simlandr
Potential landscape tooling settling onto standard R generics after two rounds of renaming.
Comparison · Analytics
gghighlight vs invasimapr
A side-by-side editorial comparison of gghighlight and invasimapr — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
gghighlight vs invasimapr: at a glance
What is gghighlight?
A single-purpose ggplot2 extension that has spent six years tracking ggplot2 instead of growing.
gghighlight adds one verb to ggplot2: highlight the series matching a predicate and grey out the rest, with unhighlighted_params controlling how the shadowed layer renders and calculate_per_facet deciding whether the predicate evaluates within facets. The API settled at 0.2.0; the 0.5.0 release supports ggplot2 v4.0 including its ink and paper theme elements, and finally deletes gghighlight_point() and gghighlight_line().
What is invasimapr?
invasimapr halved its install size and became citable; the science stayed put.
invasimapr estimates species invasiveness and site invasibility from trait, environmental and resident-community data, exposing a traits → competition → invasion-fitness pipeline behind seven high-level wrappers. Its three releases are all packaging and standards work: a first citable archive in June 2026, then a maturity release bringing it in line with the B-Cubed software development guide. The one behavioral addition in that release is an opt-in standardise_inputs argument on compute_invasion_fitness(), off by default.
gghighlight vs invasimapr: editorial side-by-side
gghighlight
0.0ANALYTICS
A single-purpose ggplot2 extension that has spent six years tracking ggplot2 instead of growing.
◆ Current state
gghighlight adds one verb to ggplot2: highlight the series matching a predicate and grey out the rest, with unhighlighted_params controlling how the shadowed layer renders and calculate_per_facet deciding whether the predicate evaluates within facets. The API settled at 0.2.0; the 0.5.0 release supports ggplot2 v4.0 including its ink and paper theme elements, and finally deletes gghighlight_point() and gghighlight_line().
◆ Where it's heading
Two threads run through the history. One is a slow deprecation, from soft-deprecating the geom-specific functions at 0.1.0, to defunct at 0.3.0, to removed at 0.5.0 — a five-year removal cycle. The other is compatibility work: purrr 1.0.0, dplyr's across() deprecation, ggplot2 3.4.0, then 4.0. Genuine feature additions are rare and small, with line_label_type at 0.4.0 the last one. Note that 0.3.2's notes restate 0.3.1's n() item, so adjacent tags here overlap rather than each describing distinct work.
◆ Prediction
The next release most likely absorbs further ggplot2 4.x changes, given that is what triggered the last three. Nothing in the entries points to a new highlighting capability.
invasimapr
0.0ANALYTICS
invasimapr halved its install size and became citable; the science stayed put.
◆ Current state
invasimapr estimates species invasiveness and site invasibility from trait, environmental and resident-community data, exposing a traits → competition → invasion-fitness pipeline behind seven high-level wrappers. Its three releases are all packaging and standards work: a first citable archive in June 2026, then a maturity release bringing it in line with the B-Cubed software development guide. The one behavioral addition in that release is an opt-in standardise_inputs argument on compute_invasion_fitness(), off by default.
◆ Where it's heading
The pressure is toward being installable and auditable rather than more capable — install slimmed from roughly 100 MB to 56 MB, R CMD check warnings and notes resolved, sp moved to Suggests, a Darwin Core-aligned data dictionary added, and a Zenodo concept DOI with CITATION.cff, codemeta.json and .zenodo.json. The package moves in lockstep with its B-Cubed sibling dissmapr, tagged within minutes of each other at both 0.1.0 and 0.2.1, which points at project-level standards deadlines rather than independent release decisions. Trait dispersion metrics and scenario exploration remain on the roadmap.
◆ Prediction
Standards compliance is now complete and the roadmap names functional trait dispersion metrics and scenario exploration tools, so the next release is the first that can plausibly be about invasion ecology rather than packaging.
Alternatives to gghighlight and invasimapr
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 gghighlight or invasimapr.
lavaanExtra
SEM reporting helpers converging on APA output, one CRAN resubmission at a time.
ibis.iSDM
A raster-to-terra migration is the only readable change in a feed of merge notes.
anyflights
A nycflights13 generator whose recent work is all about the data being right.
vinereg
Conditional density and log-likelihood fill out a vine copula regression package.
stringx
A drop-in string API for base R, kept alive by upstream check failures.
See all gghighlight alternatives → · See all invasimapr alternatives →
Recent activity from gghighlight and invasimapr
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1mo agoinvasimaprVersion bump; notes identical to 0.2.0
- 1mo agoinvasimaprB-Cubed standards alignment; install slimmed to 56 MB
- 1mo agoinvasimaprinvasimapr v0.1.0: First citable release
- 1y agogghighlightggplot2 v4.0 support; geom-specific functions removed
- 2y agogghighlightTest expectations updated for upcoming ggplot2
- 3y agogghighlightline_label_type adds geomtextpath and second-axis labelling
- 4y agogghighlightDeprecated dplyr::across() usage removed
- 5y agogghighlightExplicit NULL in unhighlighted_params preserved; aesthetic name clash fixed
- 5y agogghighlightDiscrete-scale labels and n() predicates
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between gghighlight and invasimapr?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. gghighlight and invasimapr 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 gghighlight better than invasimapr?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. gghighlight and invasimapr 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 gghighlight?
Top gghighlight alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "gghighlight alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/gghighlight for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to invasimapr?
Top invasimapr alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "invasimapr alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/invasimapr for the full list with editorial commentary on each.