[BlindRUG] new CRAN release of BrailleR

[Godfrey, Jonathan]

Hello all,

I have been a little quiet with respect to developments on the BrailleR package and related tools.

I have just pushed the latest version of BrailleR up to CRAN and had confirmation that it got past all the numerous checks done on uploaded packages nowadays. This release is numbered v0.28.0 and the development version now on GitHub is v0.29.0 for the moment.

Get the new release version using:  chooseCRANmirror(ind=1); install.packages("BrailleR")

The last formal release of BrailleR was in July 2017, and a lot has happened since then. It is perhaps easiest for me to copy and paste the news.md file and offer a summary here. The news.md file is after my sign off for this message.

I have been working on an e-book called "BrailleR in Action" The function BrailleRInAction() takes you to the book's front page. Let's Use R Now is still being worked on occasionally, and can be reached using LURN().

The WriteR editor for R markdown files has been substantially modified. My huge thanks go to Marshall Flax for his enthusiasm for helping this project go from something I can recommend to advance users to a product that is now ready for use by novices. WriteR is written in Python and is now able to be used with both Python 2.7 and 3.6. The setup for Python 2.7 is most easily managed for Windows users withint he BrailleR package functions, some work remains for Python 3.6 Windows users, and sorry but yes, the convenience tools are Windows-centric still. Users of all operating systems can make use of WriteR if Python is installed and the extra module called "wx"; this can be installed in a number of ways if it isn't already.

To start a new R markdown file in WriteR, just type WriteR("MyNewFile.Rmd") and change the filename to what you want. This does lock up the R terminal though and at present only works for Windows users. Users of other operating systems may well need to write to me off-list so we can find out how to give you the same simple access to this new tool.

The third thing to announce is the improved VI() functionality for graphs created using ggplot functions. This work was mostly done by Debra Warren, a postgrad student the University of Auckland under the supervision of Paul Murrell with a fair amount of advice from me when my travels took me to Auckland. A lot of what Debra managed is in the BrailleR in Action book so you should check that out.


I'd love to hear some feedback on these three initiatives.

Thanks everyone.
Jonathan

Now, here is the news.md file:
# BrailleR 0.29.0 (GitHub)

- WriteR() slightly modified so that the terminal is not locked up while editing an Rmd file.
- introduced use of roloc package to define colours in human readable form.(experimental)

# BrailleR 0.28.0
- submitted to CRAN

# BrailleR 0.27.3
* Added a `NEWS.md` file to track changes to the package.
- added a Code of Conduct to the package.
- added internal functions for pulling the WxPython module and checking if the necessary Python and WxPython systems are in place.
- updated GetWxPython27() so that it uses a Python pip install command in the shell instead of a convoluted download and save process. This should obviate the need to have a manual installation of wxPython which is needed for WriteR.
- added GetPython3() because WriteR is Py3 compatible.
- added GetCygwin(), GetRStudio() to help speed up installations.
- added the pdf2html() function. This is dependent on Python 2.7 at present. (experimental)
- added Marshall Flax to contributors for substantial work on WriteR
- added a Python27 folder to the Python folder which contains copies of scripts installed in subfolders of the Python27 installation folder that may not be on the system path. First set of scripts pulled over and readme.txt created accordingly.
- added reticulate package to imports list
- added Require() for loading/installing packages.
- added WriteR updates
- changed VIgrep() and VIsort() to grep.VIgraph() and sort.VIgraph()
- added gsub.VIgraph()
- finally fixed GetPython27 now that installr::install_python() is available to all (Windows) users.

# BrailleR 0.27.2
- introduced reference to the BrailleR in Action text
- updated vignettes with more direct links to BrailleR in Action

# BrailleR 0.27.1
- altered DESCRIPTION file to raise Paul and Debra to author from contributor in preparation for pull requests for VI.ggplot() work.
- imported Debra Warren's work <smiles> via a PR on GitHub. This offers huge gains in VI.ggplot()
- changed R dependency sought by CRAN on 29/9/17 by email.
- internalised the R2txt.vars (should have done this ages ago!)

# BrailleR 0.27.0
- added ProcessAllMd() for rendering plain markdown files.
- removed dependency on pander package by altering UniDesc(). Reason: Nice results, but possibly over the top for introductory students.
- added Language to the set of package options to be chosen by the user. This is necessary to then have the SpellCheckFiles() work properly.
- added GetExampleText() to help extract the example text from help pages.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindrug_nfbnet.org/attachments/20180606/5c8ee6ad/attachment.html>