[R] help output paged in separate window

[Frank E Harrell Jr]

On Sun, 25 May 2003 10:42:27 +0100 (BST)
Ted.Harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:

> On 24-May-03 Ted Harding wrote:
> > I use R in X windows on Linux.
> > [...]
> > Often, I would like to have the output from 'help' pop up in a separate
> > window so that I can continue to work in the R window while reading the
> > help. The "help" window could then be closed when interest in this
> > particular help dwindles.
> > [...]
> 
> Thanks to Jonathan Baron and Peter Dalgaard for private comments and help
> on this question. Peter in particular pointed out that
>   library(tcltk); options(pager=tkpager)
> does the trick of detaching the pager from the R window exactly as
> desired, with relatively small overhead (as opposed to an HTML browser
> for 'help.start', or ESS: I put enough load on this 48MB laptop without
> having a multimegabyte Fat Man sitting on my memory).

tkpager works well; I just wish it handled the "see also" links to other help files.

I wish that help.start() would work with the blazing fast html browser dillo (Linux/Unix).  dillo is a 240K executable written in C.

Frank
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Frank E Harrell Jr              Prof. of Biostatistics & Statistics
Div. of Biostatistics & Epidem. Dept. of Health Evaluation Sciences
U. Virginia School of Medicine  http://hesweb1.med.virginia.edu/biostat