[BioC] XML specifs for R GUIs dialog boxes

[Philippe Grosjean]

Since this becomes a fairly large thread that goes in many different (and
interesting) directions, I propose to start a new one with a more explicit
title.

I will try to summarize major points discussed so far.

- Thomas Friedrichsmeier [Thomas.Friedrichsmeier@ruhr-uni-bochum.de] after
"having a short conversation with the obveRsive-people" introduced the idea
of a sort of "plugin" with potentials to contruct dialog boxes at run-time.
He proposes to use a XML-file for specification of the dialog box (ex:
t-test dialog box, http://rkward.sf.net/pics.php).

- We all agree (I think) that a common semantic for the description of these
dialog boxes accross projects (whatever the language, the graphical toolkit
and the platform used) should be fine. So, we are on the way to define it,
and I'll dedicate a page to it at http://www.r-project.org/GUI, as soon as
we have something consistent (thus, discussed enough in R-SIG-GUI). Also,
this implies it should not be describing features at a too low level, as
pointed out by Thomas, or we take the risk to get something that would be
less portable from one language/graph toolkit to the other.

- Peter Dalgaard [p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk] suggests to contact people in
Bioconductor that may be working on a similar thing (I send them a copy of
this mail).

- Philippe Grosjean [phgrosjean@sciviews.org] proposes to include
context-sensitive features, allowing for instance to call such dialog boxes
directly from an object explorer, or whatever context menu.

- While Philippe and Thomas think that a majority (but not all) dialog boxes
could be constructed this way (they probably bear in mind a way to quickly
construct simple to rather complex dialog boxes, but not an exhaustive
approach), Duncan Murdoch [murdoch@stats.uwo.ca] considers that it should be
possible to make it more exhaustive ("I don't see any problem with thinking
about all of them as being made of XML").

- Although the specifications could target a run-time dynamic construction
of the dialog box, it could also be used to define dialog boxes at design
time, at least if we follows the Delphi scheme, as pointed out by Duncan
(?). A.J. Rossini [rossini@blindglobe.net] says that it is "just a matter of
translation, for the most part". Probably, this should be more a question of
implementation in the various different languages and should not be
discussed too deeply in the early stages.

- About layering, Thomas proposes something simple, like a grid with perhaps
tabbed dialog boxes (note: this is roughly the layering potentials of Splus
custom dialog boxes), while Duncan whould like to have something more
powerful.

- The list of widgets to support is not fixed yet too. Duncan proposes to
focus on low level widgets first (label, text, button, etc...). Thomas
proposes a list that mixes low level and high level widgets (I think we
should make the distinction and propose two separate lists). At this point,
we should also discuss with the Bioconductor team that has already done some
work on creating various interesting high level widgets in tcltk like
objects lists for instance. Here is the widgets list propsed by Thomas:
"+ some sort of widget that lists available objects (...)
 + a widget that can hold a (single) object (the "varslot"), and will
probably make some specifications about what types of objects it can hold
(like the attribute type="numeric" in the example)
 + maybe a separate widget that can hold one or more objects, but basically
acts the same (might instead simply use a more generalized "varslot")
 + maybe a separate widget that can hold a single constant value (number or
string)
 + a widget that can be used to select interactions between variables
selected in a "varslot"
 + radio-buttons
 + checkboxes
 + a widget representing a text/label not directly attached to any of the
other widgets
 + a widget represent a line or other separation used for layouting
purposes"

Duncan adds:
 + a tree view widget
 + a free text widget

I'll immediately add:
 + various classical dialog boxes like file open/close for instance
 + a widget that displays a (multi)-selectable list of columns in a
particular data frame, or elements in a list.
 + a graph widget (yes a whole R graph device)

And perhaps:
 + a menuing system (with perhaps context menus attached to other widgets)
 + sliders to select values in a range

- There are some open aspects, like the possibility to define new widgets,
or the way results are submitted to R (simple seach/replace mechanism, data
frame or other code describing the whole dialog box and processed by R
code,...).

- Since someone must initiate a document for the specifs, and Thomas seems
to have something almost ready, I proposed him to make a draft. At this
stage, modifications in a document will be more constructive than loosy
discussions in R-SIG-GUI.

Best,

Philippe


P.S.: for those of you that receive this mail and are interested, but not
listed yet on R-SIG-GUI, you can register at:

  http://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-gui

Special Interest Group on Development of GUI(s) for R.

Topic: Discussion of Strategies and approaches; particularly platform
independent ones. See http://www.R-project.org/GUI/ for more.

...........]<(({?<...............<?}))><...............................
( ( ( ( (
 ) ) ) ) )      Philippe Grosjean
( ( ( ( (
 ) ) ) ) )      IFREMER Nantes - DEL/AO
( ( ( ( (       rue de l'Ile d'Yeu, BP 21105, 44311 Nantes Cedex 3
 ) ) ) ) )      tel: (33) 02.40.37.42.29, fax: (33) 02.40.37.42.41
( ( ( ( ( 
 ) ) ) ) )      SciViews project coordinator (http://www.sciviews.org)
( ( ( ( (       e-mail: phgrosjean@sciviews.org
 ) ) ) ) ) 
( ( ( ( (       "I'm 100% confident that p is between 0 and 1"
 ) ) ) ) )                                L. Gonick & W. Smith (1993)
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