CRAN task view proposal: VisualizationDynamic

[dicook]

The Graphics CTV was archived several years ago because it wasn't sufficiently maintained, and there were way too many packages listed. It needed to be broken into smaller subsets. This is a proposal for creating several new CTVs covering the vast range of graphics capabilities in R.

Scope

This CTV summaries the dynamic graphics packages available on CRAN. Dynamic graphics have historically been available in R, but new packages are emerging regularly, particularly as new technology emerges. It is important to have an active summary available for users.

Inclusion criteria

Package provides tools for drawing visual displays of data, that have some interactive (direct manipulation) or dynamic component. For example, the user can click on an element and have a label pop-up, or the plots are rapidly updated to produce a rotation or animation.

Exclusion criteria

he graphics are not primarily interactive or dynamic. It is not a low level graphics device upon which many drawing packages are rendering to screen or file.

Packages

See the draft web site at https://github.com/dicook/ctv-visualizationdynamic.

Overlap

There is a small amount of overlap with Spatial CTV, for interactive mapping. We are also proposing that new CTVs are written: VisualizationDynamic which will list packages with interactive and dynamic capabilites. ColorPalettes will list the large array of different colour palettes available with different drawing systems. GraphicsDevices will list the variety of devices to draw graphics on the screen or output to file.

Maintainers

Di Cook and Jayani Lakshika

[zeileis]

As already mentioned in https://github.com/cran-task-views/ctv/issues/45 thanks for the effort, very much appreciated. For this proposal the scope is much clearer, I think, with clear inclusion and exclusion criteria. And the overlap with the spatial task view is not huge and can probably be improved when this task view takes more concrete shape.

I mainly don't like the title. Wouldn't DynamicGraphics be a bit easier?

[dicook]

We debated names for the CTV. A reason to use Visualisation is that this is more commonly searched, and it is less likely to be confused with GraphicalModels. Having the different CTVs close to each other in name should make it easier for users to see them. (Same comment as in the #45).

[rociojoo]

Thank you @dicook As in #45 , I think that DynamicVisualizations would be a more informative name, and mentioning the StaticVisualizations TV here would make it easier for users to access it.

[zeileis]

Di @dicook, Jayani @JayaniLakshika, and Sherry @huizezhang-sherry, thanks again for your proposal. Unfortunately, we did not have any follow-up except for the short discussion of the name. But I still think that this would be a nice contribution which mainly needs to be worked out. If you are still interested in doing so:

• Please change the name to DynamicVisualizations.
• Work out the text.
• Include some comments regarding the scope of the task view in its introduction (especially that packages providing graphics devices are not included, etc.).
• The section with the further resources at the end should be turned into the standard ### Links section, see the documentation.
• Please drop the anchors you have added manually and instead use the ones that rmarkdown/pandoc will add automatically. For example, instead of ## [Small multiples]{#multiples} you can just use ## Small multiples (without additional markup) and refer to it using #small-multiples (lower case, hyphens instead of spaces) in the table of contents.

[dicook]

Happy to make these changes

On 4 Oct 2023, at 6:10 pm, Achim Zeileis @.***> wrote:

Di @dicook, Jayani @JayaniLakshika, and Sherry @huizezhang-sherry, thanks again for your proposal. Unfortunately, we did not have any follow-up except for the short discussion of the name. But I still think that this would be a nice contribution which mainly needs to be worked out. If you are still interested in doing so: • Please change the name to DynamicVisualizations. • Work out the text. • Include some comments regarding the scope of the task view in its introduction (especially that packages providing graphics devices are not included, etc.). • The section with the further resources at the end should be turned into the standard ### Links section, see the documentation. • Please drop the anchors you have added manually and instead use the ones that rmarkdown/pandoc will add automatically. For example, instead of ## [Small multiples]{#multiples} you can just use ## Small multiples (without additional markup) and refer to it using #small-multiples (lower case, hyphens instead of spaces) in the table of contents. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

cheers, Di

---

Dianne Cook @.***

[dicook]

Changes have been made and are now at https://github.com/dicook/ctv-dynamicvisualizations

[tuxette]

Thanks @dicook for the nice proposal! I had a quick look at it and I add a few suggestions:

• for me, the difference and purpose of the sections "General purpose", "Infrastructure", and "rgl additions" is not perfectly clear and, more specifically, in the last section "rgl additions", I am not sure about what differentiates the last suggestion predicts3D from a general tool for visualization of regression models (why is it in "RGL"?);

• the following packages might be interesting to consider as well: iplots, ggvis, rCharts, rbokeh, heatmaply, collapsibleTree, dygraphs, magick;

• the descriptions of packages are not always homogeneous: sometimes, you have the package name, then a pipe and a description and some other times, you have the package name, then "for" and a description. Also, description are either:

r package("ggiraph") | adopts ggplot syntax for interactive graphics.

(sentence starting with the package name)

r package("highcharter") | R binding to the general purpose highchart JavaScript library.

(not a sentence, just a description). I think that descriptions could be made a bit longer and more detailed than the current version (this might be the suggestion of @zeileis when he said "Work out the text."?);

• finally, the syntax for packages in ctv is either r pkg("blabla") or r bioc("blabla") or the alternative forms listed in https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/ctv/vignettes/ctv-howto.html . Please, use ctv::ctv2html(...) to check the final form of the TV and also ctv::check_ctv_packages(...) to check that all packages are properly listed.

[zeileis]

Thanks Di @dicook for the update and Natalie @tuxette for the feedback. This already much improved and heading in the right direction. But the text is still too terse and too heterogeneous (as pointed out in more detail by Nathalie).

Also, I think it would be important to give a bit of an overview of the different infrastructures that are leveraged for making the graphics dynamic. Then it is easier to understand the structure of the table of contents and to understand some reoccurring terms (such as "OpenGL" or "D3" for example).

Please flag some packages as "core" packages as well.

[dicook]

We’re working on it!

On 8 Jan 2024, at 10:13 am, Achim Zeileis @.***> wrote:

Thanks Di @dicook for the update and Natalie @tuxette for the feedback. This already much improved and heading in the right direction. But the text is still too terse and too heterogeneous (as pointed out in more detail by Nathalie). Also, I think it would be important to give a bit of an overview of the different infrastructures that are leveraged for making the graphics dynamic. Then it is easier to understand the structure of the table of contents and to understand some reoccurring terms (such as "OpenGL" or "D3" for example). Please flag some packages as "core" packages as well. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

cheers, Di

---

Dianne Cook @.***

[zeileis]

Di, thanks for briefly chatting about this at useR!

I just had a look at the history of your GitHub project (https://github.com/dicook/ctv-dynamicvisualizations/commits/main/DynamicVisualizations.md) and it seems that you made some progress on the issues we had raised above - great! From a quick first look, it seems that there are still open issues that need further work. Maybe you and Sherry can further improve the task view and the follow up here?

[dicook]

@zeileis I think that the CTV has all the changes requested now.

[tuxette]

Hi @dicook : I quickly checked it today and I think that the requested changes have indeed been made. Thanks a lot! I think that it is publishable as is if other CTV board members endorse it: what do you think @zeileis ? Of note (minor): some of the files currently versioned will have to be removed before final publication (at least .DS_Store and the HTML version DynamicVisualizations.html).

[zeileis]

Apologies for the long delay and thank you for the thorough update, Di @dicook and Sherry @huizezhang-sherry! The task view looks great now and is good to go.

I just suggest to use a longer "topic" title and I've made various small improvements in a PR I sent you: https://github.com/dicook/ctv-dynamicvisualizations/pull/5

Please handle the PR and afterwards transfer your repository to me:

Settings > Collaborators > Public Repository > Manage

and then

Danger Zone > Transfer ownership

to "zeileis".

Then I can transfer the repository to the cran-task-views organization and handle all subsequent steps.

[dicook]

I get an error when I try to transfer ownership:

zeileis already has a repository in the dicook/ctv-dynamicvisualizations network

I think you need to remove your fork @zeileis

On 23 Sep 2024, at 6:56 AM, Achim Zeileis @.***> wrote:

Apologies for the long delay and thank you for the thorough update, Di @dicook and Sherry @huizezhang-sherry! The task view looks great now and is good to go. I just suggest to use a longer "topic" title and I've made various small improvements in a PR I sent you: dicook/ctv-dynamicvisualizations#5 Please handle the PR and afterwards transfer your repository to me: Settings > Collaborators > Public Repository > Manage and then Danger Zone > Transfer ownership to "zeileis". Then I can transfer the repository to the cran-task-views organization and handle all subsequent steps. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

cheers, Di

---

Dianne Cook @.***

[zeileis]

Thanks, Di. I have deleted my fork now, please try again.

[zeileis]

OK, transition complete, CRAN release done, social media posts out :tada:

• https://fosstodon.org/@zeileis/113197929131832868
• https://bsky.app/profile/zeileis.org/post/3l4xzv3n5tt2x
• https://x.com/AchimZeileis/status/1838902936975425714