[Rd] options("quit.with.no.save"), and Windows installer changes

[Simon Urbanek]

On Jul 4, 2006, at 11:15 AM, Martin Maechler wrote:

>>>>>> "Duncan" == Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca>
>>>>>>     on Tue, 04 Jul 2006 08:32:08 -0400 writes:
>
>     Duncan> I've just committed a couple of changes to R-devel  
> related to requests
>     Duncan> at userR about the Windows installer.  The first of  
> these affects all
>     Duncan> platforms, but I've only tested it on Windows:
>
>     Duncan> I added an option "quit.with.no.save".  If TRUE,
>     Duncan> then the default q("ask") prompt will not offer to
>     Duncan> save the workspace.  This is in response to the
>     Duncan> observation that new users who are instructed not to
>     Duncan> save their workspace, get confused when they
>     Duncan> accidentally answer Yes to the prompt to save it.
>
> Ok...  but I probably misunderstand a bit:
>
> The default has not been   q(save = "ask") but  q(save = "default"),
> and that default has depended on startup.
>
> Even now, "R --no-save"  already did have the desired effect,
> on Unix at least.  For my ESS setup, I have made this an automatic
> default many months ago.
>
> Wouldn't it be easier and sufficient to make "--no-save" a working  
> option on all platforms ?
> Or is the point really about changing the quitting dialog?
> For me quitting *without* a dialog is the most important thing  
> which I use (often several times a day).
>

I agree - it would be even nicer if there was a way to enable --no- 
save with some environment variable ...

However, I think Duncan's approach is a very bad idea, because it  
means that with the same answer will give you opposite result. This  
is a big UI no-no. (Windows users may may think it's a valid option,  
because Microsoft tends to do stupid things like that, but that's  
only because they never think about UI).

The correct approach is to change the default button, but definitely  
not the dialog box.

Speaking of default buttons - is there a specific reason why hitting  
<Enter> at the prompt is not a valid answer in the console? It would  
be nice to have let's say Enter=y, ^D=no, ^C=cancel (the last one  
works already).
In the Mac GUI the behavior is well-defined and compatible with all  
Mac applications (Enter=Save, Esc=Cancel, Cmd+D=Don's save) - doesn't  
Windows define something system-wide like that?

BTW: back to the original issue that Duncan raised - isn't the actual  
problem rather the fact that once you saved an image you cannot get  
rid of it? Unless you know the "internals", namely that it's a file  
named .RData, you can't discard it. There is no way to say "discard  
saved workspace". Maybe that's what should be addressed instead...


>     Duncan> I'm not sure about the wording of the user prompt
>     Duncan> question, which is now "Quit and discard
>     Duncan> workspace?".  The problem with this wording is that
>     Duncan> someone who automatically hits "y" will lose their
>     Duncan> work.  I've tried on Windows to make the dialog box
>     Duncan> look different enough that they should be warned.
>
> good!
>

Since when do people read text in dialog boxes ;)? Especially those  
that have been there for ages ;).

Cheers,
Simon