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

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 7/5/2006 4:16 AM, Uwe Ligges wrote:
> Philippe Grosjean wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Related to Windows installer changes (requests), would it be possible to 
>> specify whether RGui is installed to run in MDI or SDI mode at start? It 
>> is as simple as adding a 'Run RGui in SDI mode' option in InnoSetup that 
>> installs a <Rdir>/etc/Rconsole file containing 'MDI = no' when the 
>> option is checked.
>>
>> Explanation: MDI mode is an old-style and it is less in use now (most 
>> recent multidocuments programs offer either navigation with tabs, and/or 
>> SDI mode to manipulate multiple documents; even Microsoft that used the 
>> MDI style in all its applications is now moving to SDI with Word, Excel, 
>> ...). Regarding R, the MDI-style in RGui is problematic, or at least 
>> suboptimal, with many GUIs under Windows.
>>
>> Currently, new users that are told to switch to "SDI style in RGui" are 
>> very intimidated by the procedure: (1) what is SDI versus MDI?, (2) they 
>> have to open the 'RGui preference' dialog box, make the changes, save 
>> the file in a particular location, (3) ignore the intimidating warning 
>> that appears, (4) close RGui and restart it. All this is very, very 
>> unfriendly for a very first approach to R... and I see it on the face of 
>> my students!
>>
>> With the option in InnoSetup installer, everything would be much 
>> smoother to get RGui in SDI mode from start.
> 
> 
> Yes, that is exactly what Duncan already did!
> 
>  From CHANGES:
> 
> "The installer can set defaults for MDI/SDI display, help style, and
> default action on q().  Custom builds of R can change these defaults."

Yes, indeed.  But note that one part of that entry is now wrong: 
currently the installer doesn't do anything about default action on q(), 
as I reverted that change (and have just fixed the CHANGES message).

Hopefully we'll work out something to do with saving/restoring 
workspaces before too long.

Duncan Murdoch

> 
> Uwe Ligges
> 
> 
>> Thanks for considering this proposition.
>> Best,
>>
>> Philippe Grosjean
>>
>> ..............................................<°}))><........
>>   ) ) ) ) )
>> ( ( ( ( (    Prof. Philippe Grosjean
>>   ) ) ) ) )
>> ( ( ( ( (    Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
>>   ) ) ) ) )   Mons-Hainaut University, Belgium
>> ( ( ( ( (
>> ..............................................................
>>
>> Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
>>> On Tue, 4 Jul 2006, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 7/4/2006 11:57 AM, Uwe Ligges wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> 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).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>    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!
>>>>>>
>>>>>>    Duncan> I haven't made any change to the Mac GUI to support this.  On
>>>>>>    Duncan> Unix-alikes, the text prompt should respect this option.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>    Duncan> The other change is to the Windows installer, to
>>>>>>    Duncan> allow the user to choose whether to set
>>>>>>    Duncan> quit.with.no.save, MDI/SDI display, and help style
>>>>>>    Duncan> at install time.  The only (intentional) change to
>>>>>>    Duncan> the current behaviour is to default to CHM help
>>>>>>    Duncan> instead of plain text.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> People have asked me in private about this, and I didn't know
>>>>>> the answer:
>>>>>> Is it true that this means that people can no longer commit the
>>>>>> "cheap package install trick" on Windows for  R-code-only
>>>>>> packages?
>>>>>> Namely
>>>>>>  1) install a source package on a Linux/Unix/MacOSX machine
>>>>>>     (where it is often simple to have all the necessary tools available)
>>>>>>  2) zip the resulting installed package
>>>>>>  3) unzip it on the target Windows machine into the corresponding
>>>>>>     library (directory).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Of course, this trick will not provide any *.chm help files.
>>>>>> Will the cheap-installed package still work, using the *.txt (or
>>>>>> *.html) help files?
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, the user has to ask
>>>>>    help(topic, chmhelp = FALSE)
>>>>> in this case, or (s)he get the message:
>>>>>
>>>>>              No CHM help for 'foo' in package 'pkg' is available:
>>>>>      the CHM file for the package is missing
>>>>>
>>>>> Perhaps it is possible to arrange some fallback to plain text help if
>>>>> chmhelp is not available: in print.help_files_with_topic call print() on
>>>>> the "help_files_with_topic" object again, but change attribute "type" to
>>>>> "help" before that call ...
>>>> Yes, that seems to work.  I'll add that.
>>> Before help() was reorganized to use print() methods it used to fall back 
>>> to text help if other versions were not available (at least on Windows), 
>>> so it does seem sensible to reinstate that.
>>>
>>> Brian
>>>
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