tidytlg
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
Comparison · Analytics
rlistings vs spatsoc
A side-by-side editorial comparison of rlistings and spatsoc — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
rlistings vs spatsoc: at a glance
What is rlistings?
Clinical listings that keep inheriting their hardest problem — pagination — from the layer below.
rlistings renders clinical-trial subject listings and paginates them for regulatory output, sitting alongside rtables on the shared formatters engine. The releases in this window are dominated by pagination correctness: repeated key columns across pages, splitting by a variable, ordered-factor handling, column gaps, and font metrics. Development is a large rotating contributor set inside the insightsengineering organisation.
What is spatsoc?
One maintainer, one or two new collective-motion metrics per release, for two years straight
spatsoc turns animal relocation data into spatial and social groupings — dyads, fission-fusion events, group centroids — and the recent history is a metronomic accretion of collective-motion measures on top of that base. Since late 2024 nearly every release has added one or two: polarization, direction to leader, position along the group axis, directional correlation delay, edge alignment, edge zones. Development is essentially single-handed; almost every merged PR in this window carries the same author.
rlistings vs spatsoc: editorial side-by-side
rlistings
0.0ANALYTICS
Clinical listings that keep inheriting their hardest problem — pagination — from the layer below.
◆ Current state
rlistings renders clinical-trial subject listings and paginates them for regulatory output, sitting alongside rtables on the shared formatters engine. The releases in this window are dominated by pagination correctness: repeated key columns across pages, splitting by a variable, ordered-factor handling, column gaps, and font metrics. Development is a large rotating contributor set inside the insightsengineering organisation.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is progressively delegating pagination to formatters rather than implementing it — paginate_listing() was refactored to call formatters' paginate_to_mpfs() directly, and truetype font support arrived through a new formatters API. That reduces duplicated logic but ties the package's page-break behaviour to a dependency it shares with rtables. Feature work beyond pagination is thin: better error messages for unsupported column classes, a cheatsheet.
◆ Prediction
Expect pagination fidelity to remain the focus, with changes arriving as formatters exposes more of its layout machinery rather than as rlistings-native features.
spatsoc
0.0ANALYTICS
One maintainer, one or two new collective-motion metrics per release, for two years straight
◆ Current state
spatsoc turns animal relocation data into spatial and social groupings — dyads, fission-fusion events, group centroids — and the recent history is a metronomic accretion of collective-motion measures on top of that base. Since late 2024 nearly every release has added one or two: polarization, direction to leader, position along the group axis, directional correlation delay, edge alignment, edge zones. Development is essentially single-handed; almost every merged PR in this window carries the same author.
◆ Where it's heading
The December 2025 release changes register. Alongside three new calc_distance / calc_direction / calc_centroid functions and an internal assertion family, it deprecates the `projection` argument in favour of `crs` and lands a round of checks and tests explicitly staged ahead of a new spatial interface. Read together, that is a package finishing its metric catalogue and starting to rework the coordinate-handling layer underneath it to match modern R-spatial conventions — the same evolution that made it drop its startup warning back in 0.2.7.
◆ Prediction
The next release is likely the spatial-interface rework the 0.2.12 test and assertion work was staged for, with `projection` moving from deprecated to removed. Feature additions should slow while that lands.
Alternatives to rlistings and spatsoc
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 rlistings or spatsoc.
Tplyr
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
hoardr
A cache-directory helper that has shipped nothing but CRAN-triggered patches for seven years.
gigs
gigs redesigned its whole conversion API for rOpenSci, then spent three releases getting the docs to build.
riem
A weather-data client that keeps rewriting its HTTP layer while slowly tightening its API.
datasetjson
datasetjson rebuilt its object model to track the CDISC Dataset-JSON 1.1 schema.
See all rlistings alternatives → · See all spatsoc alternatives →
Recent activity from rlistings and spatsoc
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8mo agospatsoccalc_* functions added; projection deprecated ahead of a spatial rework
- 10mo agospatsocEdge zones and edge direction added; centroid NA handling fixed
- 11mo agospatsocEdge alignment metric added
- 1y agospatsocLeader edge delay added; units dependency moves to a CRAN release
- 1y agorlistingsError and message handling for difftime and zero-row listings
- 1y agospatsocDirectional correlation delay added; longlat direction bug fixed
- 1y agospatsocLeadership and group-axis position measures added
- 1y agorlistingsTrueType font support and col_gap in pagination
- 2y agorlistingssplit_into_pages_by_var() and pagination moved onto formatters
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between rlistings and spatsoc?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. rlistings and spatsoc 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 rlistings better than spatsoc?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. rlistings and spatsoc 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 rlistings?
Top rlistings alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "rlistings alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rlistings for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to spatsoc?
Top spatsoc alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "spatsoc alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/spatsoc for the full list with editorial commentary on each.