R devel - Oct 2003 - Problem with console in Windows GUI (PR#4381)

Full_Name: Andrew Zachary
Version: 1.7.1
OS: XP Pro
Submission from: (NULL) (24.44.128.138)


The R-console window in the Windows GUI has a nice feature that lets you save
your preferences for font sizes and background and foreground colors. Unhappily,
there is no way to load these preferences back in when starting a new session.

Also, the scroll window for selecting colors is very small and awkward. If I
want to select a color which is towards the top or the bottom of the list, I
have to scrolls (slowly) through all the entries to get to it. Would make more
sense to have a color window with user-selectable colors.

Thanks!
Andrew Zachary

> From: andrew_zachary@yahoo.com [mailto:andrew_zachary@yahoo.com] 
> 
> Full_Name: Andrew Zachary
> Version: 1.7.1
> OS: XP Pro
> Submission from: (NULL) (24.44.128.138)
> 
> 
> The R-console window in the Windows GUI has a nice feature 
> that lets you save your preferences for font sizes and 
> background and foreground colors. Unhappily, there is no way 
> to load these preferences back in when starting a new session.
Have you not noticed the "Save" button?

Andy

 
> Also, the scroll window for selecting colors is very small 
> and awkward. If I want to select a color which is towards the 
> top or the bottom of the list, I have to scrolls (slowly) 
> through all the entries to get to it. Would make more sense 
> to have a color window with user-selectable colors.
> 
> Thanks!
> Andrew Zachary
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list 
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo> /r-devel
>

On Thu, 02 Oct 2003 12:58:01 -0400, "Liaw, Andy"
<andy_liaw@merck.com>
wrote :
>> From: andrew_zachary@yahoo.com [mailto:andrew_zachary@yahoo.com] 
>> The R-console window in the Windows GUI has a nice feature 
>> that lets you save your preferences for font sizes and 
>> background and foreground colors. Unhappily, there is no way 
>> to load these preferences back in when starting a new session.
>
>Have you not noticed the "Save" button?
To expand on that:  by default, Save puts the preferences in a file
called Rconsole in the current directory; on startup, R looks for
Rconsole in the R_USER directory (which defaults to the current
directory), and if it doesn't find one there, in the R_HOME/etc
directory.

However, there's a bug in the current beta:  near the end it writes
out the lines

## Initial position of the graphics window
## (pixels, <0 values from opposite edge)
xgraphics = 
ygraphics = 

but it can't read those because of the missing values.  I'll try to
get that fixed for 1.8.0.
 
>> Also, the scroll window for selecting colors is very small 
>> and awkward. If I want to select a color which is towards the 
>> top or the bottom of the list, I have to scrolls (slowly) 
>> through all the entries to get to it. Would make more sense 
>> to have a color window with user-selectable colors.
That would make sense, but it's not likely to happen (and certainly
won't for 1.8.0):  we've more or less stopped adding features to the
current Rgui.  If I (or someone else) ever gets time, I intend to
replace it with an all new one.

Duncan Murdoch

On Wed, 1 Oct 2003 andrew_zachary@yahoo.com wrote:
> Full_Name: Andrew Zachary
> Version: 1.7.1
> OS: XP Pro
> Submission from: (NULL) (24.44.128.138)
> 
> 
> The R-console window in the Windows GUI has a nice feature that lets you
save
> your preferences for font sizes and background and foreground colors.
Unhappily,
> there is no way to load these preferences back in when starting a new
session.
Yes, there is: it's described in the README(.rw1071) no less.  At Startup
the settings are read from a Rconsole file: see ?Rconsole.
> Also, the scroll window for selecting colors is very small and awkward. If
I
> want to select a color which is towards the top or the bottom of the list,
I
> have to scrolls (slowly) through all the entries to get to it. Would make
more
> sense to have a color window with user-selectable colors.
You are welcome to supply code for that enhancement.  Some of us would 
just edit the Rconsole file in a text editor.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@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