simlandr
Potential landscape tooling settling onto standard R generics after two rounds of renaming.
Comparison · Analytics
gghighlight vs NHSRwaitinglist
A side-by-side editorial comparison of gghighlight and NHSRwaitinglist — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r-package
gghighlight vs NHSRwaitinglist: 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 NHSRwaitinglist?
Queuing theory packaged for NHS waiting-list managers, one year into a community-built first release.
NHSRwaitinglist turns queuing-theory methods into functions an NHS analyst can apply directly to a waiting list — target calculations for managing list size, simulation of list behaviour under different assumptions, and scheduling and prioritisation helpers. It is an NHS-R Community collaboration accompanying a preprint tutorial and webinar series, and reached CRAN in April 2025.
gghighlight vs NHSRwaitinglist: 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.
NHSRwaitinglist
0.0ANALYTICS
Queuing theory packaged for NHS waiting-list managers, one year into a community-built first release.
◆ Current state
NHSRwaitinglist turns queuing-theory methods into functions an NHS analyst can apply directly to a waiting list — target calculations for managing list size, simulation of list behaviour under different assumptions, and scheduling and prioritisation helpers. It is an NHS-R Community collaboration accompanying a preprint tutorial and webinar series, and reached CRAN in April 2025.
◆ Where it's heading
Three releases in four months trace a normal early-package path: ship the method surface, then harmonise arguments and column handling across functions as contributors find the inconsistencies, then repair what breaks. The package was briefly pulled from CRAN over broken links and needed a date-handling fix for newer R versions, which is the sharper edge of that curve. Contributions are visibly multi-author, with named contributors driving the usability work rather than a single maintainer.
◆ Prediction
Given the pattern of contributor-driven consistency fixes and the tutorial paper behind the package, further vignettes and argument harmonisation are the most likely next release. The entries do not indicate new queuing methods being added.
Alternatives to gghighlight and NHSRwaitinglist
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 NHSRwaitinglist.
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 NHSRwaitinglist alternatives →
Recent activity from gghighlight and NHSRwaitinglist
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1y agoNHSRwaitinglistDate-handling fix and input checks restore CRAN listing
- 1y agogghighlightggplot2 v4.0 support; geom-specific functions removed
- 1y agoNHSRwaitinglistArguments harmonised across functions; simulation vignette added
- 1y agoNHSRwaitinglistFirst release: queuing-theory methods for NHS waiting lists
- 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 NHSRwaitinglist?
Both compete on the same themes — r-package — within Analytics. gghighlight and NHSRwaitinglist 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 NHSRwaitinglist?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. gghighlight and NHSRwaitinglist 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 NHSRwaitinglist?
Top NHSRwaitinglist alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "NHSRwaitinglist alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/nhsrwaitinglist for the full list with editorial commentary on each.