RKWard 0.8.1

Tuesday, 22 April 2025

A new release, RKWard 0.8.1, is available for download, today. Importatnly, this brings compatibility with the recently released R 4.5.0, but also a number of further changes and features, as detailed, beloew.

As a note to Linux users, in particular, this release - like the previous - is based on the new major version 6 of the KDE and Qt frameworks, which may or may not be available for your distribution, yet. You may be interested in our new AppImage binaries, which include a compiled RKWard and all required frameworks in a single download.

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

The changes in detail:

  • New features and improvements
    • Added: Allow to register custom R functions in the menu (rk.menu())
    • Added: Plugin to facilitate download of latest AppImage (Linux only)
    • Added: Allow to limit plugins to certain platforms
    • Added: Impoement glyph()-functionality in RK() device
    • Internal: Various code cleanups
    • Added: Configuration pages for loaded kate plugins are integrated into the settings dialog
  • Bug fixes
    • Fixed: antialising=FALSE was ignored in RK() device
    • Fixed: Crash when manually adding plugin maps via "Manage R packages and pluigns"
    • Fixed: Abnormal exit on Windows while trying to launch gpgpme (triggered from PDF previews)
    • Fixed: Failure to paint symbols in onscreen device, under some circumstances
    • Fixed: Potential library conflicts on systems shipping a more recent version of libglib2 than included in the AppImage
    • Fixed: Implement capbilities report for RK() device (may fix graphics limitation, but also potential crashes with R >= 4.2.0)
    • Fixed: Adjustments to changes in R devel (for compatibility with the future R 4.5.x)
    • Fixed: Potential crash on "spontaneous" R output (originating from event handlers such as tcl)
    • Fixed: commandArgs() would show incorrect options