WindowsTODO.html

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<h1 align=center>TODO list for Windows version of R</h1> 

<i>This site is intended as an intermediate repository for more or
less finalized ideas and plans for the R statistical system. Most
parts of the site are open to the public, and we welcome discussions
on the ideas, but please do not take them for more than that, in
particular there is no commitment to actually carry out the plans in
finite time unless expressedly stated.</i>

<h2>Previews</h2>

<p>Cross-compiled <a
href="http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/bdr/RWin/Rpre">previews</a> of
upcoming versions are available, of varying timeliness but usually no
more than a few days' old.  See the <tt>README</tt> for details.

<p> <b>September 2001</b>
These previews are likely to be built rarely whilst I am on leave.
</p>

<p>
In the run up to a release Duncan Murdoch makes builds available at
<a
href="http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base"><tt>http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base</tt></a>.</p>


<h2>Enhancements</h2>

<p>There are currently no plans to make further Windows-specific
enhancements to R.  R-core members feel that the aim of providing
equivalent functionality on Windows as on Unix/Linux has been achieved
as well as is practicable with the limited expertise and resources
available.

<p>There are many opportunities for contributions by Windows
programmers, including the lists below.


<h2>Bugs</h2>

A few things we know about, but do not know how to solve.
<ul>
<li><tt>fifo()</tt> could be implemented <em>via</em> named pipes.
<li>There are a number of aspects of the toolkit (GraphApp) that are
not wholly satisfactory to experienced Windows users.
There is a <a href="http://enchantia.com/software/graphapp/">new
version</a> of GraphApp available (but many changes were made to the
old one).
</ul>

<h2>User suggestions</h2>

<p>Suggestions include:

<ul>
<li>Connections to external databases, ability to read/write Excel and
dBase files, .... [package RODBC can do a lot of this. There is code
to read/write Excel files in <a href="http://www.gnumeric.org">Gnumeric</a>.]

<li>Use separate threads for the R engine, graphics and overall
control (and thereby avoid polling for Windows events).

<li>The ability to write WMF on Unix. (This means vector WMF, not the
bitmaps that <tt>epstool</tt> and <tt>GSView</tt> make.  One possible
approach (suggested by Ben Bolker) would be to use <a
href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/libemf/"><tt>libEMF</tt></a>.)
</ul>

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