(a) how to build the static HTML help pages of all currently
installed packages under Windows, [...]
At least two ways:
Way 1: reinstall all those packages from sources using
R CMD INSTALL --html
Way 2: go to the man directory of a source package and apply
R CMD Rdconv --type="html" *.Rd
to all Rd files.
Ok, thanks. That's starting along a helpful path.
The first way sounds dicey on Windows, since some of the packages require tools that I
probably have installed (e.g., as part of Cygwin), but have never thought about how to
hook together.
The second way sounds useful if I want to download the source for all the packages in
addition to the binary installers that I already have.
Is there any way to do this from the Windows binary .zip files, or from the installations
generated thereby? After all, R generates the HTML on the fly somehow, so the information
is present; IWBNI there were a way to use that to generate the static HTML. (Looking
through the installation dirs doesn't show very many .Rd files.)
Ah, sorry, I must have missed your reply.
WEell, internally, you can do somewthing as R's help system does, but it
is documented to be subject to change ("As they are mainly intended for
internal use, their interfaces are subject to change."), see ?Rd2HTML
For package pkg in directory c:/dir on help topic foo you could ask
Rd2HTML(tools:::fetchRdDB("c:/dir/pkg/help/pkg", "foo")) in order to get
a HTML representation. See ?Rd2HTML for details on how to control stuff.
Uwe Ligges
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:38:31 +0100
From: Uwe Ligges <ligges at statistik.tu-dortmund.de>
Steve Rowley wrote:
Is there any way to do this from the Windows binary .zip files, or from the installations
generated thereby?
Well, internally, you can do somewthing as R's help system does, but it
is documented to be subject to change ("As they are mainly intended for
internal use, their interfaces are subject to change."), see ?Rd2HTML
For package pkg in directory c:/dir on help topic foo you could ask
Rd2HTML(tools:::fetchRdDB("c:/dir/pkg/help/pkg", "foo")) in order to get
a HTML representation. See ?Rd2HTML for details on how to control stuff.
Thanks, tools:::fetchRdDB() was the clue I needed. I understand the
frightening triple colon means this bit of magic is internal, and
likely to change at a moment's notice. Using it wasn't exactly
trivial, either: see the code below for how I generated the static
HTML for all installed packages.
Since wanting static HTML help pages for bookmarking or reading while
R is not running sounds kind of reasonable, it would be nice if
something like this were available for Windows users of R. It would
be a shame if everybody else had to figure this out in detail, too.
Again, thanks for the pointer. R is fun again! :-)
------------------------------
library("tools") # fetchRdDB(), Rd2HTML(), et al.
makeStaticHTMLHelp <- function(libs = .libPaths(), verbose = TRUE) {
maybeCat <- function(msg, ...) { if (verbose) cat(sprintf(msg, ...)) }
subDirectories <- function(d) { # Directories under d (not files!)
basename(rownames(subset(file.info(dir(path = d, full.names = TRUE)), subset = isdir)))
} #
makeHTML <- function(pkgRdDB, lib, pkg, key, links) {# Write key's doc to an html file
Rd2HTML(pkgRdDB[[key]], # extract doc from Rd data
out = file.path(lib, pkg, "html", paste(key, "html", sep = ".")),
package = pkg, # use this pkg's name
Links = links, # use HTML links if non-null
no_links = is.null(links), # no links if arg is null
stages = c("install","render"), # run appropriate Sexpr forms
outputEncoding = "", # native encoding of this system
dynamic = FALSE) # this is, of course, static
} #
## *** NB: make.packages.html() prints a message even if verbose == FALSE?!
maybeCat(if (make.packages.html(lib.loc = libs, verbose = verbose))
"done.\n" # Succeeded updating packages.html file
else # But success is apparently not always
"FAILED?!\n") # guaranteed!
maybeCat("Finding HTML links... ") # Find HTML links between doc pages
links <- findHTMLlinks() # just 1ce, outside the loops below
maybeCat("found %d links... done.\n", length(links)) #
sapply(libs, function(lib) { # Map over libraries
maybeCat("Generating static HTML for packages in library %s...\n", lib)
sapply(subDirectories(lib), function(pkg) { # Map over packages in this library
maybeCat(" package %s... ", pkg) # Fetch pkg's Rd docs (for ALL keys)
tryCatch({ # In case can't read .rdb file
pkgRdDB <- tools:::fetchRdDB(file.path(lib, pkg, "help", pkg), key = NULL)
sapply(names(pkgRdDB), function(key) { # Map over keys in this pkg's docs
tryCatch(makeHTML(pkgRdDB, lib, pkg, key, links),
error = function(e) { # If error, retry w/o links
maybeCat("retrying %s without links... ", key)
tryCatch(makeHTML(pkgRdDB, lib, pkg, key, NULL),
error = function(e) { maybeCat("FAILED without links?! ") })
}) #
}) # Done with this key
}, error = function(e) { maybeCat("Couldn't read .rdb file?! ") })
maybeCat("done.\n") # Done with this package
}) # Done with this library
}) # Done.
invisible(NA) # Return nothing of interest
} #
------------------------------
Since wanting static HTML help pages for bookmarking or reading while
R is not running sounds kind of reasonable, it would be nice if
something like this were available for Windows users of R. It would
be a shame if everybody else had to figure this out in detail, too.
Again, thanks for the pointer. R is fun again! :-)
Thanks for that code. I fully agree that the current help system is a step
back. For stable bookmarking, my workaround is to put
options(help.ports=6800)
into the profile, so I can created links like
http://127.0.0.1:6800/library/gmodels/html/estimable.html
but this still required that I start RGui and the help system once. Thanks
to Duncan Murdoch who implmented this.
http://markmail.org/message/mvpgkwctacpl6fl4
Dieter
Thanks for that code. I fully agree that the current help system is a step
back. For stable bookmarking, my workaround is to put
options(help.ports=6800)
into the profile, so I can created links like
http://127.0.0.1:6800/library/gmodels/html/estimable.html
but this still required that I start RGui and the help system once.
Dieter
Thanks for this, too. Btw, is there a way to start the dynamic Rhelp server in the background without manually launching RGui? That, combined with Dieter's suggestion, would bring the help system sort of back to its original state.
I am sorry to say that the new dynamic help is a HUGE nuisance to me. Had to revert back to R 2.9 because of that :-(.
Michal
Thanks for that code. I fully agree that the current help system is a step
back. For stable bookmarking, my workaround is to put
options(help.ports=6800)
into the profile, so I can created links like
http://127.0.0.1:6800/library/gmodels/html/estimable.html
but this still required that I start RGui and the help system once.
Dieter
Thanks for this, too. Btw, is there a way to start the dynamic Rhelp server in the background without manually launching RGui? That, combined with Dieter's suggestion, would bring the help system sort of back to its original state.
You don't need Rgui, you could run Rterm, which would have a smaller
footprint. It's not very hard to start it and minimize it, but if you
want it running invisibly, you'll need to figure out how to hide the icon.
A disadvantage of doing this is that you won't see help relevant to your
current session, you'll see help relevant to the background task. In
2.10.x there aren't many differences, but you'll find it more limiting
in 2.11.x and later.
Duncan Murdoch
I am sorry to say that the new dynamic help is a HUGE nuisance to me. Had to revert back to R 2.9 because of that :-(.
Michal
On 7.1.2010 9:49, Dieter Menne wrote:
I am sorry to say that the new dynamic help is a HUGE nuisance to me. Had to revert back to R 2.9 because of that :-(.
Michal
I too have reverted to 2.9.2 on Win XP because I find html help to be
far less convenient than the compiled CHM help I had before. CHM help is
so much easier because the Contents, Index and Search panels make it
easy to *see* all the items defined for a package, and I get a separate
help window for each package.
I very much appreciate the efforts of the R-core team to move R forward,
but I think the change in help is a step back.
Michael Friendly Email: friendly AT yorku DOT ca
Professor, Psychology Dept.
York University Voice: 416 736-5115 x66249 Fax: 416 736-5814
4700 Keele Street http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/friendly.html
Toronto, ONT M3J 1P3 CANADA
On 7.1.2010 9:49, Dieter Menne wrote:
I am sorry to say that the new dynamic help is a HUGE nuisance to me. Had to revert back to R 2.9 because of that :-(.
Michal
I too have reverted to 2.9.2 on Win XP because I find html help to be
far less convenient than the compiled CHM help I had before. CHM help is
so much easier because the Contents, Index and Search panels make it
easy to *see* all the items defined for a package, and I get a separate
help window for each package.
I very much appreciate the efforts of the R-core team to move R forward,
but I think the change in help is a step back.
You can see the items for the package on the index page for the package,
which is linked from every page.
You can put together a package that displays the help in your favourite
format, if you don't like the default format. There's nothing that we
used in CHM help that couldn't be duplicated in Javascript, without the
security holes.
I see it as more important that R core enables others to do what they
want, rather than to maintain ancient designs.
Duncan Murdoch
You don't need Rgui, you could run Rterm, which would have a smaller
footprint. It's not very hard to start it and minimize it, but if you
want it running invisibly, you'll need to figure out how to hide the icon.
This works. Not entirely invisible but not a big deal about that.
The R code run within Rterm is
options(help_type="html",help.ports=6800)
help.start()
library(audio)
wait(-1)
[couldn't find another way to hang R indefinitely in batch mode]
A disadvantage of doing this is that you won't see help relevant to your
current session, you'll see help relevant to the background task. In
2.10.x there aren't many differences, but you'll find it more limiting
in 2.11.x and later.
Not a problem if one is not switching between different versions of R. The current version is on the path and the path will get updated (manually) after a new version is installed. Thus, the relevant help will be always displayed.
Thanks, this is a kind of solution. Now I can use bookmarks to HTML help for the favorite libraries when working in ESS - the impossibility to set those and the need to start Rgui was the big nuisance.
I am sure the new help system will get gradually improved in the future.
Best,
Michal
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michal Kulich, PhD
Dept. of Probability and Statistics
Charles University
Sokolovska 83
186 75 Praha 8
Czech Republic
Email: kulich at karlin.mff.cuni.cz
On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 9:20 AM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
On 07/01/2010 9:05 AM, Michael Friendly wrote:
Michal Kulich wrote:
On 7.1.2010 9:49, Dieter Menne wrote:
I am sorry to say that the new dynamic help is a HUGE nuisance to me.
Had to revert back to R 2.9 because of that :-(.
Michal
I too have reverted to 2.9.2 on Win XP because I find html help to be far
less convenient than the compiled CHM help I had before. CHM help is
so much easier because the Contents, Index and Search panels make it easy
to *see* all the items defined for a package, and I get a separate help
window for each package.
I very much appreciate the efforts of the R-core team to move R forward,
but I think the change in help is a step back.
You can see the items for the package on the index page for the package,
which is linked from every page.
You can put together a package that displays the help in your favourite
format, if you don't like the default format. ?There's nothing that we used
in CHM help that couldn't be duplicated in Javascript, without the security
holes.
I see it as more important that R core enables others to do what they want,
rather than to maintain ancient designs.
Perhaps the link to the Index could be placed at both the top and
bottom rather than just at the bottom since its a nuisance to have to
scroll down and its less noticeable at the bottom as its typically off
the screen.
You don't need Rgui, you could run Rterm, which would have a smaller
footprint. It's not very hard to start it and minimize it, but if you
want it running invisibly, you'll need to figure out how to hide the icon.
This works. Not entirely invisible but not a big deal about that.
The R code run within Rterm is
options(help_type="html",help.ports=6800)
help.start()
library(audio)
wait(-1)
[couldn't find another way to hang R indefinitely in batch mode]
A disadvantage of doing this is that you won't see help relevant to your
current session, you'll see help relevant to the background task. In
2.10.x there aren't many differences, but you'll find it more limiting
in 2.11.x and later.
Not a problem if one is not switching between different versions of R. The current version is on the path and the path will get updated (manually) after a new version is installed. Thus, the relevant help will be always displayed.
Not necessarily. The current help system can display information about
the current session, e.g. the result of ls(), as a simple example. But
if you use a single background session you won't get relevant information.
Duncan Murdoch
Thanks, this is a kind of solution. Now I can use bookmarks to HTML help for the favorite libraries when working in ESS - the impossibility to set those and the need to start Rgui was the big nuisance.
I am sure the new help system will get gradually improved in the future.
Best,
Michal
On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 9:20 AM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
On 07/01/2010 9:05 AM, Michael Friendly wrote:
Michal Kulich wrote:
On 7.1.2010 9:49, Dieter Menne wrote:
I am sorry to say that the new dynamic help is a HUGE nuisance to me.
Had to revert back to R 2.9 because of that :-(.
Michal
I too have reverted to 2.9.2 on Win XP because I find html help to be far
less convenient than the compiled CHM help I had before. CHM help is
so much easier because the Contents, Index and Search panels make it easy
to *see* all the items defined for a package, and I get a separate help
window for each package.
I very much appreciate the efforts of the R-core team to move R forward,
but I think the change in help is a step back.
You can see the items for the package on the index page for the package,
which is linked from every page.
You can put together a package that displays the help in your favourite
format, if you don't like the default format. There's nothing that we used
in CHM help that couldn't be duplicated in Javascript, without the security
holes.
I see it as more important that R core enables others to do what they want,
rather than to maintain ancient designs.
Perhaps the link to the Index could be placed at both the top and
bottom rather than just at the bottom since its a nuisance to have to
scroll down and its less noticeable at the bottom as its typically off
the screen.
Yes, I may do that at some point, to make the layout of the help pages
more consistent. Most "higher level" pages have a consistent header
(more so in R-devel), but the individual topic pages don't.
What I'd really like is for someone who has good taste to redesign the
look of the whole system. I think one or two people are working on
packages to do this, and I'd much rather spend time providing whatever
low level support they need, rather than doing it myself.
Duncan Murdoch
Not necessarily. The current help system can display information about
the current session, e.g. the result of ls(), as a simple example. But
if you use a single background session you won't get relevant information.
Duncan Murdoch
Sorry, I must admit I don't get it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michal Kulich, PhD
Dept. of Probability and Statistics
Charles University
Sokolovska 83
186 75 Praha 8
Czech Republic
Email: kulich at karlin.mff.cuni.cz
Not necessarily. The current help system can display information about
the current session, e.g. the result of ls(), as a simple example. But
if you use a single background session you won't get relevant information.
Duncan Murdoch
Sorry, I must admit I don't get it.
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.
You just need to use some imagination.
Duncan Murdoch
For what it is worth, I would gladly sacrifice this capability in
order to be able to consult all my R help pages through a Firefox
bookmark to the packages listing (which is what I used to do, and will
do again, when I get time to either rebuild from source or get the
forthcoming Fedora RPM, which will have static pages as the default),
without starting an R session.
Jon
On 01/07/10 10:32, 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.
You just need to use some imagination.
Duncan Murdoch
For what it is worth, I would gladly sacrifice this capability in
order to be able to consult all my R help pages through a Firefox
bookmark to the packages listing (which is what I used to do, and will
do again, when I get time to either rebuild from source or get the
forthcoming Fedora RPM, which will have static pages as the default),
without starting an R session.
What's so hard about leaving an R session running, and using bookmarks
as Dieter described?
Duncan Murdoch
Jon
On 01/07/10 10:32, 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.
You just need to use some imagination.
Duncan Murdoch
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.
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.
A desktop search tool (X1/Copernic/GoogleDesktop/etc) can be
very handy, but only if it has pre-built help files to index. Imperfect,
stale, non-dynamic help is better than no help at all!
Then fix the search tool so it can search dynamic web pages. They can
be spidered too, just like static ones.
Duncan Murdoch
As others have done, I have switched back to 2.9.2 until I can build all
help files (on Windows). Thanks to those people who are figuring out how to
do this.
Kevin
On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 11:50 AM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca>wrote:
On 07/01/2010 11:36 AM, Jonathan Baron wrote:
For what it is worth, I would gladly sacrifice this capability in
order to be able to consult all my R help pages through a Firefox
bookmark to the packages listing (which is what I used to do, and will
do again, when I get time to either rebuild from source or get the
forthcoming Fedora RPM, which will have static pages as the default),
without starting an R session.
What's so hard about leaving an R session running, and using bookmarks as
Dieter described?
Duncan Murdoch
Jon
On 01/07/10 10:32, 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.
You just need to use some imagination.
Duncan Murdoch
On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 9:32 AM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
On 07/01/2010 10:00 AM, Michal Kulich wrote:
On 7.1.2010 15:52, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
Not necessarily. The current help system can display information about
the current session, e.g. the result of ls(), as a simple example. But
if you use a single background session you won't get relevant
information.
Duncan Murdoch
Sorry, I must admit I don't get it.
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.
You just need to use some imagination.
OK, I'll try imagining this approach:
- Static help pages are installed with R.
- install.packages() launches a subroutine to fix the \link references that
need updating. Uninstalling needs to do the same. (Busywork, but that's
why we have computers.)
- I have an R object "foo". I type ShowMeAllMethodsFor("foo",
installed=TRUE, attached=TRUE) which checks all installed packages and
attached packages for appropriate methods, then serves up a dynamic help
page with links to the relevant static help pages, color-coded by
installed/attached.
I don't like the fragmentation of the R help system. This just produces
yet another set of pages which are not reachable from anywhere but one
place.
The help system should be a network of pages which are all
interconnected. I should be able to click on something in the ?plot
page and get to the ?plot.formula page (which I can do now, based on a
static link) or the ?plot.foo page (which hasn't been written yet, but
will be by the time I look at ?plot).
Duncan Murdoch
What I'd really like is for someone who has good taste to redesign the look
of the whole system. ?I think one or two people are working on packages to
do this, and I'd much rather spend time providing whatever low level support
they need, rather than doing it myself.
Have you looked at adding zeroconf suport to the server? That would
mean you could navigate to (e.g.) http://r-help.local to get to the R
docs.
Hadley
?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.
And this would be pretty easy to, since you can program it in R.
There are heaps of possibilities - you could use do clustering based
on documentation text to automatically suggested related documentation
across all packages.
Hadley
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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michal Kulich, PhD
Dept. of Probability and Statistics
Charles University
Sokolovska 83
186 75 Praha 8
Czech Republic
Email: kulich at karlin.mff.cuni.cz
What's so hard about leaving an R session running, and using bookmarks
as Dieter described?
It pollutes my space, and I am a Window-closing maniac, so it won't survive
the next attack.
<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/confirmation.aspx?familyId=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displayLang=en>
It might be worth a try to use instsrv and srvany to install the batch as a
server. The resource kit cries out loud when installed on Window 7 for being
a stupid old dinosaur, but in similar case I could still use it.
Dieter
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.
Then they should contribute to the development. I don't owe you
anything. You owe us a lot.
Duncan Murdoch
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
What's so hard about leaving an R session running, and using bookmarks
as Dieter described?
It pollutes my space, and I am a Window-closing maniac, so it won't survive
the next attack.
<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/confirmation.aspx?familyId=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displayLang=en>
It might be worth a try to use instsrv and srvany to install the batch as a
server. The resource kit cries out loud when installed on Window 7 for being
a stupid old dinosaur, but in similar case I could still use it.
If that works, writing up instructions would be a useful contribution.
Duncan Murdoch