[R] html help for packages with MS Windows

[Peter Dalgaard BSA]

Jim Lindsey <jlindsey at alpha.luc.ac.be> writes:

> In the past few days, I have been helping people from Ethiopia and
> from Kenya to get started with R. We have discovered that properly
> installed libraries (survival5 or mine) work and the online (with ?)
> help is available but they do not appear in the html help (under
> packages) with MS Windows. Only the libraries supplied with R appear
> there. This is not true with netscape under (Linux) X-Windows where
> all installed libraries are listed.
>   We have used the standard installer that comes with R0.65.1. What
> are we doing wrong?

Missing one of the fine points in Brian+Guido's readme file:

<<
The list of packages and functions given by HTML help and used by the
search engine can be updated from a running R process by the command

        link.html.help()
>>

> PS It would be nice if the installer knew exactly where to put
> libraries within an R tree instead of having to specify the library
> directory.

Agreed. Or at least that you'd specify the root dir, which had same
default as when installing the binaries. (And perhaps get rid of
rw*.zip from the list of installable packages)

>   Also, the library/package dichotomy is extremely confusing for a new
> user. (I refuse to use the term, package, myself.) If the package
> terminology is to be retained, then they should be loaded with package().

Yes. Problem is that S-plus'ers are used to library(), but there might
be cause for a .Alias).

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907
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