R help - Sep 2009 - run R script automatically by double-clicking WinXP desktop icon

I've written a simple script that does some surveillance analysis on daily
counts of walk-in clinic visits, for our county health department. (Actually,
Michael Hohle's surveillance package does all the work; I just customized it
a little to work with the way our data are recorded.) The output consists of a
graph and a little table.

My colleague will run it once in a while, on continuously updated data. She
knows nothing about R, at least not yet. I want to make it as simple as
possible. Rather than have her open R and type source("filename"), I
want to be able to put an icon on her WinXP desktop, so that when she
double-clicks it, R will open, run the script, and up pops the graph.

I've been trying to learn about R CMD BATCH, playing with the dialogue boxes
for WinXP desktop shortcuts, etc, but no luck so far. I guess I don't know
enough about Windows.

Can anyone tell me how to do this?  Thanks.

--Chris Ryan

Here's something I use (in a batch file):

Rterm --no-restore --file=EveningStartup.r


Change EveningStartup.r to your particular file. When you create the 
shortcut, make sure to set the working directory to where your R script 
is located. Then in your file, you could have the graphs write out to a 
png file in a specified directory.

hth
c




cryan at binghamton.edu wrote:
> I've written a simple script that does some surveillance analysis on
daily counts of walk-in clinic visits, for our county health department.
(Actually, Michael Hohle's surveillance package does all the work; I just
customized it a little to work with the way our data are recorded.) The output
consists of a graph and a little table.
>
> My colleague will run it once in a while, on continuously updated data. She
knows nothing about R, at least not yet. I want to make it as simple as
possible. Rather than have her open R and type source("filename"), I
want to be able to put an icon on her WinXP desktop, so that when she
double-clicks it, R will open, run the script, and up pops the graph.
>
> I've been trying to learn about R CMD BATCH, playing with the dialogue
boxes for WinXP desktop shortcuts, etc, but no luck so far. I guess I don't
know enough about Windows.
>
> Can anyone tell me how to do this?  Thanks.
>
> --Chris Ryan
>
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