RBesT
RBesT is teaching its Bayesian decision rules to answer two-sided questions.
Comparison · Analytics
beautier vs maplegend
A side-by-side editorial comparison of beautier and maplegend — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
beautier vs maplegend: at a glance
What is beautier?
A BEAST2 XML generator shipping releases CRAN can't accept because the CRAN team is on holiday.
beautier turns R code into BEAST2 phylogenetics XML input files. The three most recent releases landed over four days in August 2025 and are all explicitly marked pre-CRAN, held back because the CRAN team was on summer holiday. The substance sits in 2.6.13, which added tip-date file handling; the two after it are lint and bug fixes.
What is maplegend?
The legend engine mapsf spun out, now covering legend types the parent map package can draw.
maplegend draws the legends for base-R thematic maps, extracted from mapsf so both packages could evolve the legend vocabulary independently. It has been catching up to the map types it has to serve: 0.6.0 added choro_point, choro_line, and choro_symb for choropleth legends rendered on circles, lines, and symbols, following the histogram legend type in 0.4.0. Considerable effort has gone into behaving correctly when the plot aspect ratio is not 1, which required refactoring most of the package in 0.4.0 and still produced a proportional-symbol segment sizing fix in 0.6.3.
beautier vs maplegend: editorial side-by-side
beautier
0.0ANALYTICS
A BEAST2 XML generator shipping releases CRAN can't accept because the CRAN team is on holiday.
◆ Current state
beautier turns R code into BEAST2 phylogenetics XML input files. The three most recent releases landed over four days in August 2025 and are all explicitly marked pre-CRAN, held back because the CRAN team was on summer holiday. The substance sits in 2.6.13, which added tip-date file handling; the two after it are lint and bug fixes.
◆ Where it's heading
Development is fine-grained and test-driven — releases are small, numbered in tight sequence, and reported against a fixed NEW FEATURES / MINOR IMPROVEMENTS / BUG FIXES / DEPRECATED template with 100% code coverage tracked as a line item. The recent work concentrates on validating user-supplied input files rather than expanding BEAST2 model coverage, which suggests the model surface is considered largely done and the remaining friction is in what users feed it.
◆ Prediction
The pre-CRAN backlog should be squashed into a single CRAN submission once the release window reopens; further work is most likely more input-file validation in the same check_/read_ family.
maplegend
0.0ANALYTICS
The legend engine mapsf spun out, now covering legend types the parent map package can draw.
◆ Current state
maplegend draws the legends for base-R thematic maps, extracted from mapsf so both packages could evolve the legend vocabulary independently. It has been catching up to the map types it has to serve: 0.6.0 added choro_point, choro_line, and choro_symb for choropleth legends rendered on circles, lines, and symbols, following the histogram legend type in 0.4.0. Considerable effort has gone into behaving correctly when the plot aspect ratio is not 1, which required refactoring most of the package in 0.4.0 and still produced a proportional-symbol segment sizing fix in 0.6.3.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a support library whose backlog is defined by its caller. Every legend type mapsf can produce needs a matching legend renderer, and the release notes are dominated by spacing, offset, and border details — box_cex for symbol spacing, NA box placement in horizontal choropleth legends, text overflow when no_data is set. The shared vocabulary with mapsf is being maintained deliberately, with val_rnd, val_big, and val_dec propagating through legend types release by release. Version numbering is not monotonic in this feed, with 0.4.0 published seconds after 0.5.0.
◆ Prediction
Expect the remaining combined map types to acquire matching legends and the val_* formatting arguments to reach the types that still lack them.
Alternatives to beautier and maplegend
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either beautier or maplegend.
graphicalMCP
graphicalMCP is a narrow statistical tool being hardened rather than grown.
rtflite
rtflite stopped being an RTF writer and became the conversion layer for clinical table output.
git2rdata
git2rdata keeps sharpening one idea: a data frame that produces a readable git diff.
osmextract
osmextract stopped throwing your OpenStreetMap downloads away at the end of every session.
nanoparquet
nanoparquet is chasing byte-level agreement with the Java and Rust Parquet readers, not feature count.
See all beautier alternatives → · See all maplegend alternatives →
Recent activity from beautier and maplegend
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2mo agomaplegendContinuous legend formatting and aspect-ratio segment fix
- 4mo agomaplegendChoropleth legends on points, lines and symbols
- 7mo agomaplegendPackage-wide refactor for non-unity aspect ratios, histogram legends
- 7mo agomaplegendSingle-modality legends allowed for typo, symb and prop_line
- 1y agobeautierInfinity and NA handling fixed for s parameters
- 1y agobeautierLint-only release, held back from CRAN
- 1y agobeautierTip-date file reading and validation added
- 1y agomaplegendAlpha transparency and redraw on device resize
- 1y agomaplegendOffset and symbol sizing aligned with mapsf
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between beautier and maplegend?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. beautier and maplegend are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is beautier better than maplegend?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. beautier and maplegend are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to beautier?
Top beautier alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "beautier alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/beautier for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to maplegend?
Top maplegend alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "maplegend alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/maplegend for the full list with editorial commentary on each.