Hi, here's a short summary of all the mails I got concerning the R help system during the last days ... I really want to have all open questions in this list, so if I forgot your most important topic please forgive (and remind me again) ... it's probably only because of lack of time such that I had to compile the list in a hurry ... Ok, here we go: 1) It would be useful to have a button at the bottom and/or top of each page which returns to the index. If you jump around a few "see also's" it is hard to get back to the index ==> fairly easy, will be in the final version 2) dealing with packages not located in $RHOME/library ... that's the most complicated part ... ideally the package list would look different for every user, such that everybody sees the system-wide installed pkgs together with his private pkg's two possible solution's come to mind: - building the pkg list at run-time (via help.start()) - building a list for every user, i.e. everytime one issues R INSTALL a file in the user's home directory is modified both have one major drawback which I don't know how to handle: I have to jump between a static file located in $RHOME/docs/html and a user-specific file, say $HOME/.R/pkg-list.html but there seems to be no tilde expansion or $HOME variable in html, i.e., an URL like "file:~/.R/pkg-list.html" works neither in netscape nor lynx. 3) Short file names for windoze 3.1 systems ... there seems to be an easy solution that I missed so far (simply replace the filenames by something meaningless, because I use hash arrays to match aliases and coprresponding files anyway), so this could be finished by monday (if it really works like I think it should). 4) Rdconv -t rtf to support the windoze help format ... I definetely don't have time or any motivation to do that, so if somebody wants to do that, he's welcome. 5) That's actually a wish/suggestion from me: Maybe somebody wants to help the R project but doesn't know too much about writing code etc. ... we need a lot more of and better documentation, e.g., short tutorials on various topics to get people started. These should explain the basic concept of something and accompany it with some examples that can be copied & pasted ... The current demos or the appendix of the R notes could get you started. Topics could include those as the the non-existing links under ``Data Analysis with R'' (Basic Statistics, Exploratory Data Analysis, Linear Models, ...) So if you think you could write two or three pages on how to use R for any topic you could simply write it in LaTeX ideally in such a way that it can be translated to HTML using hyperlatex ... Best, Fritz -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-devel 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-devel-request@stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
Friedrich Leisch <Friedrich.Leisch@ci.tuwien.ac.at> writes:> 4) Rdconv -t rtf to support the windoze help format ... I definetely > don't have time or any motivation to do that, so if somebody wants to > do that, he's welcome.Actually, you are probably the one best *capable* of doing it, but obviously someone needs to dig out the relevant instructions for what is supposed to translate to what, and how to get and apply the help compiler. I snooped around at some point and found some pointers, but of course I didn't do it systematically in any way. There are, btw, also (commercial) HTML to WinHelp converters, which I suppose we could get someone to pay for a copy of.> 5) That's actually a wish/suggestion from me: Maybe somebody wants to > help the R project but doesn't know too much about writing code..> So if you think you could write two or three pages on how to use R ...^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ .. I'll send you a lollipop. These things tend to expand! The first ca. 10 pages of my course notes might actually form the basis of a "tutorial round trip" for zero-knowledge users, once I get them translated from Danish. I've done a little of that already, but right now, my priorities are on revising the Danish version before my students need them (due to <mumble>, they have to learn ANOVA before linear regression this time, which is a fairly innocent change at the theoretical level, but implies quite some perturbation at the software level) One thing we need to be aware of is that there are several types of users at several skill levels, and that the help system should be useful for all of them. In particular, we have practitioners (some of which are not statistical professionals), and academics/programmers. These - or even the same person in different modes - will be looking for very different things. Also one should know that a good introduction is meant to be read exactly once, nothing is more annoying than when the author has put everything in one document and you have to wade through pages of trivialities to find the one piece of information you need. -- O__ ---- Peter Dalgaard Blegdamsvej 3 c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics 2200 Cph. N (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen Denmark Ph: (+45) 35327918 ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk) FAX: (+45) 35327907 -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-devel 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-devel-request@stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
>>>>> "FrL" == Friedrich Leisch <Friedrich.Leisch@ci.tuwien.ac.at> writes:FrL> Hi, FrL> here's a short summary of all the mails I got concerning the R FrL> help system during the last days ... I really want to have all FrL> open questions in this list, so if I forgot your most important FrL> topic please forgive (and remind me again) ... it's probably only FrL> because of lack of time such that I had to compile the list in a FrL> hurry ... ....... FrL> 4) Rdconv -t rtf to support the windoze help format ... I FrL> definetely don't have time or any motivation to do that, so if FrL> somebody wants to do that, he's welcome. -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-devel 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-devel-request@stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
Martin Maechler
1998-Feb-02 11:00 UTC
Summary of mails concerning R help system -- really --
Excuse everyone my almost empty E-mail !!>>>>> "FrL" == Friedrich Leisch <Friedrich.Leisch@ci.tuwien.ac.at> writes:FrL> Hi, FrL> here's a short summary of all the mails I got concerning the R FrL> help system during the last days ... I really want to have all FrL> open questions in this list, so if I forgot your most important FrL> topic please forgive (and remind me again) ... it's probably only FrL> because of lack of time such that I had to compile the list in a FrL> hurry ... ....... FrL> 4) Rdconv -t rtf to support the windoze help format ... I FrL> definetely don't have time or any motivation to do that, so if FrL> somebody wants to do that, he's welcome. In the V&R (Venables & Ripley) Online Complements to MASS2, [page 3, producing Windows help files] I've found that they provide a troff -> rtf translation utility ("spwinhlp.zip" ) for S-plus help pages, and then mention the Windows help-compiler for producing windows *.hlp files In principle, one could use this as foo.Rd ---> foo.troff --> foo.rtf --> foo.hlp 1 2 3 1: Rdconv 2: spwinhlp 3: Windows help compiler. If anyone here (of you R-develers) is willing to do these steps, I am sure that the CRAN maintainers will glad to include these *.hlp files in the 'preformatted-help' directories. However, I agree with Luke Tierney, that also for windows, HTML should be enough in principle. Martin -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-devel 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-devel-request@stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._