Information Dashboards in R with ggplot2

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+4 Q:

Information Dashboards in R with ggplot2

I'm looking to create a static dashboard viewable in a web browser. And I'd like to create something like what Stephen Few does in his book Information Dashboard Design. (see example at bottom)

Ggplot2: Shouldn't be any issue producing the graphs below, right?
Dashboard Layout: Is grid suitable? Or should I lay things out in html/css?

If grid can do this easily enough, do you know of any good resources for learning how to us it? I've read the manual but I'm not finding it too helpful. I've seen the LearnR blog's ggplot2 sales dashboard (it uses grid) and I'm having trouble understanding the grid and layout part of things.

dasboard sample

+1 A:

See http://learnr.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/ggplot2-sales-dashboard/ for an example with code.

hadley 2010-02-04 04:31:24

I've been looking at that and it looks good. I think I'd need a much more complex grid layout to reproduce the image above. But I'm having trouble learning how to use grid. Got any other recommendations or examples?

2010-02-04 06:34:11

+2 A:

I would suggest also having a look at the brew package, as in this example on the learnr blog.

Shane 2010-02-04 04:39:08

i agree, use brew and R to create html tables etc, i still wonder about server-side v client side graphics (recc: protovis). Then just use css or a js framework to style appropriately

Dan 2010-02-05 19:12:22

I agree, and made this point here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2162131/how-can-i-learn-to-create-beautiful-infographics-with-connection-to-my-r-knowled/2162215#2162215. R may not be the right choice for web graphics in the long run, although that's not to say that those other packages can't be integrated (e.g. Rprotovis?).

Shane 2010-02-05 19:15:23

+3 A:

I think your html/css-direction might be a really smart move.

It might be easier to get an awesome layout using using Open Office draw and just link to the images, checking off the link box when insterting them for the first time. Open Office supports export to pdf making it usefull for reporting.

Even if it was straight forward to programaticly create a stunning document layout in R, I'm not sure it would be worth the time and effort.

Regards

tovare 2010-02-04 22:12:25

ansaurus

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Information Dashboards in R with ggplot2

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