On 2009-May-23  , at 17:40 , Paul Heinrich Dietrich wrote:

I'm interested in easing my way into learning VIM by first using the Cream text editor, liking the idea that it will work on both my Linux and Windows computers. I've installed Cream on my Linux machine, but can't figure out how to make Cream talk to R? Does anybody know? I'm using Ubuntu if it
makes a difference.  Thanks.

You should install the R Vim Plugin and its dependencies:
        http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2628
This creates commands and icons dedicated to the interaction between Vim and R.


Then switch cream Settings > Preferences > Expert Mode.

This will allow you to work in Cream and have all the simple keyboard shortcuts (Control-C, Control-V etc.) but still be able to switch between modes as in vim. By default you are in insert mode. You need to switch to normal mode (by pressing ESC) to be able to use the commands of the R-Vim plugin.

The workflow is therefore:
- open a R file
- edit stuff
- press ESC (to switch to non-edit mode)
- start R in a terminal (click the icon or press F2)
- send lines/selection (F9) or document (F5)
- press ESC (to switch back to insert mode)
- edit 2 lines
- ESC
- F9
- F9
- ESC
- edit again
etc...

The terminal opened this way does not work completely as a regular one and there are some caveats when reading help and using general command line editing shortcuts (Ctrl-R for backward search for example). I haven't found a way around them so I usually open a second terminal to read the help in, or set R to display the help as HTML files in a browser window.

I must say that those caveats can be quite serious and I often find myself just using copy-paste from gedit in a terminal:
- set your desktop to "focus follow mouse"
- select text in your editor
- move the mouse to the terminal
- click middle mouse button
- move the mouse back to the editor
etc...
More cumbersome but reliable.

Final note: since you are on ubuntu, you may want to change the terminal from the default X-term to gnome-terminal. You have to edit the file .vim/ftplugin/r.vim. There is a line commented with the gnome- terminal command instead of xterm. Uncomment this one and comment the xterm one.

JiHO
---
http://jo.irisson.free.fr/

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