Firefox recently updated itself on my laptop. Now when I ask for R help
--- e.g. ?plot --- I just get my home page. And no help. If I do
"?plot"
again after Firefox has opened its window, I just get yet another
Firefox window, opened to my home page. (I have my preferences set to
"When Firefox starts Show my homepage"
--- as I always have had in the past.)
The Firefox that I am currently running is (according Firefox help
--> "About Firefox") is version 36.0.
Can anyone suggest to me how I can get my html R help back?
For what it's worth: I am using Linux, Fedora 17. (Yes, I know it's
elderly, but then so am I. :-) )
Also in case it has any relevance:
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 3.1.2 (2014-10-31)
> Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)
>
> locale:
> [1] LC_CTYPE=en_NZ.utf8 LC_NUMERIC=C
> [3] LC_TIME=en_NZ.utf8 LC_COLLATE=en_NZ.utf8
> [5] LC_MONETARY=en_NZ.utf8 LC_MESSAGES=en_NZ.utf8
> [7] LC_PAPER=en_NZ.utf8 LC_NAME=C
> [9] LC_ADDRESS=C LC_TELEPHONE=C
> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_NZ.utf8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
>
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base
>
> other attached packages:
> [1] spatstat_1.40-0.064 misc_0.0-16
>
> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
> [1] abind_1.4-0 deldir_0.1-7 goftest_1.0-2 grid_3.1.2
> [5] lattice_0.20-29 Matrix_1.1-4 mgcv_1.8-3 nlme_3.1-118
> [9] polyclip_1.3-1 tensor_1.5 tools_3.1.2
cheers,
Rolf Turner
--
Rolf Turner
Technical Editor ANZJS
Department of Statistics
University of Auckland
Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276
Home phone: +64-9-480-4619
On 28/02/2015 4:10 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:> > Firefox recently updated itself on my laptop. Now when I ask for R help > --- e.g. ?plot --- I just get my home page. And no help. If I do "?plot" > again after Firefox has opened its window, I just get yet another > Firefox window, opened to my home page. (I have my preferences set to > > "When Firefox starts Show my homepage" > > --- as I always have had in the past.)I would guess that browseURL() won't work for any URL. Is that right? What does getOption("browser") give you in R? If it is just a character string (e.g. "xdg-open" is what I get in Ubuntu), does it work from your command line, outside of R, e.g. for me that test would be xdg-open http://www.r-project.org If that doesn't work, but you can figure out a command line way to open a particular URL, change getOption("browser") to use that. Duncan Murdoch> > The Firefox that I am currently running is (according Firefox help > --> "About Firefox") is version 36.0. > > Can anyone suggest to me how I can get my html R help back? > > For what it's worth: I am using Linux, Fedora 17. (Yes, I know it's > elderly, but then so am I. :-) ) > > Also in case it has any relevance: > >>> sessionInfo() >> R version 3.1.2 (2014-10-31) >> Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit) >> >> locale: >> [1] LC_CTYPE=en_NZ.utf8 LC_NUMERIC=C >> [3] LC_TIME=en_NZ.utf8 LC_COLLATE=en_NZ.utf8 >> [5] LC_MONETARY=en_NZ.utf8 LC_MESSAGES=en_NZ.utf8 >> [7] LC_PAPER=en_NZ.utf8 LC_NAME=C >> [9] LC_ADDRESS=C LC_TELEPHONE=C >> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_NZ.utf8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C >> >> attached base packages: >> [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base >> >> other attached packages: >> [1] spatstat_1.40-0.064 misc_0.0-16 >> >> loaded via a namespace (and not attached): >> [1] abind_1.4-0 deldir_0.1-7 goftest_1.0-2 grid_3.1.2 >> [5] lattice_0.20-29 Matrix_1.1-4 mgcv_1.8-3 nlme_3.1-118 >> [9] polyclip_1.3-1 tensor_1.5 tools_3.1.2 > > cheers, > > Rolf Turner >
See inline below. On 01/03/15 10:59, Duncan Murdoch wrote:> On 28/02/2015 4:10 PM, Rolf Turner wrote: >> >> Firefox recently updated itself on my laptop. Now when I ask for R help >> --- e.g. ?plot --- I just get my home page. And no help. If I do "?plot" >> again after Firefox has opened its window, I just get yet another >> Firefox window, opened to my home page. (I have my preferences set to >> >> "When Firefox starts Show my homepage" >> >> --- as I always have had in the past.) > > I would guess that browseURL() won't work for any URL. Is that right?Yes. That is correct. E.g. if I do browseURL("http://www.r-project.org/") I get taken to my home page, rather than to the R home page.> > What does getOption("browser") give you in R?"/usr/bin/firefox"> If it is just a character > string (e.g. "xdg-open" is what I get in Ubuntu), does it work from your > command line, outside of R, e.g. for me that test would be > > xdg-open http://www.r-project.orgI tried /usr/bin/firefox http://www.r-project.org/ from the Linux command line and was taken to the R home page, seamlessly. I also tried xdg-open http://www.r-project.org/ and that worked equally well. Finally I tried options(browser="xdg-open") and then ?plot and BINGO!!! the HTML help came up as requested. So I have a working solution to my problem. But I *really* don't understand why changing the browser from "/usr/bin/firefox" to "xdg-open" made a difference. (Since there appears to be no difference at the Linux command line.) Anyway; thanks very much for solving my problem. cheers, Rolf> > If that doesn't work, but you can figure out a command line way to open > a particular URL, change getOption("browser") to use that. > > Duncan Murdoch > >> >> The Firefox that I am currently running is (according Firefox help >> --> "About Firefox") is version 36.0. >> >> Can anyone suggest to me how I can get my html R help back? >> >> For what it's worth: I am using Linux, Fedora 17. (Yes, I know it's >> elderly, but then so am I. :-) ) >> >> Also in case it has any relevance: >> >>>> sessionInfo() >>> R version 3.1.2 (2014-10-31) >>> Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit) >>> >>> locale: >>> [1] LC_CTYPE=en_NZ.utf8 LC_NUMERIC=C >>> [3] LC_TIME=en_NZ.utf8 LC_COLLATE=en_NZ.utf8 >>> [5] LC_MONETARY=en_NZ.utf8 LC_MESSAGES=en_NZ.utf8 >>> [7] LC_PAPER=en_NZ.utf8 LC_NAME=C >>> [9] LC_ADDRESS=C LC_TELEPHONE=C >>> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_NZ.utf8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C >>> >>> attached base packages: >>> [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base >>> >>> other attached packages: >>> [1] spatstat_1.40-0.064 misc_0.0-16 >>> >>> loaded via a namespace (and not attached): >>> [1] abind_1.4-0 deldir_0.1-7 goftest_1.0-2 grid_3.1.2 >>> [5] lattice_0.20-29 Matrix_1.1-4 mgcv_1.8-3 nlme_3.1-118 >>> [9] polyclip_1.3-1 tensor_1.5 tools_3.1.2-- Rolf Turner Technical Editor ANZJS Department of Statistics University of Auckland Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276 Home phone: +64-9-480-4619