Please remove clippy

[Chris-M-P]

Please reconsider whether clippy adds anything to this otherwise excellent package

[luciorq]

I always show it to all my colleagues that are transitioning to R and at least we have some good laughs.

But the younger generations don't really know clippy.

[drag05]

While CRAN is laxing I see Github blocked Issue #12 for being "too heated", leaving it hanging.
I will use a different package whenever I am unable to avoid Excel files.

[luciorq]

Indeed the R community is full of people using MS Excel, or at least collaborating with Excel users. In several environments, it is a necessity.

writexl is a wonderful package and works reliably and efficiently.

Clippy was a creative and funny addition.

[luciorq]

But #27 is a real issue that could be solved!

[drag05]

@luciorq

Thank you for reply! Although I fail to see its necessity, I think that maybe Clippy should come with options.

[luciorq]

In this regard, I think it would be good to have an option string that could disable it.

[KyleHaynes]

@drag05 @luciorq,

Curious and interested to know why it matters?

If it's that big of a deal, you could just fork the repo and remove it?

[drag05]

@KyleHaynes, @luciorq

An option to disable would do just fine, I am not looking to spoil anyone's fun; I usually look for fun elsewhere.

[KyleHaynes]

@drag05,
I was more interested to know why it matters for you though.
This isn't meant to sound bad, I'm curious is all (I don't mind if it exists or if it doesn't).

[drag05]

@KyleHaynes

The first question mark made the phrase confusing. In my opinion it should not have been there.
To answer your question, I think that features with low contribution to code effectiveness should come with options.
Thank you!

[datatoolbox]

Hi Kyle. You asked above why it matters. I think it matters for two reasons. First, it can cover useful information, and it follows the cursor in an odd way. This is mostly just a bit of an inconvenience. But the reason is because it is such an odd occurrence that, like others have expressed, I thought there was a bug of sorts - I thought something was wrong with my MS install or my OS. I spent well over half an hour looking for MS and OS threads about recent problems with Clippy appearing. I eventually gave up searching. But the next two times I got help on writexl I spent almost as much time - frustrated that someone hadn't fixed the MS or OS bug yet, or thinking that maybe I just needed to update some part of my MS software or my OS. It is so non-standard that it causes this kind of confusion. Now that I know it is intentional, I will just ignore it and move on. But I care about all the people who haven't found this out and spend their time thinking there is a bug somewhere, trying to figure out how to update their system. It is a bit humorous, but it is also causing a lot of people to spend time trying to figure out what the problem is on their system. Thanks for reading

[KyleHaynes]

@datatoolbox - thanks for your comments, they're both good points.

I'm obviously not the author of the package so can't remove, I've only asked the question as I've been genuinely interested (and this topic has caused some heated debate in the past).

Cheers, Kyle

[drag05]

I am not trying to sound ominous but wonder what else the inserted "clippy" code may do while following the cursor. Perhaps CRAN should give a public reason for allowing it. No longer buying the "funny" bit.

[arencambre]

I like Clippy! Keep it!

[drag05]

@arencambre
Looks like a well-documented reason

[arencambre]

Resolved! Now where's the issue close button? 🤣

[conorotompkins]

Clippy should be removed. I thought it was MS-Word going haywire or something was seriously wrong with my PC. This sort of thing is just unprofessional.

[hollie-rawlings]

I think it should be removed, unfortunately I am too young to know what this was looking at it and thought I had some kind of malware issue. Its a fun idea but not everyone is going to find this funny or helpful.