gps2gtfs
gps2gtfs spent a release making its docs stop describing functions it does not have.
Comparison · Analytics
glyfun vs vellumwidget
A side-by-side editorial comparison of glyfun and vellumwidget — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
glyfun vs vellumwidget: at a glance
What is glyfun?
glyfun is three releases old and has spent all of them chasing glyexp's container change.
glyfun is the newest glycoverse package, carved out to hold the enrichment analysis functions that glystats deprecated. Its entire visible history is the 0.1.x series, and all three releases are container plumbing: detected_universe() learning to accept GlycoproteomicSE, then the vignette and documentation following. There is no independent feature work in the record yet.
What is vellumwidget?
vellumwidget is dissolving its own API: interaction now lives in the plot spec, not the widget call.
vellumwidget compiles a vellum scene or a vellumplot plot into a self-contained client-side htmlwidget with hover, select, brush, lasso, pan/zoom and export, and no server round-trip. The two-way Shiny story is complete: interactions surface as reactive inputs keyed by output id, and vellumwidget_proxy() drives an already-rendered widget from the server without re-rendering it. The last two releases are fidelity work rather than new surface, calibrating hit-testing from the rendered positions of marks and rendering the raster base image at 2x for HiDPI screens.
glyfun vs vellumwidget: editorial side-by-side
glyfun
0.0ANALYTICS
glyfun is three releases old and has spent all of them chasing glyexp's container change.
◆ Current state
glyfun is the newest glycoverse package, carved out to hold the enrichment analysis functions that glystats deprecated. Its entire visible history is the 0.1.x series, and all three releases are container plumbing: detected_universe() learning to accept GlycoproteomicSE, then the vignette and documentation following. There is no independent feature work in the record yet.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a package being born into a migration rather than one navigating it. Because glystats removed its gly_enrich_*() functions outright and glysmith already routes enrichment through glyfun, the functional surface is inherited rather than designed here. The near-term arc is catching up to the rest of the stack; the interesting question is what glyfun adds once it is no longer just the relocation target.
◆ Prediction
Expect the first release with genuinely new enrichment capability rather than migration plumbing, most likely broadening the gene-set sources glystats never covered.
vellumwidget
6.3ANALYTICS
vellumwidget is dissolving its own API: interaction now lives in the plot spec, not the widget call.
◆ Current state
vellumwidget compiles a vellum scene or a vellumplot plot into a self-contained client-side htmlwidget with hover, select, brush, lasso, pan/zoom and export, and no server round-trip. The two-way Shiny story is complete: interactions surface as reactive inputs keyed by output id, and vellumwidget_proxy() drives an already-rendered widget from the server without re-rendering it. The last two releases are fidelity work rather than new surface, calibrating hit-testing from the rendered positions of marks and rendering the raster base image at 2x for HiDPI screens.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is declarative. 0.7.0 removed the interaction-intent arguments from as_widget() outright, dropping the signature from roughly 36 arguments to 24 and moving highlight, filter and cross-filter into vellumplot's spec via select_point(), condition() and filter_by(). Each release since has enacted more of that compiled spec on the frozen scene, from conditional encodings to single-view filters to cross-view cross-filtering, leaving the widget as an interpreter of the plot rather than a configuration surface of its own. The bug fixes track the same theme the engine's do: measured geometry and rendered geometry must not drift.
◆ Prediction
The notes name the remaining hold-outs explicitly, saying hover_mode, crosshair, legend_click, select_mode and the tooltip-appearance arguments remain only until their spec equivalents land, so the next releases most likely move those into vellumplot and shrink as_widget() further. The scale binds flagged as following the filter work are the other stated next step.
Alternatives to glyfun and vellumwidget
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 glyfun or vellumwidget.
ducksemantics
ducksemantics puts an ontology graph and ColBERT retrieval inside DuckDB, callable from R.
dvir
dvir keeps making disaster victim identification a single call instead of a workflow.
pedbuildr
pedbuildr reconstructs pedigrees from DNA, and it just got much faster at the search.
forrel
forrel is getting faster at the simulations forensic kinship work actually spends its time on.
pedFamilias
pedFamilias exists to read one legacy file format, and it has that job nearly finished.
See all glyfun alternatives → · See all vellumwidget alternatives →
Recent activity from glyfun and vellumwidget
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 14d agovellumwidget2x raster base image for HiDPI, and exact element hit-testing
- 20d agovellumwidgetInteraction moves into the plot spec; as_widget() sheds a third of its arguments ⚡
- 27d agovellumwidgetAxis-aware zoom re-ticks the axes instead of scaling the whole scene
- 1mo agovellumwidgetSelectable native SVG text, and crisp canvas redraw when zooming raster
- 1mo agoglyfunDocs move to GlycoproteomicSE inputs
- 1mo agoglyfunVignette runs against both container types
- 1mo agovellumwidgetServer-side proxy drives a rendered widget without re-rendering it
- 1mo agoglyfundetected_universe() accepts GlycoproteomicSE objects
- 1mo agovellumwidgetShiny input read-back, and keyboard plus screen-reader access by default
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between glyfun and vellumwidget?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. vellumwidget is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is glyfun better than vellumwidget?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. vellumwidget is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to glyfun?
Top glyfun alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "glyfun alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/glyfun for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to vellumwidget?
Top vellumwidget alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "vellumwidget alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/vellumwidget for the full list with editorial commentary on each.