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[R-pkg-devel] browseURL in examples

4 messages · Berry Boessenkool, Brian G. Peterson, Duncan Murdoch +1 more

Original
Berry Boessenkool
# 
Hi all,
 
In the CRAN package policies [1], it says 
 
"Packages should not start external software (such as PDF viewers or
browsers) during examples or tests unless that specific instance of
the software is explicitly closed afterwards."
 
If I want to refer to a website with browseURL in the examples, 
what's the most elegant way to do it? 

\dontrun --> obtrusive "## not run" parts, confuse new R-users
# browseURL("www.link.html") --> user must uncomment things


Or do you think links should only be used in Vignettes / References section?

In this case, it's a reference to a statistical method,
and yes, I slightly feel like I'm misusing the examples section.
But I think that's where most people explore function usage...


Thanks for any ideas and thoughts,
Berry

[1]
https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/policies.html
Brian G. Peterson
#
On 08/18/2015 05:12 AM, Berry Boessenkool wrote:
I don't see how popping up browser windows for anything other than a 
demonstration of rendering something to HTML would ever make sense.

I think most people explore functions by typing ?functionName

Why not just put the links in the documentation for your function?
Duncan Murdoch
#
On 18/08/2015 6:12 AM, Berry Boessenkool wrote:
Using "if (interactive()) browseURL(...)" is a reasonable way.

Duncan Murdoch
Mark van der Loo
# 
Berry,

why not use

\href{[your link]}{[link text]}

in the documentation details[1]?

Best,
Mark
[1] https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-exts.html#Marking-text



Op di 18 aug. 2015 om 13:21 schreef Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com