[R] Trouble with HTML search engine & Mozilla Firebird

[Damon Wischik]

I'm having trouble with the HTML-based search engine, and I'd be grateful
for any advice. I am using Mozilla Firebird 0.7 on Debian 3.0 with R
1.8.0. (I've also had the trouble with Mozilla Firebird 0.6 on Debian 3.0.
I also use Mozilla Firebird 0.6 on Windows XP, and I have no trouble with
the HTML-based search engine.)

When I type help.start() in R, it brings up the proper search page. 
I follow the link to "Search engine & keywords", type some text into the
search box, and click "search". It wipes the text in the search box, and
leaves me at the search page. The URL changes, to something like
file:///tmp/Rtmp27053/.R/doc/html/search/SearchEngine.html?SEARCHTERM=MySearchTerm&TITLES=1&KEYWORDS=1&ALIASES=1

I've looked through the help on the R web site. There are plenty of
messages which say to check that Java is correctly installed and that
Javascript is turned on, but this does not seem to be my problem...

I have installed Java 1.4.2_03. Java is installed in my browser, according
to the test applet at http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.jsp
Javascript works in my browser, as far as I can test it. I tried modifying
the search page, to put in various debugging messages, and they showed up
as I expected.

When I execute the search, the Mozilla Firebird javascript console comes
up with an error message: "Error: document.SearchEngine.search is not a
function". The line of the web page which causes this error is

line = line + document.SearchEngine.search(...)

I tried putting in some debugging messages before this, to show me what's
going on:

alert("I found "+document.SearchEngine)
alert("I found "+document.SearchEngine.search)

The first shows me that javascript can find the object
document.SearchEngine, and the second suggests that it can't find the
method search() from within that object.

This suggests there is some trouble in the interface between Java and
Javascript in this browser. I looked through all the security settings,
but (as far as I can see) I've enabled everything to do with Java and
Javascript. 

Does anyone have any advice?

Damon.