Hi I have a package (arrayQualityMetrics) that works best when the 'svg' device is available, which afaIu requires that capabilities("cairo") is TRUE and is not the case on many current Windows installations of R. I admit I have not paid attention to Windows-related things for a while; I've done a fair bit of googling on the topic, but am still unsure about a few things: - What's the best practice to make the user experience good for Windows users? - How to help them to make the 'svg' device available to their R? - Or should I not use 'svg' if I want the package experience be painless for Windows people? - Would it be worthwhile to build and distribute Windows binaries for R that include libcairo/svg? (Or team up with the people who provide those on CRAN?) Best wishes Wolfgang Wolfgang Huber EMBL http://www.embl.de/research/units/genome_biology/huber

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 8:55 AM, Wolfgang Huber <whuber@embl.de> wrote: > Hi > > I have a package (arrayQualityMetrics) that works best when the 'svg' > device is available, which afaIu requires that capabilities("cairo") is TRUE > and is not the case on many current Windows installations of R. > > I admit I have not paid attention to Windows-related things for a while; > I've done a fair bit of googling on the topic, but am still unsure about a > few things: > > - What's the best practice to make the user experience good for Windows > users? > > Usually, binaries are bundled with a Windows application. In the case of an R package, it seems the safest course, to prevent DLL conflicts, is to statically link the binaries into the package DLL. > - How to help them to make the 'svg' device available to their R? > > I would suggest using Simon U's Cairo package, which includes cairo in the Windows build of the package, so that everything just works. It has an SVG backend. > - Or should I not use 'svg' if I want the package experience be painless > for Windows people? > > - Would it be worthwhile to build and distribute Windows binaries for R > that include libcairo/svg? (Or team up with the people who provide those on > CRAN?) > > Best wishes > Wolfgang > > Wolfgang Huber > EMBL > http://www.embl.de/research/units/genome_biology/huber > > _______________________________________________ > Bioconductor mailing list > Bioconductor@r-project.org > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/bioconductor > Search the archives: > http://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.biology.informatics.conductor > [[alternative HTML version deleted]]

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 8:55 AM, Wolfgang Huber <whuber@embl.de> wrote: > Hi > > I have a package (arrayQualityMetrics) that works best when the 'svg' > device is available, which afaIu requires that capabilities("cairo") is TRUE > and is not the case on many current Windows installations of R. > > I admit I have not paid attention to Windows-related things for a while; > I've done a fair bit of googling on the topic, but am still unsure about a > few things: > > - What's the best practice to make the user experience good for Windows > users? > > Usually, binaries are bundled with a Windows application. In the case of an R package, it seems most convenient to statically link the binaries into the package DLL. > - How to help them to make the 'svg' device available to their R? > > - Or should I not use 'svg' if I want the package experience be painless > for Windows people? > > - Would it be worthwhile to build and distribute Windows binaries for R > that include libcairo/svg? (Or team up with the people who provide those on > CRAN?) > > Best wishes > Wolfgang > > Wolfgang Huber > EMBL > http://www.embl.de/research/units/genome_biology/huber > > _______________________________________________ > Bioconductor mailing list > Bioconductor@r-project.org > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/bioconductor > Search the archives: > http://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.biology.informatics.conductor > [[alternative HTML version deleted]]