Graphing Data with R

Appendix C. The R Commander Graphical User Interface

Some people just do not like the command-line interface of R and would prefer to work in a graphical user interface (GUI; a.k.a. point-and-click) environment. If you do not work with R on a regular basis, it can be hard to remember the R commands; or you might find that you make a lot of mistakes when typing, or that it can be painfully slow to make some simple graphs. Using R Commander could make your life a little more pleasant, with the caveat that you will not have access to the full range of R capabilities with the point-and-click interface.

If you want to try R Commander, you first must install it by using the following command:

> install.packages("Rcmdr", dependencies=TRUE)

After you’ve installed it, you won’t need to do it again, but you must load it during each session for which you want to use it. Here’s the command to do that:

> library(Rcmdr)

The R Commander window appears in Figure C-1. You will probably find that you can produce routine graphs/tables/analyses more quickly by using R Commander, but some highly customized graphs will not be possible. The console will stay open and you can go back and forth between the two windows if you want to use both the GUI and the command-line interface. Alternatively, you can type a command into the R Script window of R Commander and select it. To select a command, click the beginning of the line, drag across the line to the end, and release the mouse button. The line will ...