hadley/devtools — Issue #36: visual map of all functions in a package
Author: baptiste
Created: 2012-01-02 23:21:02+00:00
State: open

## Aim

Facilitate the understanding of complex packages with a visual overview of all the functions present in a package. Inspiration can be drawn from `foodweb` in the `mcbutils` package and `graphviz` (visualise dependencies between functions in graph from).

## Technical considerations

- arranging different pieces together could be automated using two
kinds of meta-information: @family from roxygen2, and the network of
dependencies (e.g using mvbutils::foodweb). A given family of pieces
could be layout in a column, while inter-dependencies could be
indicated by a common colour scheme, for example.

- there could be special markers (e.g a small asterisc) to indicate
functions that are not exported.

- there should be a function that returns a grob describing a given
function (with optional color and asterisk arguments). This grob would
have widthDetails etc. methods so that it can be placed easily on a
page.

- the gridSvg package could be used to animate the output
interactively; for example highlighting dependencies on mouse-over, showing the function description as a tool-tip, etc.