[R] Rcmdr Plugin and menus.txt

[Charilaos Skiadas]

Hi all,

	I'm trying to write a plugin for R Commander, following the model of  
the TeachingDemos plugin. I am struggling trying to even add items by  
editing the menus.txt file. I would welcome any help from anyone who  
has messed with it. Essentially the problem I am having is: I cannot  
create a submenu to a newly created menu. Here is what the menus.txt  
file looks like:

#   type    menu/item      operation/parent   
label                              command/menu                 
activation    install?
menu    psychMenu       topMenu          
""                                      ""                           
""                      ""
item    psychMenu       command         "Test"               
testOne         ""                      ""
item    topMenu         cascade          
"Psych"                                 psychMenu                    
""                      ""
menu    testTwoMenu      psychMenu  
""                                    ""                           
""                  ""
item    testTwoMenu      command         "Binomial  
distributions"                testOne                    
""                      ""
item    testTwoMenu      command         "Normal  
distributions"                  testOne                    
""                      ""
item    testTwoMenu      command         "t  
distributions"                       testOne                         
""                      ""
item    psychMenu   cascade     "Submenu"                
testTwoMenu                  ""                      ""


I would expect the above to create:
1) A top level menu called "psychMenu", with the title "Psych"
2) An item in this menu with title "Test"
3) A second item, called "Submenu", and internally called  
"testTwoMenu", which is itself a submenu.
4) Three items in that submenu.

The difference between this and the example is basically, that in the  
example, the testTwoMenu is created as a submenu of the  
distributionsMenu. If I change those last five lines above to read:

menu    testTwoMenu      distributionsMenu  
""                                    ""                           
""                  ""
item    testTwoMenu      command         "Binomial  
distributions"                testOne                    
""                      ""
item    testTwoMenu      command         "Normal  
distributions"                  testOne                    
""                      ""
item    testTwoMenu      command         "t  
distributions"                       testOne                         
""                      ""
item    distributionsMenu   cascade     "Submenu"                
testTwoMenu                  ""                      ""


Then everything works fine and the submenu is created inside the  
distributions menu. On the other hand, my original code gives me the  
error:

Warning in max(which((Menus[, "operationOrParent"] == "cascade") &  
(Menus[,  :
	 no non-missing arguments to max; returning -Inf
Error in eval(expr, envir, enclos) : object "psychMenu" not found


I should point out further, that keeping only the first three lines  
from my original code also works fine, and creates the new menu and  
an item in it. The problem seems to arise when I try to create a  
submenu in a menu I have just created.

Any thoughts how to accomplish this, or rather what am I doing wrong?

Should this go to R-SIG-GUI instead? Or is there another list more  
appropriate?

Thanks,
Haris Skiadas
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Hanover College