Building static HTML help pages in R 2.10.x on Windows

On 7.1.2010 20:22, Duncan Murdoch wrote:

  

A more useful example than ls() would be methods().   I think it
would be nice to have a list of methods included in the man page for
a generic function, and links to their pages if they have their own
man pages.  You might want to list all installed methods, with some
sort of highlighting to indicate which ones are already attached, or
perhaps be able to toggle between installed and attached, or
whatever.  None of that is possible with static help, not even a list
of installed methods, because someone might install a new package
that offers some others after the static help has already been built.

    

I see. Well, I never lacked any of these capabilities... Please understand that people who use R to do their work may have different objectives than the developers - and they form the majority of R users. 

  

On 07/01/2010 2:16 PM, Kevin Wright wrote:
    

Well, among other things, if my global environment becomes 
cluttered/corrupt/etc and I quit R, then restart R, the links in my
 browser are now dead.
      

You weren't following Dieter's instructions, then.
    

Indeed, but that option is not documented, as far as I know - at least not in 2.10.0. And even if it was, most users would not be able to find it or use it because they have no clue what a port is. 
 
  

I have to close all the tabs and call help to open them again.
Also, the R-supplied java tool for searching help is ancient and 
underwhelming.
      

Then contribute a new one.
    

Duncan, if even the quite advanced and computer-proficient users have trouble using the dynamic R help and have to resort to some quite complex and cumbersome home-made solutions to get back the basic functionality then something is not right. It's true that the help system was never a particular strength of R and that it needed an overhaul. What worked well in the late 90's with a few dozen packages does not work well with >1000 packages. However, 2.10.x does not seem to make things better.

The work of the R developers should be widely appreciated and we really do appreciate it. The question is whether their effort is extended in the best direction... (Imho, that's an issue with most open-source projects and it's been much worse with Mozilla than with R).

Just my 2c.

Michal