[R] Fancy quotes on Windows

[James W. MacDonald]

Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> On 11/6/2009 10:40 AM, James W. MacDonald wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I don't use Windows as my primary OS anymore, so didn't notice this 
>> until recently. In R-2.10.0 under Windows useFancyQuotes is FALSE by 
>> default, but this doesn't seem to affect the rendering of (text) help 
>> pages.
>>
>> This is not a problem if I run via the Rgui or Rterm (via DOS prompt), 
>> as the help pages are rendered in a popup window that understands 
>> directional quotes. However, if I run under emacs/ESS, the help is 
>> rendered within emacs, which doesn't understand directional quotes, so 
>> any quoted text is surrounded by \221thetext\222, which is obviously 
>> difficult to read.
>>
>> Is there another setting that I am missing that affects the usage of 
>> directional quotes for the help pages?
> 
> I don't see this.  Are you sure you haven't got a typo somewhere?

Pretty sure. I get the opposite:

Loading required package: utils
 > options("useFancyQuotes")
$useFancyQuotes
[1] FALSE

 > ?mean

This is at a DOS prompt. In the popup box I get

If ‘trim’ is zero (the default), the arithmetic mean of the
      values in ‘x’ is computed, as a numeric or complex vector of

Also, from ?sQuote:

Where fancy quotes are used, you should be aware that they may not
      be rendered correctly as not all fonts include the requisite
      glyphs: for example some have directional single quotes but not
      directional double quotes.  This is particularly troublesome in
      Windows ‘Command Prompt’ windows, which by default are set up
      to run in the so-called OEM codepage, which in most locales uses a
      different encoding from Windows.  Further, if the codepage is
      changed (with ‘chcp.exe’, e.g. to 1252 in a Western European
      language), the default raster fonts do not support the directional
      quotes.

      To work around this, the default for
      ‘options("useFancyQuotes")’ is ‘FALSE’ on Windows except
      for the ‘Rgui’ console.  There fancy quotes work with the
      default Courier New font and more elegantly with Lucida Console
      and standard the CJK fonts, but directional double quotes are
      missing in raster fonts such as Courier and FixedSys.

Best,

Jim



> 
> When I run options("useFancyQuotes") in a new session, I see
> 
>  > options("useFancyQuotes")
> $useFancyQuotes
> [1] TRUE
> 
> and when I ask for help, I see help pages that respect that choice, e.g.
> 
>  > ?mean
> 
> gives ‘trim = 0’ in the description of x.  If I set
> 
>  > options(useFancyQuotes=FALSE)
>  > ?mean
> 
> I see 'trim = 0'.
> 
> Maybe if there's no typo, it's emacs or ESS that's messing up somehow.
> 
> Duncan Murdoch

-- 
James W. MacDonald, M.S.
Biostatistician
Douglas Lab
University of Michigan
Department of Human Genetics
5912 Buhl
1241 E. Catherine St.
Ann Arbor MI 48109-5618
734-615-7826