It is possible to use rmagic to use R for plotting in an ipython notebook.
%%R
ggplot() + geom_point(data=ChickWeight, aes(Time, weight))
The next evolution of ggplot2 is ggvis, which has support for interactive graphics. So I naively tried to run ggvis code in the notebook.
%%R
library(ggvis)
library(dplyr)
ChickWeight %>% ggvis(~Time, ~weight) %>% layer_points()
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
RRuntimeError Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-34-d92c06ea4af8> in <module>()
----> 1 get_ipython().run_cell_magic(u'R', u'', u'# ChickWeight %>% head\nChickWeight %>% ggvis(~Time, ~weight) %>% layer_points()')
/opt/virtualenvs/test/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/core/interactiveshell.pyc in run_cell_magic(self, magic_name, line, cell)
2259 magic_arg_s = self.var_expand(line, stack_depth)
2260 with self.builtin_trap:
-> 2261 result = fn(magic_arg_s, cell)
2262 return result
2263
/opt/virtualenvs/test/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rpy2/ipython/rmagic.pyc in R(self, line, cell, local_ns)
/opt/virtualenvs/test/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/core/magic.pyc in <lambda>(f, *a, **k)
191 # but it's overkill for just that one bit of state.
192 def magic_deco(arg):
--> 193 call = lambda f, *a, **k: f(*a, **k)
194
195 if callable(arg):
/opt/virtualenvs/test/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rpy2/ipython/rmagic.pyc in R(self, line, cell, local_ns)
640 old_writeconsole = ri.get_writeconsole()
641 ri.set_writeconsole(self.write_console)
--> 642 ro.r.show(result)
643 text_output += self.flush()
644 ri.set_writeconsole(old_writeconsole)
/opt/virtualenvs/test/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rpy2/robjects/functions.pyc in __call__(self, *args, **kwargs)
168 v = kwargs.pop(k)
169 kwargs[r_k] = v
--> 170 return super(SignatureTranslatedFunction, self).__call__(*args, **kwargs)
171
172 pattern_link = re.compile(r'\\link\{(.+?)\}')
/opt/virtualenvs/test/lib/python2.7/site-packages/rpy2/robjects/functions.pyc in __call__(self, *args, **kwargs)
98 for k, v in kwargs.items():
99 new_kwargs[k] = conversion.py2ri(v)
--> 100 res = super(Function, self).__call__(*new_args, **new_kwargs)
101 res = conversion.ri2ro(res)
102 return res
RRuntimeError: Error in view_static(x, ...) : unused argument (useS4 = FALSE)
This code works fine in Rstudio.
Is it possible to run ggvis in an ipython notebook (or anything shiny for that matter, I think that that's the problem)?
Long story short, you'll have to either call R's print method explicitly or customize rpy2's conversion rules for ipython (not shown here).
%%R
library(ggvis)
library(dplyr)
p <- ChickWeight %>% ggvis(~Time, ~weight) %>% layer_points()
print(p)
Note that the figure obtained is in a different page than your ipython notebook, which breaks a bit the idea that notebooks are self-contained.