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A new version of the snahelper package is now available on CRAN. If you do not now the package: So far, it included one RStudio addin that provided a GUI to analyze and visualize networks. Check out the introductory post for more details.

This major update includes two more addins that further facilitate the work with network data in R.

The package requires the newest versions of ggraph (2.0.0) and graphlayouts (0.5.0). Changes include:

• added Netbuilder() addin
• added Netreader() addin
• edge geom is chosen automatically between geom_edge_link0() and geom_edge_parallel0()
• discrete edge colors are now supported
• added support for layout_with_focus() and layout_with_centrality()

The version number was incremented to 1.0.0 and I consider this to be the final major release of the package. All further updates will, most likely, only contain bug fixes.

Two addins were added in this version, the Netbuilder() and the Netreader(). Both can be used by selecting them from the Addins dropdown menu in RStudio.

## Netbuilder

The purpose of Netbuilder() is to quickly create small networks via point and click. This might not be a tremendously useful addin, but testing new methods sometimes require to run code on small networks and creating them by writing down, for instance, the adjacency matrix can get very cumbersome.

The commands for the addin are:

• Single click on two vertices: add edge
• Single click on one vertex and free space: add vertex and edge to new vertex.

Once finished, the network is exported as an igraph object to the global environment with the specified variable name.

A quick demo is shown below.

After several workshops on “SNA with R”, I noticed that one of the big first hurdles is to get network data into R. Many new users that come from other software tools are used to clicking an open button and loading the data. This is not as simple in R. It may get even more complicated if network data needs to be combined with attribute data. The Netreader() addin is meant to facilitate the import of network data that is stored in plain text files (csv, tsv, etc.), mimicking (kind of) what users are used to from other software.

The addin consists of two main tabs, one for network data and one for attribute data. The user specifies the file and file format (can be inferred from the file preview window) and the addin automatically combines the network and attributes to an igraph object.

The last tab shows the R code to produce the network with the chosen data without using the addin. This should help new users to understand the import process, so that they may not need the addin anymore in the future.

Once finished, the network is exported as an igraph object to the global environment with the specified variable name.

Disclaimer: I tested the addin with a lot of different files, but it is hard to prepare for all peculiarities that may arise. If you are having problems using the addin with your data, please write an issue on github.

# New features

The main addin snahelper() also got some new features. New layouts that are supported are layout_with_focus() and layout_with_centrality().

The addin now automatically chooses the appropriate edge geom. If multiple edges are present, it uses geom_edge_parallel0(). Otherwise geom_edge_link0(). This replaces the former general solution using geom_edge_fan().

Finally, it is now also possible to use discrete edge variables as edge colors.