R devel - Oct 2015 - Linking to documentation from a vignette using markdown?

Hello:


       What's the preferred way to link to package documentation from a 
vignette using markdown?


       My current draft includes 
"[cumsum](https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/base/html/cumsum.html)"
to link to the help page for cusum{base} and 
"[KFAS](https://rweb.crmda.ku.edu/cran/web/packages/KFAS/KFAS.pdf)" to
link to the pdf documentation for the KFAS package.  This works, but it 
feels like an ugly hack, and I wonder if there might be some more 
elegant way of doing this (documented in a fine manual I have yet to find)?


       Thanks,
       Spencer

On 18/10/2015 5:51 PM, Spencer Graves wrote:
> Hello:
> 
> 
>        What's the preferred way to link to package documentation from a
> vignette using markdown?
> 
> 
>        My current draft includes 
>
"[cumsum](https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/base/html/cumsum.html)"
> to link to the help page for cusum{base} and 
>
"[KFAS](https://rweb.crmda.ku.edu/cran/web/packages/KFAS/KFAS.pdf)" to
> link to the pdf documentation for the KFAS package.  This works, but it 
> feels like an ugly hack, and I wonder if there might be some more 
> elegant way of doing this (documented in a fine manual I have yet to find)?
You can include links that work only when R is displaying the help using
relative URLs like

../../base/help/cumsum

or

../../base/html/cumsum.html

(The former is like doing ?cumsum, i.e. it uses the alias; the latter
goes directly to a page by its name.)

The advantage of this kind of link is it doesn't need an Internet
connection, it works with the R help system; the disadvantage is that it
only works when the help system is running, so those links won't work in
the copy of your vignette on CRAN, for example.

Duncan Murdoch

Hi, Duncan:


On 10/18/2015 8:18 PM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> On 18/10/2015 5:51 PM, Spencer Graves wrote:
>> Hello:
>>
>>
>>         What's the preferred way to link to package documentation
from a
>> vignette using markdown?
>>
>>
>>         My current draft includes
>>
"[cumsum](https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/base/html/cumsum.html)"
>> to link to the help page for cusum{base} and
>>
"[KFAS](https://rweb.crmda.ku.edu/cran/web/packages/KFAS/KFAS.pdf)" to
>> link to the pdf documentation for the KFAS package.  This works, but it
>> feels like an ugly hack, and I wonder if there might be some more
>> elegant way of doing this (documented in a fine manual I have yet to
find)?
> You can include links that work only when R is displaying the help using
> relative URLs like
>
> ../../base/help/cumsum
>
> or
>
> ../../base/html/cumsum.html
>
> (The former is like doing ?cumsum, i.e. it uses the alias; the latter
> goes directly to a page by its name.)
>
> The advantage of this kind of link is it doesn't need an Internet
> connection, it works with the R help system; the disadvantage is that it
> only works when the help system is running, so those links won't work
in
> the copy of your vignette on CRAN, for example.

       Thanks.  I think I saw links like these reading html trying to 
find what I needed for [KFAS];  this helps me understand what I read.  I 
think I'd prefer having links that work in a pdf that I could pass to 
someone who may not have R installed.


       What's the easiest way to find links like the absolute web 
address I gave for [KFAS]?  It took me a couple of hours, because I 
couldn't find how to get more than
"https://rweb.crmda.ku.edu/cran/"
from any of my current web browsers (Safari, Chrome, and SeaMonkey on OS 
X 10.11, Internet Explorer, Chrome, FireFox and SeaMonkey under Windows 7).


       Thanks again,
       Spencer
>
> Duncan Murdoch