R help - Nov 2002 - Using XEmacs and ESS with R for MS/Windows

I've been working on a document describing the use of XEmacs and ESS with R 
for Windows users, along with configuration files that are meant to make 
things simple for Windows users. This was initially intended for my 
students, but with recent discussions of Windows (and other) editors on the 
the R-help list, I thought that I'd make the material more widely available.

The document describes how to install, configure, and use XEmacs and ESS 
with R under Windows. The configuration files divide the XEmacs windows 
into two sub-windows, one for R source files (with tabs when multiple files 
are open), the other with the R process. A customized toolbar is provided 
with buttons to send individual lines, "paragraphs," marked regions of
text, and functions from the source window to the R process; there are 
other buttons to source the whole file silently, and to interrupt the R 
process. Menus are provided to perform operations similar to those in the 
standard Windows R GUI -- for example, to install, load, and update 
packages. In general, I've tried to provide features available in the R GUI 
and in Uwe Ligges's R plug-in for the shareware editor WinEdt. As well, 
I've attempted to make XEmacs appear more Windows-like in its behaviour, 
for example by defining standard Windows editing keys.

More information is available at 
<http://www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Books/Companion/ESS/>.

Comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

  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,

This is pretty good. I have updated http://www.r-project.org/GUI to include
a link to your page.
Best,

Philippe Grosjean

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-----Message d'origine-----
De : owner-r-announce at stat.math.ethz.ch
[mailto:owner-r-announce at stat.math.ethz.ch]De la part de John Fox
Envoye : dimanche 24 novembre 2002 15:19
A : r-announce at stat.math.ethz.ch
Objet : Using XEmacs and ESS with R for MS/Windows



I've been working on a document describing the use of XEmacs and ESS with R 
for Windows users, along with configuration files that are meant to make 
things simple for Windows users. This was initially intended for my 
students, but with recent discussions of Windows (and other) editors on the 
the R-help list, I thought that I'd make the material more widely available.

The document describes how to install, configure, and use XEmacs and ESS 
with R under Windows. The configuration files divide the XEmacs windows 
into two sub-windows, one for R source files (with tabs when multiple files 
are open), the other with the R process. A customized toolbar is provided 
with buttons to send individual lines, "paragraphs," marked regions of
text, and functions from the source window to the R process; there are 
other buttons to source the whole file silently, and to interrupt the R 
process. Menus are provided to perform operations similar to those in the 
standard Windows R GUI -- for example, to install, load, and update 
packages. In general, I've tried to provide features available in the R GUI 
and in Uwe Ligges's R plug-in for the shareware editor WinEdt. As well, 
I've attempted to make XEmacs appear more Windows-like in its behaviour, 
for example by defining standard Windows editing keys.

More information is available at 
<http://www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Books/Companion/ESS/>.

Comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

  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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Dear Prof. Fox,

Thanks very much for providing such a great setup for Windows users
to use ESS + XEmacs!
This shall not only speed up the productivity of programming and
using R, but also extremely attractive to potential users,
particularly to students in my 'statistical methods',
'reliability analysis', and 'programming design' classes.

Frankly, I have used your setup, found in R-mailing-list mentioned
by someone's post of question, for about a month.
I am very pleased to find that you add an R submenu to the ESS menu,
along with an Exit R/XEmacs submenu to the File menu, and available
of key-combinations for cut, copy and paste.

However, I got the following problem and wandered about two things
of installing XEmacs in Section 3 of your document.

1) After installing new version of fox-ESS-config.zip,
   there is no action when <Enter> pressed in the lower window.
   (return to confirm) is message appeared in the Minibuffer
   when I choose Send command from iESS menu.

   This did not happened to the previous version.

   I noticed the mode line of the lower window shows
   (iESS PenDel Font [R]: run)
   rather than
   (iESS Font [R]: run) as in your document.

   This extra 'PenDel' also appears in the mode line of the upper
window.

   And those paste line, function, ..., all won't actually execute
   whatever in the upper window.

   This affects is I have to use Ctrl+Alt+Del to kill 'Rterm' then
   to close XEmacs under my Win98.

2) Later I found that after kill 'Rterm' with Ctrl+Alt+Del, do
   M-x R in the minibuffer to invoke R, then everything works.

3) XEmacs package xemacs-i586-pc-win32 is required to download,
   but not mentioned in page 10 of your document.

4) Your configuration seems required XEmacs at least 21.4.9 version,
   however this seems not mentioned in the document.

5) I found the init.el file in fox.ess.config.exe and fox.ess.config.zip
   having different date, one is 11/23 and another is 11/24.
   Any difference?

Again, thanks very much for making ESS + XEmacs so convenient and 
powerful to use!

BTW, your book "An R and S-Plus Companion to Applied Regression" is
also great.

Best regards,

C. Joseph Lu
Department of Statistics
National Cheng-Kung University
Tainan, TAIWAN
 
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Dear Joseph,

At 01:17 AM 11/26/2002 +0800, you wrote:
>However, I got the following problem and wandered about two things
>of installing XEmacs in Section 3 of your document.
>
>1) After installing new version of fox-ESS-config.zip,
>    there is no action when <Enter> pressed in the lower window.
>    (return to confirm) is message appeared in the Minibuffer
>    when I choose Send command from iESS menu.
>
>    This did not happened to the previous version.
>
>    I noticed the mode line of the lower window shows
>    (iESS PenDel Font [R]: run)
>    rather than
>    (iESS Font [R]: run) as in your document.
>
>    This extra 'PenDel' also appears in the mode line of the upper
window.
>
>    And those paste line, function, ..., all won't actually execute
>    whatever in the upper window.
>
>    This affects is I have to use Ctrl+Alt+Del to kill 'Rterm' then
>    to close XEmacs under my Win98.
I'm not sure that I follow this. My newer configuration uses some stuff in 
the XEmacs pc package, and perhaps that's causing difficulties. You could 
change the pc-behaviour-level  variable near the top of the init file, or 
edit the file.
>2) Later I found that after kill 'Rterm' with Ctrl+Alt+Del, do
>    M-x R in the minibuffer to invoke R, then everything works.
>
>3) XEmacs package xemacs-i586-pc-win32 is required to download,
>    but not mentioned in page 10 of your document.
I believe that this is part of the standard 21.4.10 XEmacs installation, 
but I may be mistaken.
>4) Your configuration seems required XEmacs at least 21.4.9 version,
>    however this seems not mentioned in the document.
That might very well be the case. I haven't tried any of this except with 
version 21.4.10, and I should make that clear that in the document. I'm 
collecting comments and suggestions and will make changes some time soon. 
In the meantime, I hope that it's clear that until the version number 
reaches 1.0, things may change unpredictably!
>5) I found the init.el file in fox.ess.config.exe and fox.ess.config.zip
>    having different date, one is 11/23 and another is 11/24.
>    Any difference?
Yes. There was a small problem with graphics Windows that's mostly 
corrected in the newer file.
>Again, thanks very much for making ESS + XEmacs so convenient and
>powerful to use!
>
>BTW, your book "An R and S-Plus Companion to Applied Regression"
is
>also great.
Thank you for the kind remarks.

I hope that this helps,
  John

____________________________
John Fox
Department of Sociology
McMaster University
email: jfox at mcmaster.ca
web: http://www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox
____________________________

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