S-PLUS Graphlets™ Information

An S-PLUS Graphlet is a Java applet that supports displaying and interacting with S-PLUS graphics that have been saved in a file.  A graphlet can be embedded within a Web page, and viewed by a Web browser.  Displaying S-PLUS graphs with the graphlet provides several interactive features not available with static graph images such as JPEG or GIF images:

• The graphlet displays a graph window with multiple tabbed pages.  The user can set the titles of the page tabs to meaningful names.
• The displayed graph can be panned and zoomed to examine details more closely.  The graph is represented as a series of graph commands, rather than as a bitmap, so a zoomed image will be just as sharp as the original size.
• The graph coordinates of the mouse can be optionally displayed as the mouse is run over the graph.  The graph coordinates are the X,Y coordinates of the mouse position according to the graph axes, rather than the X,Y pixel coordinates within the window, so this display can be used to examine the positions of points in a scatterplot, or other plot.  If there are multiple graphs within an page, the graph coordinates of the graph containing the mouse are displayed.
• A graphlet may contain any number of rectangular active regions within a page.  As the mouse is moved over an active region, it is outlined and an associated label is displayed.  The label, a multi-line string, can be used to display additional information for a given element of the graph.  For example, active regions can be defined around all of the points in a scatterplot, giving additional name information for every point.
• Each active region may also have an associated action string, which specifies what should happen if the mouse is clicked within the active region.  Options include switching to another page within the graphlet, having the Web browser jump to a specified Web page, or popping up a menu for selecting one of multiple such actions.  This provides a way to "drill down", displaying more information about a particular region.

Note that there is no direct link between the graphlet and S-PLUS. Using S-PLUS, a series of graphics commands is stored in a file, and the file is closed.  Later, the graphlet reads the file and displays the graphics, perhaps long after the S-PLUS session has ended, perhaps by a user over the Web who doesn't even have S-PLUS.

We have tested the graphlets on many different platforms and Web browsers, but there may be software configurations where they don't work.  If the graphlet within a Web page does not display at all, or displays as an empty gray box, make sure that your Web browser is configured to run Java applets --- this is typically set in "Options" or "Properties" dialogs.  This can be tested by viewing the simple Java applet on this page.   If this test applet displays correctly, but the graphlets do not, then send mail to support@insightful.com.  Please include information about the operating system and web browser you are using, and the Web address you are trying to view.  

The Java code implementing the S-PLUS graphlets is distributed as a file named spjgraph.jar.  Occasionally, we may release a new version of this file to fix bugs or add new features.  The latest version of this file is always available for downloading here.

Version 1.0, released with S-PLUS 6 for Linux, October 2000:  spjgraph.jar