[ESS] I can not use install.packages

[Paul Johnson]

On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 3:10 AM, ben. <dev at c-optimal.com> wrote:
> this is a late answer, but in case someone else has the same problem, you can
> specify your CRAN mirror:
> ex:
> install.packages("mypkg",dependencies=TRUE,repos='http://cran.univ-lyon1.fr/')
>

Just to be clear, this is a flaw in Windows Emacs, which does not
appear in all versions of Emacs for windows.  I *believe* is is solved
in 24.1. It was, last time I checked. But it can still be a problem
any time you try to use a GUI chooser, not just for selecting repo
sites.

It is a case-specific fix to specify your favorite repo either in
install.packages( .., repos="http:// ...)  or to put it in .Rprofile.

To avoid this hassle, I have an Emacs init file I tell the students to use.

(if (eq system-type 'windows-nt)
    (setq use-file-dialog nil))
;; There's a problem with file selection dialogs on Windows


Put that in your init, then you never have the problem.

But I do expect it will get better and better because the ESS
developers have put a lot of work into it.

pj


-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science      Assoc. Director
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504      Center for Research Methods
University of Kansas                 University of Kansas
http://pj.freefaculty.org               http://quant.ku.edu