RKWard 0.8.0

Friday, 28 June 2024

A new release, RKWard 0.8.0, is available for download, today.

This is the first release of RKWard to be based on the new major version 6 of the KDE and Qt frameworks. Linux users, in particular on more conservative distributions, may be interested in our new AppImage binaries, which include a compiled RKWard and all required frameworks in a single download.

Among the most visible changes are the addition of a native preview mode for PDF, and the ability to select a different R version/installation at runtime.

As usual, we're looking forward to your feedback suggestions, and contributions!

The changes in detail:

  • New features and improvements
    • Changed: Status indicator for preview windows (updating/ready) is less obstrusive
    • Added: Ability to open PDF documents inside the RKWard window, and associated R function rk.show.pdf()
    • Added: Setup dialog includes setting to select a different R installation
    • Added: Command line option "--setup" to force (re-)initialization as if a new version of RKWard had been installed
    • Changed: R shared library is now loaded, dynamically, rather than linked at compile time. This allows more flexibility on which R version to use at runtime, esp. in the context of AppImage binaries
    • Changed: First version to be based on Qt6/KF6
  • Bug fixes
    • Fixed: Crash when trying to edit a data.frame containing columns that are not vectors
    • Fixed: Basic statistics would refuse to "overwrite file", even if saving to file was unchecked
    • Fixed: Add breeze icons as a fallback on systems that use a different icon theme (fixes missing icons)
    • Fixed: R functions loadhistory(), savehistory(), and timestamp() broken
    • Fixed: References to the package cairoDevice (removed on CRAN) have been replaced with Cairo
    • Fixed: Creating new output window from the UI would sometimes show empty window
    • Fixed: Better support for running from non-standard paths on Linux (e.g. user-local installation in home dir)
    • Fixed: Added REUSE license information where missing
    • Fixed: Handling of carriage returns in R Console window (used in progress bars, importantly)
    • Fixed: Crash when renaming top level object from context menu