[Rd] R v2.10.0: Doc clarification for cross references and where are we heading?

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 24/09/2009 7:30 AM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> On 24/09/2009 6:29 AM, Romain Francois wrote:
>> On 09/24/2009 12:04 PM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>>  >
>>  > On 24/09/2009 5:42 AM, Romain Francois wrote:
>>  >> On 09/24/2009 11:28 AM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>>  >>> On 23/09/2009 11:21 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>>  >>>> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 10:54 PM, Duncan Murdoch
>>  >>>> <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
>>  >>>>> - Ways to link from man pages to vignettes. The reverse would be
>>  >>>>> nice, but
>>  >>>>> it's not possible with the current design, so that would be far off.
>>  >>>>>
>>  >>>> If feasible I would like to be able to link to any text, html or pdf
>>  >>>> file in the package. For example, it would be nice to be able to link
>>  >>>> to the NEWS file and pdf files that are included in the package even
>>  >>>> if they are not vignettes, etc.
>>  >>> The \Sexpr mechanism probably allows this, though there are 
>> currently no
>>  >>> built-in support functions to help you get there. As I mentioned, that
>>  >>> could all be done by code in a contributed package.
>>  >>>
>>  >>> One way would be to have one help page which contains only
>>  >>>
>>  >>> \Sexpr[stage=render, results=rd]{generatePage()}
>>  >>>
>>  >>> and it will be 100% generated at render time, containing whatever you
>>  >>> want it to contain. (Presumably you'll have some way to communicate 
>> what
>>  >>> you want through variables that generatePage() can see.) Each time you
>>  >>> link to it you'll see something different.
>>  >>>
>>  >>> Duncan Murdoch
>>  >>
>>  >> Brilliant. Thanks. That solves my question as well.
>>  >>
>>  >> I did not see results = documented in ?Rd2HTML, what is allowed ?
>>  >> Is \Sexpr ignored when rendering other formats (tex, ...) ?
>>  >> or is there a way (similar to #ifdef) to only provide some content to
>>  >> some renderers ?
>>  >
>>  > As of yesterday, it's documented in Writing R Extensions. \Sexpr is
>>  > format-agnostic: it doesn't output HTML, it outputs plain text which is
>>  > wrapped in the appropriate HTML/LaTeX/whatever, or Rd input which is
>>  > processed by the whole system. So the generator would currently have to
>>  > use sneaky methods to figure out the format, looking at which function
>>  > called it, etc. I imagine in the long run we'll define some state
>>  > variables which the code can look at, but I'd rather see use-cases
>>  > before deciding what those should be.
>>  >
>>  > Duncan Murdoch
>>
>> Sure. One last thing, can the \Sexpr trigger some code that redirects to 
>> some other page ? I suppose one could just call browseURL, but this 
>> would bring another tab, ...

Sorry, I missed this.  The answer is no, not currently, but it could 
generate a link for the user to manually navigate there.

Duncan Murdoch
>>
>> Do I need to depend on R >= 2.10.0  if I use \Sexpr ?
> 
> I think so.
> 
> Duncan Murdoch
> 
>> Gabor, would you like to team up to generate some sort of incubator 
>> package to take advantage of the new system ?
>>
>> Romain
>>
> 
>