[Rd] Q: Windows/readline: missing history search

[Prof Brian Ripley]

Your error is in your subject line: getline rather than readline is used 
on Windows.  (readline was not written for Windows and depends on a 
'curses' library not available for Windows terminals let alone RGui.  A 
considerable amount of time was spent trying to use it, unsuccessfully.)


On 13/04/2017 07:23, Ulrich Windl wrote:
> Hello!
>
> Ever since I used R on Windows (RGui) I am missing the ability to search the command history (Cntrl+R (reverse-search-history) in BASH, for example). Is there a particular reason for having this function disabled? Another feature would be word-wise delete (kill-word, backward-kill-word).
>
> Probably being able to use the Alt-key as Meta key for readline (instead of activating menu entries) would be helpful. At least of the console window has the input focus.

That's the Windows way.  And users of e.g. Emacs on macOS know how this 
can cause awkward conflicts.

> Another nice feature would be PuTTY-like copying of selected text: It's sufficient to mark text in the console to have it put into the clipboard. In Rgui I need an explicit copy.

That's the Windows way: PuTTY is using an older Unix/X11 standard (not 
so much used on Unix nowadays).

> Finally I'd like if Rgui would remember the state of the MDI main window (maximized or not, maybe position and size also): Currently it always starts maximized.

AFAIR that is part of the configuration you can save.

> Regards,
> Ulrich



-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, University of Oxford