configure help

Hello,

as I just spent a (too long) while searching
for a way how to persistantly switch back the help display
routines from chm to text, here a small documentation
how to do that with the windows version of R.

The windows installer asks which help type
you want to use, I wanted to test the chm
version -- which I didn't like.

If you after installation want to switch back,
you have to edit

   << myRdirectory\etc\Rprofile.site >>

and change the line

   options(chmhelp=TRUE)

back to

   options(chmhelp=FALSE)

It would be nice if -- in a future release -- this
also could be changed in the GUI settings.

But it has nothing to do with the GUI preferences: it applies to the 
command-line version of R as well.

What about ?help did you not understand? It says

           chmhelp = getOption("chmhelp"),
           ...
  chmhelp: logical (or 'NULL'). Only relevant under Windows. If 'TRUE'
           the Compiled HTML version of the help on the topic will be
           shown in a help viewer.

so you need to set options(chmhelp=FALSE): it is up to you where you set 
it.

Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

Hey Brian,

But it has nothing to do with the GUI preferences: it applies to the 
command-line version of R as well.

I was suspecting this argument ;) -- however, I think
from a usability point of view it should be possible
to re-set the default setting also somewhere *within*
the GUI if the GUI installer allows to set it. Maybe
in a different place?

What about ?help did you not understand? It says

That is where I found how to set it (for my current
workspace). Finding where I can set it *permanently*
was more difficult (especially when you never had
the need to mingle with R-profiles before).

That's why I decided to document it here in the
mailinglist just in case others have troubles
finding it, too.

Best,
Fridolin