This is a list of significant new or updated packages that were released for R in April. For a complete list of all updates on CRAN, see the CRANberries archive for April 2009.
ascii is a new package for writing asciidoc or txt2tags documents with embedded R commands. It is similar to xtable or R2HTML — see these examples.
bigmemory, a package offering platform-independent support for larger-than-RAM matrix objects, has undergone a major update.
canvas implements a new graphics device that emits javascript code targeting a new HTML 5 canvas element. If you have a compliant browser (such as beta Firefox 3.1) you can see some examples in action.
The distr-family of packages, a suite of packages providing a conceptual treatment of random variables by means of S4-classes, has been updated. Amongst other improvements, it now supports compound distributions and improves accuracy
EVER (Estimation of Variance by Efficient Replication), a package intended for calculating estimates and standard errors from complex surveys, has been updated to version 1.1.
FD is a new package intended for ecologists interested in functional diversity. It measures different FD indices from multiple traits.
ggplot2, the popular and user-friendly plotting system based on the grammar of graphics, has been updated to version 0.8.3. This version adds new features, improves handling of missing values, and fixes several bugs.
igraph, a package for graphs/networks, has been updated. New features include support for bipartite graphs, 3-D layouts, new shortest-part algorithms, and a limited Tcl/Tk GUI.
plink, a package for conducting unidimensional and multidimensional IRT-based test linking, has been updated. The new version adds multidimensional models and methods.
plyr, a fast, memory-efficient, and consistent set of tools for processing subsegments of massive data structures, has been updated. The latest version improves performance and handling of function arguments, and fixes some bugs.
RHIPE, an new integration between R and Hadoop, makes it possible to write map-reduce algorithms in R. It is available from the author’s website.
Rmetrics, a suite of packages for financial analysis, has been updated. The new version includes efficiency improvements to timeSeries objects, improves ease-of-use of fPortfolio, and is compatible with R 2.90.
TraMineR, a package for mining, describing, and visualizing sequences of states or events, has been updated to version 1.2. More information at the TraMineR homepage.
xterm256 is a new package letting you control the color of text in the R console (when R is launched at the command line in an xterm window). Examples of its use can be found in this blog post.
