On 7/5/2006 3:22 AM, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Jul 2006, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>
>> On 7/4/2006 11:57 AM, Uwe Ligges wrote:
>>> Martin Maechler wrote:
>>>>>>>>> "Duncan" == Duncan Murdoch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>>>>>>> on Tue, 04 Jul 2006 08:32:08 -0400 writes:
>>>> Duncan> I've just committed a couple of changes to R-devel related to
>>>> requests
>>>> Duncan> at userR about the Windows installer. The first of these
>>>> affects all
>>>> Duncan> platforms, but I've only tested it on Windows:
>>>>
>>>> Duncan> I added an option "quit.with.no.save". If TRUE,
>>>> Duncan> then the default q("ask") prompt will not offer to
>>>> Duncan> save the workspace. This is in response to the
>>>> Duncan> observation that new users who are instructed not to
>>>> Duncan> save their workspace, get confused when they
>>>> Duncan> accidentally answer Yes to the prompt to save it.
>>>>
>>>> Ok... but I probably misunderstand a bit:
>>>>
>>>> The default has not been q(save = "ask") but q(save = "default"),
>>>> and that default has depended on startup.
>>>>
>>>> Even now, "R --no-save" already did have the desired effect,
>>>> on Unix at least. For my ESS setup, I have made this an automatic
>>>> default many months ago.
>>>>
>>>> Wouldn't it be easier and sufficient to make "--no-save" a
>>>> working option on all platforms ?
>>>> Or is the point really about changing the quitting dialog?
>>>> For me quitting *without* a dialog is the most important thing
>>>> which I use (often several times a day).
>>>>
>>>> Duncan> I'm not sure about the wording of the user prompt
>>>> Duncan> question, which is now "Quit and discard
>>>> Duncan> workspace?". The problem with this wording is that
>>>> Duncan> someone who automatically hits "y" will lose their
>>>> Duncan> work. I've tried on Windows to make the dialog box
>>>> Duncan> look different enough that they should be warned.
>>>>
>>>> good!
>>>>
>>>> Duncan> I haven't made any change to the Mac GUI to support this. On
>>>> Duncan> Unix-alikes, the text prompt should respect this option.
>>>>
>>>> Duncan> The other change is to the Windows installer, to
>>>> Duncan> allow the user to choose whether to set
>>>> Duncan> quit.with.no.save, MDI/SDI display, and help style
>>>> Duncan> at install time. The only (intentional) change to
>>>> Duncan> the current behaviour is to default to CHM help
>>>> Duncan> instead of plain text.
>>>>
>>>> People have asked me in private about this, and I didn't know
>>>> the answer:
>>>> Is it true that this means that people can no longer commit the
>>>> "cheap package install trick" on Windows for R-code-only
>>>> packages?
>>>> Namely
>>>> 1) install a source package on a Linux/Unix/MacOSX machine
>>>> (where it is often simple to have all the necessary tools available)
>>>> 2) zip the resulting installed package
>>>> 3) unzip it on the target Windows machine into the corresponding
>>>> library (directory).
>>>>
>>>> Of course, this trick will not provide any *.chm help files.
>>>> Will the cheap-installed package still work, using the *.txt (or
>>>> *.html) help files?
>>>
>>>
>>> Well, the user has to ask
>>> help(topic, chmhelp = FALSE)
>>> in this case, or (s)he get the message:
>>>
>>> No CHM help for 'foo' in package 'pkg' is available:
>>> the CHM file for the package is missing
>>>
>>> Perhaps it is possible to arrange some fallback to plain text help if
>>> chmhelp is not available: in print.help_files_with_topic call print() on
>>> the "help_files_with_topic" object again, but change attribute "type" to
>>> "help" before that call ...
>> Yes, that seems to work. I'll add that.
>
> Before help() was reorganized to use print() methods it used to fall back
> to text help if other versions were not available (at least on Windows),
> so it does seem sensible to reinstate that.
It's not completely reinstated: I only put in the fallback in the
particular case where the .chm file was not found. Other failure modes
still die with an error.
Duncan Murdoch
______________________________________________
R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
