1. An Introduction to GUI Development using R

2. Overview Introduction Programming for GUIs
R Interfaces
GUIs for programming
Programming for GUIs
GUIs for teaching how to program
GUI task-oriented applications
gWidgets package
Integrating R into other applications
GUI deployment

3. Introduction R Interfaces/Console alternatives
RStudio
Programmed in C++ and GTK+
JGR
Java
Revolution R Productivity Environment (RPE)
MS Visual Studio
Red-R (Open Source visual programming for R
SciViews (extends Komodo edit)

4. GUIs for Programming (code editors)
R internal editor (on Mac!)
Emacs + ESS
Eclipse + StatET
Gvim/Vim-R
Notepad++ / NppToR
WinEdt/RWniEdt ($30!!!)
Tinn-R (MS Windows only)
jEdit (doesn't pass code to R)

5. GUIs to learn programming
R Commander (Rcmdr package)
Satistical analysis functions
RKWard (Linux only)

6. Poll from KDnuggets.com (data miners!)

7. GUI Programming using R
gWidgets package
written by J. Verzani
“gWidgets provides a toolkit-independent API for building interactive GUIs.”
At least one of gWidgetstcltk, gWidgetsRGtk2, gWidgetsQt (on R-Forge only) and qWidgetsrJava needs to be installed.”
i.e. GUI toolkits must be installed (except Tcltk, pre-installed, default)
the user can switch between GUI toolkits with relative ease and can write code in a toolkit independent way
Well, not quite

8. GTK+ toolkit

9. gWidgets functions

10. GUI contruction using gWidgets
Use containers (in ggroup, gwindow, gnotebook functions) to nest widgets
Handlers i.e. event handling, define the executed operation
Handlers can be added after the GUI is created e.g. addHandlerClicked(…)
Drag-and-drop is also featured in gWidgets
Demo....
library(gWidgets)
options("guiToolkit"="RGtk2")
win <- gwindow("Hello World, ad nauseum", visible=TRUE)
group <- ggroup(horizontal = FALSE, container=win)
obj <- gbutton("Hello...",container=group, handler = function(h,...) gmessage("world"))
obj <- glabel("Hello...", container =group,handler = function(h,...) gmessage("world"))
obj <- gcombobox(c("Hello","world"), container=group)
obj <- gedit("Hello world", container=group)
obj <- gtext("Hello world", container=group, font.attr=list(style="bold"))

11. Sample Problem
Survey conducted to see changes in HIV and non-HIV services in sub-Saharan Africa
Conducted across health centres & hospitals, also individual health-worker data, in several sub-saharan Africa countries
Relatively small questionnaire resulting in 800 variables!
Variables names themselves are not very useful
e.g. “Q001”. Great scope for programming error
Variable labels (the actual questions) contain the information on what is collected
With the concept of variable names dropped, an interactive GUI might work better with variable labels than programming!

12. Solution Create new sets of labels
which work as indexes
These can be used to filter, manage and analyze data
- Restructuring of data not required
Begin with a search & replace dialogue screen
How would you design it (so that it would be a better option than just using grep or regexpr)?
Demo...

13. Deducer “An intuitive, cross-platform graphical data analysis system”
Deducer is based upon rJava and provides access to the Java Swing Network
Related Packages
Description
DeducerExtras
Additional dialogs and functions for Deducer
DeducerPlugIn Example
Deducer Plug-in Example
DeducerPlugInScaling
Reliability and factor analysis plugin
DeducerSpatial
Deducer for spatial data analysis
DeducerSurvival
Add Survival Dialogue to Deducer
DeducerText
Deducer GUI for Text Data

14. gWidgets versus Deducer
Deducer has a slightly lower level library, but more flexible and compatible with JGR
Deducer requires you to explicitly specify positions of widgets, and is a little more verbose when you come to add event handling logic
Visit for a discussion

15. Other R GUI packages and tools (which I know little about!)
PBS (Pacific Biological Station) packages
Rattle (data mining GUI)
Brodgar (used for class-room teaching etc.)
pmg (poor man’s GUI, similar to Rcmdr)

16. Current List of Packages with tools for GUI development or utilize a programmed GUI*
*as of January 2013

17. Package
description
ade4TkGUI
GUI for ade4 package
AtelieR
Basic statistical inference & bayesian analysis
BiodiversityR
Biodiversity, suitability, community ecology analysis
biOpsGUI
Basic image operations
BiplotGUI
Interactive Biplots in R
CADStat
Statistical methods useful for causal assessment
caGUI
A Tcl/Tk GUI for the functions in the ca package
cncaGUI
Canonical Non-symmetrical Correspondence Analysis
DALY
Stochastic DALY calculations
detrendeR
Start the detrendeR Graphical User Interface (GUI)
digeR
GUI tool for analyzing 2D DIGE data
GGEBiplotGUI
GGEBiplotGUI: Interactive GGE Biplots in R
GrapheR
Multi-platform GUI for drawing customizable graphs
MDSGUI
A GUI for interactive MDS in R
MergeGUI
A GUI for Merging Datasets in R
Metabonomic
GUI for Metabonomic Analysis

18. Package
description
migui
Graphical User Interface of the mi Package
MissingDataGUI
A GUI for Missing Data Exploration
MSeasyTkGUI
multibiplotGUI
Multibiplot Analysis in R
mutossGUI
A graphical user interface for the MuToss Project
PBSadmb
ADMB for R Using Scripts or GUI
PMSddesolve
Solver for Delay Differential Equations
PBSmapping
Mapping Fisheries Data and Spatial Analysis Tools
PBSmodelling
Interact with Models, Explore Data, Dynamic Presentations
playwith
A GUI for interactive plots using GTK+
pmg
Poor Man's GUI
ProgGUIinR
book "Programming Graphical User Interfaces in R"
QCAGUI
QCA Graphical User Interface
R2STATS
Fit and compare GLM and GLMM in R
RandForestGUI
Random Forests
RenextGUI
GUI for Renext

19. Package
description
ResearchMethods
GUIs to help teach statistics to non-statistics students
reshapeGUI
A GUI for the reshape2 and plyr packages
RPMG
Interactive R analysis sessions
RunuranGUI
A GUI for the UNU.RAN random variate generators Rz
GUI Tool for Data Management like SPSS or Stata
sculpt3d
A simple toolbar GUI for brushing RGL plots
sdcMicroGUI
Graphical user interface for package sdcMicro
SeqGrapheR
Graph based visualization of cluster of DNA seq reads
Sim.DiffProcGUI
Simulation of Diffusion Processes
speedR
A GUI based importing and filtering tool
TGUICore
Teaching GUI - Core functionality
TGUITeaching
Teaching GUI - prototype
tourrGUI
A Tour GUI using gWidgets
traitr
creating GUIs (traits UI module for python)
WMCapacity
Bayesian working memory models
x12GUI
X12 - Graphical User Interface

20. Package
description
Common JavaJars
Useful libraries for building a Java based GUI
fgui
Function GUI
miniGUI
tktcl quick and simple function GUI

21. Considerations in GUI development & deployment
Which Widget library?
GTK+, Java, Qt?
Program the UI or use a UI designer?
e.g. QtDesigner
Choice of software for GUI deployment?
R (gWidgets package etc.)
Python (wxPython, PyQt, PyQt4 libraries)
R/Python integration (call R using Rpy, Rpy2)
Sage (
Sage uses existing open-source libraries wherever they exist!
See sagemath.org, writen in Python & Cython, not supported by MS Windows

22. Web-applications rApache project (www.rapache.net) Rook package
Embed R in the Apache web server
Rook package
Provides an interface to build web-applications with rApache
gWidgetsWWW
It’s independent of gWidgets!
Use JavaScript libraries, rapache
Shiny in Rstudio!!!

23. Documentation Lots of material on the web
Journal of Statistical Software (Vol. 49)
Special issue of R on GUIs
Lawrence and Verzani book (2012) 
gWidgets package vignette

24. Final comments
Don’t write a GUI which you hope others will find useful. Write one you use yourself and hopefully it may be of use other people
A successful GUI will requires the right balance of detail and simplicity
Writing a GUI using R may not be the optimal deployment of a GUI, but it is nevertheless easy to do!
“It is my opinion that programing from within R is a very good way to get a working GUI quickly, but you are better served leaving R for something polished and professional looking.”
R-Blogger

25. Thank you!