update comments, news

Author: cboettig

NEWS.md

@@ -18,7 +18,8 @@ This release addresses several aspects improving the handling of metadata:
 Misc fixes:
 
 - enable handling of `rootEdge` (#207, PR #218)
-- Replaces taxize backend with faster alternative taxadb method. (#224, PR #226)
+- Replaces taxize backend with faster alternative `taxadb` method. (#224, PR #226).
+ This remains only a suggested package and has much lighter dependencies as well.  
 - add hex
 
 v2.2.0

cran-comments.md

@@ -1,7 +1,10 @@
 Dear CRAN maintainers,
 
 This update addresses several minor bugs in the handling of ploymorphic 
-characters, as detailed in NEWS.md.
+characters, as detailed in NEWS.md. This package shows two notes,
+one indicating that I am the maintainer, the other noting that this package
+has one suggested dependency on a non-mainstream repository, which is used
+to illustrate an additional feature in one of vignettes, when available.  
 
 Cheers,
 
@@ -10,6 +13,6 @@ Carl
 
 ## Test environments
 
-* local OS X install, R 3.5.1
-* ubuntu 14.04 (on travis-ci), R 3.5.1
+* local OS X install, R 3.5.2
+* ubuntu 16.04 (on travis-ci), R 3.5.2
 * win-builder (devel and release)

vignettes/metadata.Rmd

@@ -19,7 +19,8 @@ output: html_vignette
 library("methods")
 library("knitr")
 opts_chunk$set(tidy = FALSE, warning = FALSE, message = FALSE, 
-               cache = FALSE, comment = NA, verbose = TRUE)
+               cache = FALSE, comment = NA, verbose = TRUE,
+               eval =  require("taxadb"))
 basename <- gsub(".Rmd", "", knitr:::knit_concord$get('infile'))
 ```