive enough that I decided to just get the students to do them in the R Console. In the r dialogs (i.e., the ones that call rbinom and rgeom, etc.), the values that will be fed into R are filled in by default. Why? That seems to communicate, for example, that the normal thing to do when looking at a binomial probability is to set the number of successes to 0.95, and only 1 trial, and with a 50% probability, when actually, these are likely to all be different. I think these should just be blank. Vector of quantiles really ought to be renamed Number of successes. I'll be honest here: I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do here, so the only way I figured out how to use these dialogs was by clicking the Code button to see what commands it would be calling, and then reading the CRAN documentation on those functions. The CRAN documentation was much clearer. It would be nice if there was another calculator that called the d functions as well... Not that I've really ever used either of these, but they are pretty important for
Re: [rkward-devel] feedback
Hi, here's some feedback from the presentation, reduced to the parts where they'd welcome some improvements: on a general note, we really have a bit of a problem tracking all these ideas in a decent way. Do use the feature tracker, for now. But we should also work on prioritizing ideas, some way. - in the workspace browser, show all environments should not be checked by default, so you only see your objects in the worksapce. actually, unchecking that box is one of my first actions after a new installation as well ;-) Ok. Done. - in the code veiw, the whole printout section was seen as problematic (at least in this context), as it wasn't really clear to anyone that this is just what makes the RKWard output. i remember i asked for some options to configure this part myself a while ago. no idea how to deal with it. perhaps a more explaining comment would help, like the calculation is done at this point; the following code generates the output, or so. Hm, I can absolutely see the point. However we should also avoid adding _too much_ additional wording. That just makes things look yet more crowded, IMO. I can see two angles to attack this: 1. As you suggest a better comment. But let's keep it somewhat concise, i.e. perhaps just ## Printout: The following code generates the output. And similar labels for the other sections. 2. This would really be something to highlight in a short intro to working with RKWard. Our RKWard for Newcomers page in the wiki is not so terribly helpful, I'm afraid, and rkward_for_new_users.rkh could definitely use some improvements, too (including screenshots)... - the regression dialog should be enhanced. we were recommended to look at RCmdr's regression module for something they'd love to see in RKWard. Yes, true, it's totally basic, so far. - in general, they wished for a more obvious workflow regarding what can further be done with results from some analysis (say, you have just estimated Rasch parameters, but no clue that there's a particular plot option for that in another branch of the menu). this wish is a bit harder to fulfil, of course, but i had two ideas to enhance the situation: the first approach would use the run again-link feature to recommend common follow-up analysis steps in the HTML output, like pairwise t-tests after ANOVA or special plots. however, this would limit the availability of recommendations to what the original plugin author could think of, and we don't even know what happened to an object after the dialog was closed. the second approach would be to implement a new entry in the workspace browser's context menu for objects, say next steps. depending on the object class, it would list copies of the main menu structure (like data, analysis, plots) which are particularly useful for this object class. the mapping for this would have to be defined somewhere, perhaps in the dialog XML code, or more centralised in the pluginmap. this way, the recommendation would also be available for objects made with other plugins and even scripts. where possible, the regarding object could be pre- filled into the appropriate dialog field. it could be limited to what you'd usually want to do now, if that can be figured out... Hm, ok beefing up the workspace browser is one sensible idea (may even be in our tracker, somewhere, at least the general idea came up, before), and probably not too hard to do. Essentially we'd have to make it so plugins can suggest themselves for certain classes of objects (and also specify, where that object would be filled in). But I'm not quite sure how far that approach will help in practice. It will be much more meaningful to give suggestions for special objects, such as fitted models. Not so much for plain numeric vectors, although these could represent the same concepts (e.g. a vector of residuals). Arguably, of course the latter may not need quite as much explaining, in the first place. A different problem is that it may not be easy enough to discover: You first have to actually create the object that may be of interest for further investigation (and that simply can't be the default behavior in _every_ relevant case). And then you'd still have to find out that a context menu (or something) in the workspace browser will give you hints on how to proceed. So again, documentation could be a second angle at this. For some sets of plugins (and I'm thinking of the IRT plugins as a prime example). I think a sort of vignette would really be useful, i.e. a separate help page giving an overview of what is available, and the workflow to use it. We don't have dedicated support for this, ATM, but it could be done today, by creating dummy plugins that don't actually contain anything (but do have a help page), and are not placed in the menu. Then you could link to their help page in the usual way. But also to spin your idea of follow-up links in the output window some further: These
