NEWS

maraca 0.7 (2024-03-18)

The maraca package has been re-factored to allow flexibility in the type of outcomes that can be visualized. The user can now also include binary endpoints in their hierarchical endpoint. Details are given in the new vignette "Maraca Plots - Alternative Endpoints".
Additionally to the component_plot(), there has been a new plot added called cumulative_plot(). As opposed to the previous plot showing the individual components of the win odds computation, this plot is displaying the endpoints cumulated instead (adding one component of hierarchical endpoint at a time). Details can be found in the vignette "Maraca Plots - Plotting win odds".

As part of the re-factoring to allow for other endpoint types, the parameter tte_outcomes has been changed to step_outcomes and the parameter continuous_outcome to last_outcome.

The trans parameter in the plotting functions was not working as intended. It now enables x-axis transformation for the continuous endpoint part of the plot.

The theme argument in the plotting functions allows users to easily change the styling of the plot. Details are given in the new vignette "Maraca Plots - Themes and Styling".
A new plot to visualize the win odds components was added. The component_plot() function works for both maraca and hce. Details can be found in the new vignette "Maraca Plots - Plotting win odds".
A new vignette called "Maraca Plots - Validation" to highlight the function validate_maraca() that was added in version 0.5.

maraca now has increased the version dependency for the package hce to >= 0.5.
The hce package is now automatically attached when loading maraca.

Small bug fix to account for changes in HCE objects created in newest version of HCE package

print() function for maraca objects that summarizes key information.
New validate_maraca() function that extracts key information from a maraca plot object. This can be used to validate the plot against independently coded versions (for example using a different programming language).
The maraca() function now requires an input for the parameter fixed_followup_days. Note that there can be no observed events in the data after the follow-up time specified.

Problem with jumps in the cumulative distribution functions fixed. As part of this fix, the package does not depend on the survival package anymore.

The plot_tte_components() function for plotting the individual time-to-event outcomes was removed from the package since it did not prove to be overly useful.
The plot_tte_composite() was removed for now since the package cannot correctly calculate the composite version of looking at multiple time-to-event endpoints when patients have multiple events.