Last year I did not release any new tool for HydroOffice package. The reason was the development of new software. This tool was planned as next installable tool for HydroOffice. Finally I separated it and a new independent product was established.
This new software is distributed under the name FasteR.
This program is related to my previous post, about the use of the R language in hydrology. As many of you know, R is the environment in which we can access by scripting language to an incredible amount of functions for the data processing, managing and visualization. On the other hand, these options are available from a simple visual interface - console. This interface does not include features such as syntax highlighting or code auto completion.
And for this purpose I created FasteR. FasteR is based on my experience working with R language and in the first public version provides functionality that is important for my projects. For these purposes already a number of solutions exist, and each is little different. Similarly FasteR has a slightly different path.
Firstly, FasteR is developed parallel in two editions. One edition is stand-alone, independent, installable software tool and the second is MS Excel Add-In.
FasteR includes classic types of functions and features such as comprehensive code editor, integrated consoles, R documentation and amounts of auxiliary panels. In addition, for this tool I develop visual GUI that we know from similar programs (SPSS or SAS) - visual interface for functions access. This interface is slightly different, because it is not divided according to the type of functions, but according to the content of supported R packages. In the first public version I focused on statistical graphics – packages grDevices, lattice, Graphics and RColorBrewer.
This graphical interface will be in the following versions intensively developed.
Following intro video display the FasteR environment.
For this software visit FasterStat.com.
If you want this tool for non-commercial use, FasteR is free of charge for you. For other purposes, it is necessary to purchase a license. If you buy a license, you can automatically use both editions of the program (Faster Desktop and Faster for Excel).