httpgd 1.4

[nx10]

Server:

• [ ] Improve core logic
  • nx10/httpgd#78
  • nx10/httpgd#83
  • nx10/httpgd#67
  • nx10/httpgd#15
  • nx10/httpgd#94
• [ ] Add renderers
  • nx10/unigd#3
  • Maybe: nx10/unigd#5

Client:

• [ ] Improve UI/UX (e.g. Loading spinner on long plot wait, show plot size, switch to server side rendering, ...)

Docs:

• [ ] Improve all docs
  • nx10/httpgd#87
  • nx10/unigd#2
  • nx10/httpgd#89

[nx10]

Updates:

• We need to make 1.3 a patch release for Windows UCRT support for the upcoming R 4.2 which changes the Windows build system quite a bit. I will publish the current development version in a couple of days after some minor client fixes for the RStudio webview.
• It also turns out that nx10/httpgd#83 is a blocker for many new features. As the later devs seem to be unresponsive I will write a custom wrapper that allows for more fine grained communication between the main (R) thread and the webserver threads. This will also make debugging problems like nx10/httpgd#67 much easier. If a C/C++ dev wants to help with this but is unsure about implementation details of httpgd I would be happy to explain details.
• I also made some PRs to https://github.com/CrowCpp/Crow recently with necessary features to (maybe) replace Boost/Beast and the abandoned Belle library in the future.
• I also experimented with modern OpenGL for the GPU renderer, and the most difficult part so far was getting it to work with the R build system. It seems like statically linking with GLFW will be the easiest way. Here is a little demo triangle that was rendered from within R with OpenGL 3.3.

Edit: It seems like packages can not be submitted until January 3rd as the CRAN submission team is on vacation. The code is ready now and I will upload as soon as its possible again.

[nx10]

After some technical difficulties with the new windows server 1.3 is now on CRAN.

[nx10]

I think its time to consider breaking httpgd up into smaller packages. I have a few reasons for this:

• The codebase has grown significantly and so have compile times.
• I find it difficult to choose sensible defaults for both webserver and offline use.
• Personally I have been using httpgd in "offline mode" to render graphics for my articles/manuscripts and think it is easer to use to than the base R graphics devices, but I understand that many people don't want to install the web-related overhead or don't realize that httpgd can be used for this.
• Packages like knitr could benefit from the speed, in memory graphics access and abstraction httpgd provides.

My proposal is breaking httpgd in 2 seperate packages:

• unigd : Universal/unified graphics device: All graphics rendering functionality. Easy R API to access plots in any format. C++ API to create interactive devices. Primary focus on rendering speed.
• httpgd : All web (client, server) and async functionality. Primary focus on UX and security.

Let me know what you think.

[BerriJ]

Thank you very much @nx10 I really love httpgd and I use it every day, However, I sometimes hit performance limits when plotting ggplot graphics with a lot of points. Those issues do not occur with the default R graphics device. I do not know If GPU utilization is the difference here but if this would be solved, httpgd would be just perfect. Ahh and splitting up the package is a great Idea in my opinion. I really do not need the webserver.

[nx10]

@BerriJ Thank you very much, I am glad you like it. How are you using httpgd when the performance issues appear? Do you use VScode / RStudio and are you using the plot viewer or saving files with R instructions?

[BerriJ]

I'm using httpgd inside of VS-Code together with the R extension. I can easily kill httpgd with

plot(rnorm(1000000), rnorm(1000000))

Which, admittedly, are a lot of points. I have some more complicated ggplots with fewer points that also fail. However, creating a reprex here wouldn't be that easy. However, if you think a reprex of those plots would be beneficial, I'll create one for you.

I usually save my plots using ggsave or using tikzdevice. So this does not rely on httpgd right? Saving is never a problem.

[nx10]

Closed in favor of https://github.com/nx10/httpgd/pull/111