[Rd] Problem with Rcmdr Help menu under devel version of R 2.0.0

[John Fox]

Dear Brian,

Thank you very much for this -- I didn't grasp the implication of the NEWS
item.

I still have a small residual problem with respect to notification of
multiple matches, etc.: My normal procedure is to redirect informational
messages from the console to tcltk message boxes, but I can't figure out how
to suppress console output of these messages. If the messages were issued
via warning() rather than writeLines() in print.help_files_with_topic(), I'd
intercept them. Is there a reason for bypassing warning()?

Again, thanks.
 John

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Prof Brian Ripley [mailto:ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk] 
> Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2004 1:33 AM
> To: John Fox
> Cc: r-devel at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: RE: [Rd] Problem with Rcmdr Help menu under devel 
> version of R 2.0.0
> 
> You need to print the result of help.  From NEWS
> 
>     o	help() now returns information about available documentation for
> 	a given topic, and notifies about multiple matches.
> 
> and (unstated) does not print.
> 
> Brian
> 
> On Sun, 29 Aug 2004, John Fox wrote:
> 
> > Dear list members,
> > 
> > As an addendum to my previous message, Help buttons in 
> Rcmdr dialogs 
> > -- which generate calls to help() -- also fail to bring up 
> > corresponding help pages.
> > 
> > Again, any assistance would be appreciated.
> >  John
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: r-devel-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch 
> > > [mailto:r-devel-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of John Fox
> > > Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2004 10:53 PM
> > > To: r-devel at stat.math.ethz.ch
> > > Subject: [Rd] Problem with Rcmdr Help menu under devel 
> version of R 
> > > 2.0.0
> > > 
> > > Dear list members,
> > > 
> > > I've encountered the following problem with the Rcmdr 
> Help menu in 
> > > the development version of R 2.0.0 under Windows XP 
> ("Version 2.0.0 
> > > Under development (unstable) (2004-08-20), ISBN 3-900051-00-3"):
> > > 
> > > The main Commander window has a (tcltk) Help menu with 
> three items, 
> > > "Commander help", "About Rcmdr", and "Introduction to the R 
> > > Commander", which, in the development version of the 
> Rcmdr package, 
> > > call the following three functions:
> > > 
> > > helpCommander <- function() help("Commander")
> > > 
> > > helpAboutCommander <- function() help("aboutRcmdr")
> > > 
> > > browseManual <- function() {
> > >     
> > > 
> browseURL(paste(file.path(.path.package(package="Rcmdr")[1], "doc"), 
> > >         "/Getting-Started-with-the-Rcmdr.pdf", sep=""))
> > >     }
> > > 
> > > (Of course, there are help pages for "Commander" and 
> "aboutRcmdr" in 
> > > the Rcmdr package).
> > > 
> > > These functions are not exported by the Rcmdr package, 
> but as near 
> > > as I can tell, that doesn't seem to be the source of the problem.
> > > 
> > > The third menu item works fine, but the other two [which contain 
> > > calls to help()] appear to do nothing. I've tried several 
> > > variations, including specifying the package argument to 
> help() and 
> > > using ? in place of help(), but to no avail.
> > > Curiously, calling, e.g., Rcmdr:::helpCommander() 
> directly from the 
> > > R command prompt works just fine.
> > > 
> > > Unrelated to the above, I've also encountered some MD5 checksum 
> > > problems with R 2.0.0 binary packages for Windows installed from 
> > > CRAN:
> > > 
> > > ------------- output --------------------
> > > 
> > > files R/car have the wrong MD5 checksums files R/effects have the 
> > > wrong MD5 checksums files R/multcomp have the wrong MD5 checksums 
> > > files R/relimp have the wrong MD5 checksums
> > > 
> > > -------------  end  ---------------------
> > > 
> > > Finally, there seems to be a dependency problem with the lmtest 
> > > package Windows binary installed via the "Packages -> Install 
> > > package(s) from CRAN"
> > > menu in the R Console:
> > >     
> > > ------------- output --------------------
> > > 
> > > > local({a <- CRAN.packages()
> > > + install.packages(select.list(a[,1],,TRUE), .libPaths()[1], 
> > > + available=a,
> > > dependencies=TRUE)})
> > > trying URL
> > > `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.0/PACKAGES'
> > > Content type `text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1' length 18348 bytes 
> > > opened URL downloaded 17Kb
> > > 
> > > also installing the dependencies 'sandwich', 'zoo', 'strucchange'
> > > 
> > > trying URL
> > > 
> `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.0/sandwich_0.1-3.zip'
> > > Content type `application/zip' length 75982 bytes opened URL 
> > > downloaded 74Kb
> > > 
> > > trying URL
> > > `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.0/zoo_0.2-0.zip'
> > > Content type `application/zip' length 53003 bytes opened URL 
> > > downloaded 51Kb
> > > 
> > > trying URL
> > > `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.0/strucchange
> > _1.2-4.zip'
> > > Error in download.file(url, destfile, method, mode = "wb") : 
> > >         cannot open URL
> > > `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.0/strucchange
> > _1.2-4.zip'
> > > In addition: Warning message: 
> > > cannot open: HTTP status was `404 Not Found' 
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > -------------  end  ---------------------
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Any help would be appreciated, particularly with the problem I'm 
> > > experiencing with the Rcmdr Help menu.
> > > 
> > > Thanks,
> > >  John
> > > 
> > > ______________________________________________
> > > R-devel at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list 
> > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> > 
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-devel at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list 
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> > 
> > 
> 
> -- 
> Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
> Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
> University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
> 1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595
>