rpanel: simple interactive controls for R functions using the tcltk package


Aims

The rpanel package has two aims. The first is to provide tools which make the construction of gui control panels for R applications as easy as possible. The package is aimed at those who know R but are not familiar with the technicalities of the various gui construction systems which are available. The rpanel package is built on rtcltk and manages the process of communication so that controls can be constructed directly by R simple function calls.

The second aim of rpanel is to use these gui construction tools to provide specific applications. There is a particular emphasis on tools for the teaching of statistics, but not exclusively so.

Availability

The package is available from the CRAN archive, A Quick Reference Guide for the package is also available in pdf form.

BWidget

rpanel requires the BWidget package for the TCL system. This is usually available on Windows computers but it is not now routinely distributed with Mac computers. If installation of rpanel fails on a Mac because Bwidget is not installed on your system, the steps below explain how to remedy this.

Resources

A paper on the package has been published in the Journal of Statistical Software. There is also file of scripts to run the examples of the paper. (These scripts are also included in the examples listed below.)

An R News article on the package has been published. A script file, a data file and an image file for the examples of the article are available here.

A paper describing spatial simulation and sampling tools (rp.geosim, rp.mururoa, rp.firth) in a teaching context is also available.

A variety of examples of the use of rpanel is available through the rp.cartoons() function in the package. This launches a menu from which a wide variety of material can be viewed. However, some sample scripts are also listed below. If you find rpanel useful and you have developed code which others might also find useful, please let Adrian Bowman (adrian.bowman@glasgow.ac.uk) know. It would be good to add further examples to this list.