Dear list members,
I've had helpful feedback from a number of people, several of whom
experienced some problems getting my XEmacs/ESS configuration files for
Windows to work properly. I will, of course, make changes based on this
feedback, but the following information may be of use in the interim:
(1) It's clear that my instructions and installation procedure were
insufficiently flexible. In particular, putting the .xemacs configuration
directory in c:\ caused some problems:
On Windows 9x systems, it's necessary to have the environment variable
HOME point to the directory in which .xemacs is located; for example, if
this directory is in c:\, place the line
set HOME=c:\
in the autoexec.bat file. As well, the proper way to redefine the path is
path=%path%;"c:\program files\r\rw1061\bin"
(or wherever rterm.exe is). Again, this line goes in autoexec.bat.
In Windows NT, 2000, or XP, if there is no HOME environment variable
(the usual case), then XEmacs uses HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH to locate the
.xemacs configuration directory. To see where XEmacs is looking, open a
command prompt (DOS) window and type
echo %homedrive%%homepath%
If the answer isn't c:\, then you can either move the .xemacs directory
accordingly or define HOME=c:\
As well, having my self-extracting archive try to place files in the
right places was a mistake, I believe, since the locations are
XEmacs-version dependent.
These problems are easily dealt with, I believe, and I apologize for
any frustration that my (poor) initial choices produced.
(2) I spent a good part of the day today trying XEmacs and ESS on a variety
of Windows systems -- with and without my configuration files. I noticed a
number of intermittent problems with GUI-related commands, such as attempts
to open dialog boxes causing the R process to freeze. I'll try to track
down the source of these problems.
Thanks for your patience.
John
-----------------------------------------------------
John Fox
Department of Sociology
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M4
email: jfox at mcmaster.ca
phone: 905-525-9140x23604
web: www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox
-----------------------------------------------------
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>>>>> "john" == John Fox <jfox at mcmaster.ca> writes:john> (2) I spent a good part of the day today trying XEmacs and ESS on a john> variety of Windows systems -- with and without my configuration john> files. I noticed a number of intermittent problems with GUI-related john> commands, such as attempts to open dialog boxes causing the R process john> to freeze. I'll try to track down the source of these problems. I'm not sure what the status of these is -- I do know that some people I trust have wondered how the heck R even works under (X)Emacs on Windows (issues arising with systems interfacing, blocking calls, and similar "stuff"). Note that I'm about 50% of the way to integrating John's work (along with Tomy's (Thomas Gerd's) work for SAS) to provide toolbars. I expect it to be finished for the next release of ESS, so if you send feedback privately to John, cc me if it is about problems (or you might mention to him that you've not told me; I'll be in touch with him). This will simplify matters when I check in the new ESS stuff into the XEmacs package archives, since it will mean that you can install via the menu package items (similar to the R package installer menu item). One question that has popped up is if the toolbar should be placed somewhere else -- i.e. on the left or right sides -- I can make that an option, defaulting to replacement of the top toolbar, or I could do it VM style on the left side. Thoughts? (probably the best reply to this would be to me, or we should move the conversation over to the ess-help list). best, -tony -- A.J. Rossini Rsrch. Asst. Prof. of Biostatistics U. of Washington Biostatistics rossini at u.washington.edu FHCRC/SCHARP/HIV Vaccine Trials Net rossini at scharp.org -------------- http://software.biostat.washington.edu/ ---------------- FHCRC: M: 206-667-7025 (fax=4812)|Voicemail is pretty sketchy/use Email UW: Th: 206-543-1044 (fax=3286)|Change last 4 digits of phone to FAX (my tuesday/wednesday/friday locations are completely unpredictable.) -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
2002-Nov-27 07:43 UTC
[Rd] Re: [R] further on ESS/XEmacs for Windows
[Moved to R-devel, as this is going to get technical and is already a minority interest.] On 26 Nov 2002, A.J. Rossini wrote:> >>>>> "john" == John Fox <jfox@mcmaster.ca> writes: > > > john> (2) I spent a good part of the day today trying XEmacs and ESS on a > john> variety of Windows systems -- with and without my configuration > john> files. I noticed a number of intermittent problems with GUI-related > john> commands, such as attempts to open dialog boxes causing the R process > john> to freeze. I'll try to track down the source of these problems. > > I'm not sure what the status of these is -- I do know that some people > I trust have wondered how the heck R even works under (X)Emacs on > Windows (issues arising with systems interfacing, blocking calls, and > similar "stuff").That's right! rterm used directly uses a separate thread for input to avoid it blocking (not processing Windows events) whilst waiting for input. rterm used by ESS is effectively used in batch mode: it was never the intention that the GUI interactions should work. Guido and I once (in 2000) discussed a way out using a supervisor thread, and Guido implemented it (although I never saw the code), He said it worked under NT but not Win98. That's the real problem -- supporting low-end versions of Windows which do not behave as documented, when the developers (then) were only using NT/2000. On Unix one uses select() and since we have since made that work to support url/socket connections it would be possible to try to use that. However, it would be a lot of work to provide something that the main developers would never use, and we remain desperately short of contributions by users of R on Windows. -- 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 272860 (secr) Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595
Dear Tony, Please note that the problems that I've noted (beyond those produced by my inadequate instructions about where to put files) relate not to the toolbar, which seems to work fine, but to some of the menu items, which call up dialog boxes. I'm able to reproduce these problems without using my configuration file, by the way. As well, there are some problems that relate to graphics windows that also appear to be independent of my configuration. Installation certainly will become simpler when my stuff gets folded into ESS. (I decided to send my message to r-help because some people encountered difficulties that I hoped to clear up, and because I figured that someone there would have insight into the Windows problems.) Regards, John At 08:11 PM 11/26/2002 -0800, A.J. Rossini wrote:> >>>>> "john" == John Fox <jfox at mcmaster.ca> writes: > > > john> (2) I spent a good part of the day today trying XEmacs and ESS on a > john> variety of Windows systems -- with and without my configuration > john> files. I noticed a number of intermittent problems with GUI-related > john> commands, such as attempts to open dialog boxes causing the R > process > john> to freeze. I'll try to track down the source of these problems. > >I'm not sure what the status of these is -- I do know that some people >I trust have wondered how the heck R even works under (X)Emacs on >Windows (issues arising with systems interfacing, blocking calls, and >similar "stuff"). > >Note that I'm about 50% of the way to integrating John's work (along >with Tomy's (Thomas Gerd's) work for SAS) to provide toolbars. I >expect it to be finished for the next release of ESS, so if you send >feedback privately to John, cc me if it is about problems (or you >might mention to him that you've not told me; I'll be in touch with >him). > >This will simplify matters when I check in the new ESS stuff into the >XEmacs package archives, since it will mean that you can install via >the menu package items (similar to the R package installer menu >item). > >One question that has popped up is if the toolbar should be placed >somewhere else -- i.e. on the left or right sides -- I can make that >an option, defaulting to replacement of the top toolbar, or I could do >it VM style on the left side. Thoughts? > >(probably the best reply to this would be to me, or we should move the >conversation over to the ess-help list). > >best, >-tony > >-- >A.J. Rossini Rsrch. Asst. Prof. of Biostatistics >U. of Washington Biostatistics rossini at u.washington.edu >FHCRC/SCHARP/HIV Vaccine Trials Net rossini at scharp.org >-------------- http://software.biostat.washington.edu/ ---------------- >FHCRC: M: 206-667-7025 (fax=4812)|Voicemail is pretty sketchy/use Email >UW: Th: 206-543-1044 (fax=3286)|Change last 4 digits of phone to FAX >(my tuesday/wednesday/friday locations are completely unpredictable.)----------------------------------------------------- John Fox Department of Sociology McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M4 email: jfox at mcmaster.ca phone: 905-525-9140x23604 web: www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox ----------------------------------------------------- -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
Actually this happens under emacs (21.2.1) as well as Xemacs 21.4. I've also seen this happening under the Rterm in version 1.6.1 for Windows. What I generally see is that the Rterm cannot quit and needs to be forced to quite by some other means. Shawn Way -----Original Message----- From: rossini at blindglobe.net [mailto:rossini at blindglobe.net] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 10:11 PM To: John Fox Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch Subject: Re: [R] further on ESS/XEmacs for Windows>>>>> "john" == John Fox <jfox at mcmaster.ca> writes:john> (2) I spent a good part of the day today trying XEmacs and ESS on a john> variety of Windows systems -- with and without my configuration john> files. I noticed a number of intermittent problems with GUI-related john> commands, such as attempts to open dialog boxes causing the R process john> to freeze. I'll try to track down the source of these problems. I'm not sure what the status of these is -- I do know that some people I trust have wondered how the heck R even works under (X)Emacs on Windows (issues arising with systems interfacing, blocking calls, and similar "stuff"). Note that I'm about 50% of the way to integrating John's work (along with Tomy's (Thomas Gerd's) work for SAS) to provide toolbars. I expect it to be finished for the next release of ESS, so if you send feedback privately to John, cc me if it is about problems (or you might mention to him that you've not told me; I'll be in touch with him). This will simplify matters when I check in the new ESS stuff into the XEmacs package archives, since it will mean that you can install via the menu package items (similar to the R package installer menu item). One question that has popped up is if the toolbar should be placed somewhere else -- i.e. on the left or right sides -- I can make that an option, defaulting to replacement of the top toolbar, or I could do it VM style on the left side. Thoughts? (probably the best reply to this would be to me, or we should move the conversation over to the ess-help list). best, -tony -- A.J. Rossini Rsrch. Asst. Prof. of Biostatistics U. of Washington Biostatistics rossini at u.washington.edu FHCRC/SCHARP/HIV Vaccine Trials Net rossini at scharp.org -------------- http://software.biostat.washington.edu/ ---------------- FHCRC: M: 206-667-7025 (fax=4812)|Voicemail is pretty sketchy/use Email UW: Th: 206-543-1044 (fax=3286)|Change last 4 digits of phone to FAX (my tuesday/wednesday/friday locations are completely unpredictable.) -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. -.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._. _._ -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
Dear Brian At 07:43 AM 11/27/2002 +0000, ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk wrote:>[Moved to R-devel, as this is going to get technical and is already a >minority interest.] > >On 26 Nov 2002, A.J. Rossini wrote: > > > >>>>> "john" == John Fox <jfox@mcmaster.ca> writes: > > > > > > john> (2) I spent a good part of the day today trying XEmacs and > ESS on a > > john> variety of Windows systems -- with and without my configuration > > john> files. I noticed a number of intermittent problems with > GUI-related > > john> commands, such as attempts to open dialog boxes causing the R > process > > john> to freeze. I'll try to track down the source of these problems. > > > > I'm not sure what the status of these is -- I do know that some people > > I trust have wondered how the heck R even works under (X)Emacs on > > Windows (issues arising with systems interfacing, blocking calls, and > > similar "stuff"). > >That's right! rterm used directly uses a separate thread for input to >avoid it blocking (not processing Windows events) whilst waiting for >input. rterm used by ESS is effectively used in batch mode: it was never >the intention that the GUI interactions should work.Thanks for the explanation -- I figured that you'd know what's going on here.>Guido and I once (in 2000) discussed a way out using a supervisor thread, >and Guido implemented it (although I never saw the code), He said it >worked under NT but not Win98. That's the real problem -- supporting >low-end versions of Windows which do not behave as documented, when the >developers (then) were only using NT/2000. On Unix one uses select() and >since we have since made that work to support url/socket connections it >would be possible to try to use that. However, it would be a lot of work >to provide something that the main developers would never use, and we >remain desperately short of contributions by users of R on Windows.If I had the knowledge to make this kind of contribution, I'd volunteer to do it. I expect that this is generally the source of the problem: that is, Windows users probably tend to have a lower level of programming expertise. If Guido's code still exists, would it be possible to incorporate it, providing a solution for Windows NT, 2000, and XP? Applications such as mine could adapt their behaviour depending upon the Windows version (and eventually Windows 9x systems will disappear). Thanks again, John ----------------------------------------------------- John Fox Department of Sociology McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M4 email: jfox@mcmaster.ca phone: 905-525-9140x23604 web: www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox -----------------------------------------------------