Dear users, From the recent discussion, I've wondered whether a text editor would be useful. However, I couldn't find a good explanation of what it is used for. For now, under Windows XP, I use the standard R Editor to write and run scripts. What can I do more with a text editor? It is worth using it? Thanks in advance for your advice. Regards, Ivan
On 01/03/2010 9:53 AM, Ivan Calandra wrote:> Dear users, > > From the recent discussion, I've wondered whether a text editor would > be useful. > However, I couldn't find a good explanation of what it is used for. > For now, under Windows XP, I use the standard R Editor to write and run > scripts. > > What can I do more with a text editor? It is worth using it?The built in editor in the R gui is a minimal text editor. The editor I use (a shareware editor named Textpad) is much more capable. Some of the features I use frequently: - I can turn on line numbering, to track down errors quicker - I can search within a file, or within a collection of files not in the editor, and the search and replace functions are more capable. - I can turn on syntax-based highlighting, customized to R, or C, or LaTeX, or HTML, ... - I can customize the keys, so a single keystroke runs the current file through LaTeX or shows it in a browser - I can view files in hex mode, to see weird bytes - I can configure it to use Unix-style line endings, which is convenient when working on the R sources. Those features are all pretty common in text editors that are aimed at programmers. I wouldn't particularly recommend Textpad; I think there are others that are just as capable. On the other hand, I don't know any that are so much more capable that I'm tempted to switch. Duncan Murdoch
I use Tinn-R under Windows. It lets me keep multiple scripts open and selectively change and execute code. I usually structure a large application as a number of individual scripts that I will run from a master script using "source()". In Tinn-R, I can just highlight the statements I want executed and pass them to R. Another nice feature is that I work on a number of concurrent projects and the "Project" feature of Tinn-R lets me keep together all the script for a project and they are opened all at once. On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Ivan Calandra <ivan.calandra at uni-hamburg.de> wrote:> Dear users, > > From the recent discussion, I've wondered whether a text editor would be > useful. > However, I couldn't find a good explanation of what it is used for. > For now, under Windows XP, I use the standard ?R Editor to write and run > scripts. > > What can I do more with a text editor? It is worth using it? > > Thanks in advance for your advice. > Regards, > Ivan > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >-- Jim Holtman Cincinnati, OH +1 513 646 9390 What is the problem that you are trying to solve?
Dear Ivan, One thing I would add to the current discussion is the ability of some text editors (most?) to check for matched delimiters "(...)". I also find the highlighting of syntax makes the code easier to read. In WinEdt and Tinn-R the basic features are very user friendly (I'm sure others are too, but I can say those from experience). Best regards, Josh On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 6:53 AM, Ivan Calandra <ivan.calandra@uni-hamburg.de>wrote:> Dear users, > > From the recent discussion, I've wondered whether a text editor would be > useful. > However, I couldn't find a good explanation of what it is used for. > For now, under Windows XP, I use the standard R Editor to write and run > scripts. > > What can I do more with a text editor? It is worth using it? > > Thanks in advance for your advice. > Regards, > Ivan > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html<http://www.r-project.org/posting-guide.html> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >-- Joshua Wiley Senior in Psychology University of California, Riverside http://www.joshuawiley.com/ [[alternative HTML version deleted]]