R help - Jul 2009 - Starting RCmdr from the Commandline (and a shortcut) in Windows

I thought I'd share the experience I had in getting Rcmdr to start
automatically when R starts up.   I'd read of solutions that would start
Rcmdr every time R started up, but I didn't want it to start every time,
only when I wanted it to.

First, I created a shortcut on the desktop to R and changed its name to
Rcmdr.  Next, I changed the target of the shortcut to (edit the version
number if needed):

"C:\Program Files\R\R-2.9.1\bin\Rgui.exe" --sdi RCMDR=TRUE

I added the options --sdi (I like this interface the best) and created the
RCMDR=TRUE environmental variable.

Next, I edited the Rprofile.site file in the etc directory of the R
installation and added the following lines to the bottom:

defpack = getOption("defaultPackages")
mylibs = c("lattice","MASS","Matrix")
if(Sys.getenv("RCMDR") == TRUE) mylibs = c(mylibs,"Rcmdr")
options(defaultPackages = c(defpack,mylibs))

Note that mylibs is the list of libraries that I wanted autoloaded.
Although Matrix will autoload lattice, I didn't want it to announce it every
time R started, so I loaded it first.

Now clicking on Rcmdr on the desktop starts up Rcmdr (in addition to R), and
starting up R regularly does not start Rcmdr, which is what I wanted!

I hope someone else may find this useful!

-Scott

*****************************************************************
Scott K. Hyde
Assistant Professor of Statistics and Mathematics
College of Math and Sciences
Brigham Young University -- Hawaii
Laie, HI  96762

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]