Writing in R // R 4.2.0 on Windows doesn't work with Dasher

    You'll probably have to wait a day or so for a new build.  The
Windows binaries are only built once a day or so.

https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/rdevel.html was built on
2022-05-15.

    Tomas's fix was only committed an hour ago:

https://github.com/wch/r-source/commit/9b6de510e6346da7ccb582d14a7699500751efc4

    If you're really eager you can install Subversion and build from
source <https://developer.r-project.org/SVNtips.html> (or clone the
Github mirror etc.).

    cheers
     Ben Bolker


On 2022-05-16 1:45 p.m., Paulo Barata wrote:

Dear Tomas,

Thank you very much for dealing with this issue.

You said: "I've committed a fix to R-devel, 82368". It happens that, at
this very moment (Monday 16 May 18:44 UTC), The R-devel that exists on
both the Austria and the 0-Cloud CRAN pages is this, with a different
(smaller) number:

This is a Windows 64 bit binary build of the 2022-05-15 r82362
development snapshot of R

Anyway, I installed and tried this R-devel r82362, and Dasher does not
work with it.

I am not able to find R-Devel 82368 on the CRAN site. Maybe I should
wait a little more. Or maybe you could send me a proper link to that.

Best regards,

Paulo Barata

----------------------------------------------------------

On 16/05/2022 14:08, Tomas Kalibera wrote:

On 5/15/22 16:10, Paulo Barata wrote:

To the R developers,

I noticed today that R 4.2.0 responds to the "Enter" character of
Dasher version 5.0.0 beta in "Direct Entry" mode. An "Enter" in
Dasher causes the R prompt to jump to the next line, as an "Enter"
should do.

No other characters (letters, digits, special characters like + = & ~
| # $) are accepted by R 4.2.0 through Dasher.

The "Enter" shows that, somehow, the communication between Dasher and
R 4.2.0 through the Windows system is not completely curtailed.

Dear Paulo,

thanks for the report and thanks to all for the useful comments in the
followup discussion. I've committed a fix to R-devel, 82368, and I
would be grateful if you could test whether it fixes the problem for
you. I've tested it only on a small example which is using the same
method to insert keys to Rgui as Dasher does.

The problem is caused by a limitation in GraphApp, a library used by
Rgui and included in the R distribution. GraphApp has two modes:
Unicode windows (with this limitation) and non-Unicode windows
(without it). GraphApp uses Unicode windows when running in a
multi-byte locale, and as of R 4.2, this is the case for all systems
on recent Windows where the native encoding is UTF-8. This means that
most likely R 4.1.3 didn't work with Dasher on systems running in a
multi-byte locale and that most likely R 4.2.0 would work with Dasher
on old Windows systems (where UTF-8 cannot be used as native encoding).

Dasher uses SendInput/KEYEVENTF_UNICODE to inject text into Rgui,
which is fine as far as I can tell and should work. It didn't work,
because the Unicode windows didn't handle WM_CHAR nor
WM_KEYDOWN/WM_KEYUP for VK_PACKET. By design, Unicode windows get
input via WM_IME_COMPOSITION and WM_KEYDOWN, so I've added support for
VK_PACKET to WM_KEYDOWN (taking the logic in gdk as an example).

I am cc'ing Jose as Tinn-R has a similar problem, though this patch
doesn't solve it.

Best
Tomas

Regards,

Paulo Barata

----------------------------------------------------------

On 13/05/2022 16:44, Paulo Barata wrote:

To the R developers,

I would like to point out an issue that occurs with the new R 4.2.0
running on Windows; this is possibly related to the recent wide
changes made to the Windows port of R. The issue has to do with
writing of the R window.

My computer runs on Windows 10 Professional 64-bit with all the
latest updates, and has a 4-core 8-thread Intel Xeon processor with
32 Gb of RAM.

I have some slight impairment in my hands, so for typing I avoid
using the computer keyboard as much as possible. For most of my
typing, I use the software Dasher, a kind of assistive technology
software. Dasher was created by the Inference Group led by Professor
David MacKay (died in 2016) at Cambridge University in England.
Later, Dasher was further developed by Ada Majorek (a Google
engineer, recently deceased).

General information on Dasher and about the Dasher Project can be
found on the Inference Group page:

http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/

An example of Dasher in action can be seen on this 2-minute YouTube
video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr3s4613DX8

An one-hour YouTube video of a 2007 Google Talk by Professor MacKay
himself explaining the Dasher concept can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpOxbesRNBc

In the 2-minute video (the first YouTube address above), the
sentence written through Dasher, for actual use, needs to be copied
and then pasted into another software, say a text editor. But Dasher
also has a "Direct Entry" mode, where words typed are entered
directly on the screen of the text editor or other software -- this
is how I use Dasher to write on the R window.

Using Dasher`s "Direct Entry" mode, for all effects, to write a word
through Dasher works exactly like writing the word through the
normal computer keyboard. Somehow (I do not know about system
programming), in "Direct Entry" mode, the output of Dasher is
understood by the computer as an input of the same nature as a
keyboard input.

But this is the issue: until R 4.1.3, R accepted normally the
word-typing through Dasher. But R 4.2.0 (and R 4.2.0-patched build
r82348, 12 May 2022) does not accept Dasher anymore.

So, for now, if I wish to use R during some extended interactive
section (say, for a first look at a complex data set), and if I wish
to use Dasher for this interactive session, then I have to use R
4.1.3. For using R through programming, I can use the new R 4.2.0,
by writing the program with Dasher in my text editor, and then
pasting that program into R.

The latest Windows version of Dasher, version 5.0.0 beta, works
perfectly well with text editors (I use EditPad Pro), with
Microsoft-like Office packages (I use SoftMaker Office), for writing
e-mails (I use Mozilla Thunderbird), for writing on a web page (I
use mostly Mozilla Firefox). It worked perfectly well with R up to
version 4.1.3, but it does not work with R 4.2.0

The latest Dasher 5.0.0 beta Windows installer and the source code
can be found on this page below (please click on "Windows installer"
and on "source code", just below the head "Dasher 5.0 beta release"):

https://github.com/dasher-project/dasher/releases

To set Dasher 5.0.0 beta to the "Direct Entry" mode, after
installing Dasher one should go to Preferences > Application >
Application Style.

Currently, after the passing of Ada Majorek, the Dasher Project is
being put forward by a group of people in England, but, it seems, at
a very slow pace. They have announced the existence of a version 6
beta, but this is only an online instance of Dasher, there is no
Windows installer, as far as I know. Their web page:

https://dasher.acecentre.net/

For me, and possibly for other users, the Dasher version 5.0.0 beta
for Windows that is available works perfectly well, and allows me to
use the computer with a proficiency that would be hardly possible
otherwise.

Here I request that the R developers take a look at this word-typing
issue that happens with the new R 4.2.0 on Windows.

As an R user (I work in ecological research), I can only thank the R
team for this really wonderful piece of statistical software that
you make freely available to us all.

Regards,

Paulo Barata

(Rio de Janeiro - Brazil)