[R] Syntax coloring in R console

Liviu Andronic landronimirc at gmail.com
Fri Apr 1 17:46:18 CEST 2011 

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 5:05 PM, January Weiner
<january.weiner at mpiib-berlin.mpg.de> wrote:
> Dear Liviu,
>
> thanks for the programming tip! However, I do all my editing in vim,
> which has had syntax highlighting for quite a while, as well as
> auto-completion and a number of other goodies. But while I do most of
> my programing in vim,
>
For info, vim has plug-in for R.


> I do most of my scientific studies simply using
> the R interface and keeping a manually edited "lab book" apart from
> the scripts. Clearly, one can do as much with Rstudio -- I just don't
> see any advantages, but I do see a disadvantage in my specific case:
> all sub-windows are confined to the "desktop". In other words, having
> multiple plots on one monitor and a terminal with R command line is
> not possible.
>
I see. This would be more of a hack, but you could use playwith as an
external graphics device. Otherwise, there seems to be an easy hack:

> x11()
> plot(1:10)


> A question, though. Given that I have projects assorted in various
> directories, how can I start RStudio opening a project stored in
> .RData and .Rhistory of a given directory? I.e., how can I make
> RStudio open the current directory (like R does), and not $HOME?
>
This is a known issue and the RStudio devels plan to address this.
Currently I simply open RStudio in $HOME (and make sure that there is
no existent .RData there), then open the .RData from my project's
directory (by clicking on it in the right-hand Files pane) and then in
the same pane I hit More > Set as working dir. A bit cumbersome, but
seems to work, and a small price to pay for all the available
functionality.

Regards
Liviu


> Thanks nonetheless,
>
> j.
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 4:20 PM, Liviu Andronic <landronimirc at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 3:48 PM, January Weiner
>> <january.weiner at mpiib-berlin.mpg.de> wrote:
>>> RStudio might be a fine program, but it does not feature syntax
>>> highlighting, which is the only thing I am missing from R Console (it
>>> only colors the commands typed).
>>>
>> The idea is that you shouldn't use the R console for you main
>> programming needs, but only for quick and dirty checks. For the bulk
>> of programming tasks you are invited to use the integrated editor
>> (File > New > Script). The editor window does feature syntax
>> highlighting, and a very helpful completion mechanism (via <tab>).
>> Sending lines for execution to the terminal is as easy as clicking
>> 'run lines' or ctrl+enter. If you're not a fan of keeping scripts for
>> your projects you can easily use temporary files that you don't save.
>>
>>
>>> Moreover, the very idea of squeezing
>>> all R windows into one "window-desktop" would be counterproductive in
>>> my particular case.
>>>
>> Notice that all panes are freely resizable and can be resized to the
>> point of becoming hidden. Future releases will give more control over
>> the panes layout (I think).
>>
>> Regards
>> Liviu
>>
>>
>>> Thank you anyways!
>>>
>>> j.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> [1] http://alternativeto.net/software/rstudio/about
>>>>
>>>> Regards
>>>> Liviu
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I tried JGR, the GUI for R, but I have found the following problems
>>>>> with this package:
>>>>>
>>>>> - I was not able to change the background color from a repulsive grey,
>>>>> - apparently, GNU readline is not implemented in that package, that
>>>>> is, there is no functionality similar to ctrl-r (which searches
>>>>> through the history for matching commands), something I use
>>>>> frequently, and
>>>>> - tab expansion is of limited use (e.g. doesn't browse files in the
>>>>> current directory when expanding quoted arguments e.g. in
>>>>> "read.table").
>>>>>
>>>>> All in all, I'd be happy to continue using the plain R console, but
>>>>> syntax highlighting would be nice. Any advice would be extremely
>>>>> welcome.
>>>>>
>>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> January
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> sessionInfo()
>>>>> R version 2.12.2 (2011-02-25)
>>>>> Platform: i486-pc-linux-gnu (32-bit)
>>>>>
>>>>> locale:
>>>>>  [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8       LC_NUMERIC=C
>>>>> LC_TIME=en_US.utf8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.utf8     LC_MONETARY=C
>>>>>  [6] LC_MESSAGES=en_US.utf8    LC_PAPER=en_US.utf8       LC_NAME=C
>>>>>            LC_ADDRESS=C              LC_TELEPHONE=C
>>>>> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.utf8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
>>>>>
>>>>> attached base packages:
>>>>> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>>
>>>>> ______________________________________________
>>>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Do you know how to read?
>>>> http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm
>>>> http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader
>>>> Do you know how to write?
>>>> http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> -------- Dr. January Weiner 3 --------------------------------------
>>> Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology
>>> Charitéplatz 1
>>> D-10117 Berlin, Germany
>>> Web   : www.mpiib-berlin.mpg.de
>>> Tel     : +49-30-28460514
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Do you know how to read?
>> http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm
>> http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader
>> Do you know how to write?
>> http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail
>>
>
>
>
> --
> -------- Dr. January Weiner 3 --------------------------------------
> Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology
> Charitéplatz 1
> D-10117 Berlin, Germany
> Web   : www.mpiib-berlin.mpg.de
> Tel     : +49-30-28460514
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>



-- 
Do you know how to read?
http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm
http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader
Do you know how to write?
http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail

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