R devel - Sep 2015 - issues with dev.new avoiding RStudio plot device on unix?

Sorry, should have given more background.  x11 works fine on all my 
systems when called by x11().  I'm the maintainer of a package that uses 
the animation library, which has performance issues when used with the 
RStudio plot device.  But if you call plot.new() when using RStudio, you 
get an RStudio device, not the standard device for the platform because 
it overrides the device option.  So I've had to have the library do 
platform detection and platform-specific device calls, which R CMD check 
doesn't like.  I believe that noRStudioGD argument was avoided to give 
users a way around this, but it doesn't seem to be behaving correctly in 
the unix interactive case.

On 09/25/2015 08:31 PM, Ott Toomet wrote:
> Can you describe your problem a bit more?
>
> * What kind of unix system do you have??
> * Can you run other X11 programs?
>
> I had a similar issue, and the problem was that the computer was not set
> up to support X11.?  As a minimum, you have to install /xauth/, and
> potentially also other libraries if you want to install packages from
> source.
>
> Best,
> Ott
>
> On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 11:53 AM, Skye Bender-deMoll
> <skyebend at skyeome.net <mailto:skyebend at skyeome.net>>
wrote:
>
>     Hi R-devl,
>
>     I'm still unable to force opening an *interactive* non-Rstudio
>     platform-specific plot device on *unix* systems.
>
>     dev.new() add a new argument 'noRStudioGD' in R 3.1.1.?  Thank
you.
>     It works for me when using RStudio on Windows, but on the unix
>     system it opens a pdf device instead of an interactive device when
>     using an interactive RStudio session (with R_DEFAULT_DEVICE and
>     R_INTERACIVE_DEVICE not set).
>
>     Do other unix RStudio users see this behavior?
>
>     It appears that the relevant line of dev.new (and in zzz.R):
>
>     ?  ? else if (nzchar(dsp) && .Platform$GUI %in%
c("X11", "Tk"))
>     ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ? X11
>     ?  ? else defdev
>
>
>     but when I step through in debugger, I see that
>
>     Browse[2]> .Platform$GUI
>     [1] "RStudio"
>
>     so instead of returning X11, it returnd defdev (pdf)
>
>     perhaps changing to
>
>     .Platform$GUI %in% c("X11", "Tk",
"RStudio")
>
>     would work, but seems a little strange logically.
>
>
>     best,
>     ? -skye
>
>     p.s.?  I wonder if instead of having a noRStudioGD=TRUE flag, it
>     might be a more future-proof design to have an
>     avoid.devices='RStudioGD' argument?  in case users need to
induce
>     similar behavior to avoid other current or future devices??
>     Probably to late now tho.
>
>     ______________________________________________
>     R-devel at r-project.org <mailto:R-devel at r-project.org>
mailing list
>     https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
>
>
>
> --
> Ott Toomet
>
> Visiting Researcher
> School of Information
> Mary Gates Hall, Suite 310
> University of Washington
> Seattle, WA 98195
>

Same problem here on Mac OS X 10.10.5 with R 3.2.2 and RStudio 0.99.473.

I think dev.new() tries to find a suitable device in an interactive session with
this code

	dsp <- Sys.getenv("DISPLAY")
	if (.Platform$OS.type == "windows")
		windows
	else if (.Platform$GUI == "AQUA" || ((!nzchar(dsp) ||
grepl("^/tmp/launch-", dsp)) && .Call(C_makeQuartzDefault)))
		quartz
	else if (nzchar(dsp) && .Platform$GUI %in% c("X11",
"Tk"))
		X11
	else defdev 

which fails for me because RStudio sets .Platform$GUI to "RStudio"
(thanks, RStudio!) and my DISPLAY variable looks like this

	/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.2wKas4wzPe/org.macosforge.xquartz:0

so the grepl() on dsp doesn't match.

Best,
Stefan

> On 26 Sep 2015, at 06:42, Skye Bender-deMoll <skyebend at
skyeome.net> wrote:
> 
> Sorry, should have given more background.  x11 works fine on all my systems
when called by x11().  I'm the maintainer of a package that uses the
animation library, which has performance issues when used with the RStudio plot
device.  But if you call plot.new() when using RStudio, you get an RStudio
device, not the standard device for the platform because it overrides the device
option.  So I've had to have the library do platform detection and
platform-specific device calls, which R CMD check doesn't like.  I believe
that noRStudioGD argument was avoided to give users a way around this, but it
doesn't seem to be behaving correctly in the unix interactive case.

On 26/09/2015 1:42 AM, Skye Bender-deMoll wrote:
> Sorry, should have given more background.  x11 works fine on all my 
> systems when called by x11().  I'm the maintainer of a package that
uses
> the animation library, which has performance issues when used with the 
> RStudio plot device.  But if you call plot.new() when using RStudio, you 
> get an RStudio device, not the standard device for the platform because 
> it overrides the device option.  So I've had to have the library do 
> platform detection and platform-specific device calls, which R CMD check 
> doesn't like.  I believe that noRStudioGD argument was avoided to give 
> users a way around this, but it doesn't seem to be behaving correctly
in
> the unix interactive case.
It seems like the best workaround here could come from RStudio.  They
could provide a way for a user to indicate that they sometimes don't
want to use the RStudio graphics device (e.g. an option setting), and
your package could set and restore this option around your dev.new() call.

The other seems to be for your package to temporarily set
R_DEFAULT_DEVICE if the user doesn't already have it set, and use
noRStudioGD=TRUE.  The disadvantage of this is that you need to do all
the platform-based decision making.

Duncan
> 
> On 09/25/2015 08:31 PM, Ott Toomet wrote:
>> Can you describe your problem a bit more?
>>
>> * What kind of unix system do you have??
>> * Can you run other X11 programs?
>>
>> I had a similar issue, and the problem was that the computer was not
set
>> up to support X11.?  As a minimum, you have to install /xauth/, and
>> potentially also other libraries if you want to install packages from
>> source.
>>
>> Best,
>> Ott
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 11:53 AM, Skye Bender-deMoll
>> <skyebend at skyeome.net <mailto:skyebend at skyeome.net>>
wrote:
>>
>>     Hi R-devl,
>>
>>     I'm still unable to force opening an *interactive* non-Rstudio
>>     platform-specific plot device on *unix* systems.
>>
>>     dev.new() add a new argument 'noRStudioGD' in R 3.1.1.? 
Thank you.
>>     It works for me when using RStudio on Windows, but on the unix
>>     system it opens a pdf device instead of an interactive device when
>>     using an interactive RStudio session (with R_DEFAULT_DEVICE and
>>     R_INTERACIVE_DEVICE not set).
>>
>>     Do other unix RStudio users see this behavior?
>>
>>     It appears that the relevant line of dev.new (and in zzz.R):
>>
>>     ?  ? else if (nzchar(dsp) && .Platform$GUI %in%
c("X11", "Tk"))
>>     ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ? X11
>>     ?  ? else defdev
>>
>>
>>     but when I step through in debugger, I see that
>>
>>     Browse[2]> .Platform$GUI
>>     [1] "RStudio"
>>
>>     so instead of returning X11, it returnd defdev (pdf)
>>
>>     perhaps changing to
>>
>>     .Platform$GUI %in% c("X11", "Tk",
"RStudio")
>>
>>     would work, but seems a little strange logically.
>>
>>
>>     best,
>>     ? -skye
>>
>>     p.s.?  I wonder if instead of having a noRStudioGD=TRUE flag, it
>>     might be a more future-proof design to have an
>>     avoid.devices='RStudioGD' argument?  in case users need to
induce
>>     similar behavior to avoid other current or future devices??
>>     Probably to late now tho.
>>
>>     ______________________________________________
>>     R-devel at r-project.org <mailto:R-devel at r-project.org>
mailing list
>>     https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Ott Toomet
>>
>> Visiting Researcher
>> School of Information
>> Mary Gates Hall, Suite 310
>> University of Washington
>> Seattle, WA 98195
>>
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>

On 09/26/2015 03:22 AM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> On 26/09/2015 1:42 AM, Skye Bender-deMoll wrote:
>> Sorry, should have given more background.  x11 works fine on all my
>> systems when called by x11().  I'm the maintainer of a package that
uses
>> the animation library, which has performance issues when used with the
>> RStudio plot device.  But if you call plot.new() when using RStudio,
you
>> get an RStudio device, not the standard device for the platform because
>> it overrides the device option.  So I've had to have the library do
>> platform detection and platform-specific device calls, which R CMD
check
>> doesn't like.  I believe that noRStudioGD argument was avoided to
give
>> users a way around this, but it doesn't seem to be behaving
correctly in
>> the unix interactive case.
>
> It seems like the best workaround here could come from RStudio.  They
> could provide a way for a user to indicate that they sometimes don't
> want to use the RStudio graphics device (e.g. an option setting), and
> your package could set and restore this option around your dev.new() call.
That would make sense, I've tried to propose they add it as a feature in 
the rstudioapi.  However, since the noRstudioGD option now exists in R, 
I'd think it should behave consistently across platforms?  Opening pdf 
on one and interactive on another seems odd.
>
> The other seems to be for your package to temporarily set
> R_DEFAULT_DEVICE if the user doesn't already have it set, and use
> noRStudioGD=TRUE.  The disadvantage of this is that you need to do all
> the platform-based decision making.
Great idea, I'll employ this workaround for now. Thanks!

best,
  -skye