[R] Set window title for plot on any OS

[Simon Zehnder]

Haha, good point!

So, the correct code is:

any(names(formals(getOption("device"))) == "title") {
	dev.new(title = "title")
}

Thanks for correcting my approach Rolf!


Best 

Simon

On Jul 14, 2013, at 1:02 AM, Rolf Turner <rolf.turner at xtra.co.nz> wrote:

> 
> 
> I think you ought to take a look at
> 
>    fortune("Lewis Carroll")
> 
>    cheers,
> 
>        Rolf Turner
> 
> On 14/07/13 01:45, Simon Zehnder wrote:
>> Hi Duncan,
>> 
>> thank you very much for your advice! That makes it all work.
>> 
>> I check in addition for a "title" argument in the device via
>> 
>> if (any(names(getOption("device")) == TRUE)) {
>> 	dev.new(title = "title")
>> }
>> 
>> Thanks again!
>> 
>> Simon
>> 
>> On Jul 13, 2013, at 2:40 PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 13-07-13 1:33 PM, Simon Zehnder wrote:
>>>> Dear R-Users,
>>>> 
>>>> I am writing a package using S4 classes. In the generic method "plot" I want to set the title for the plotting window as I will have several windows and window titles help the users to distinguish the graphics without putting a title into the plot itself (this can be done by users whenever they want)
>>>> 
>>>> So I created a helper function .setDeviceTitle which I called after the plot has been done:
>>>> 
>>>> ".setDeviceTitle" <- function(title = "title", dev = dev.cur()) {
>>>> 	dev <- names(dev)[1]
>>>> 	
>>>> 	## check for OS ##
>>>> 	if (dev == "windows") {
>>>> 		windows(title = title)
>>>> 	} else if (dev == "X11") {
>>>> 		X11(title = title)
>>>> 	} else {
>>>> 		quartz(title = title)
>>>> 	}
>>>> }
>>>> 
>>>> The result is a new device with the title in addition to the old. Is it possible to give a window a title after the plot has been done? If not: Before I plot the device I cannot know what device it will be, so I thought about a check via capabilities():
>>>> 
>>>> if (any(names(capabilities()) == "X11")) {
>>>> 	X11(title = title)
>>>> }
>>>> else if (any(names(capabilities)) == "windows") {
>>>> 	windows(title = title)
>>>> } else {
>>>> 	quartz(title = title)
>>>> }
>>>> 
>>>> I want to have a safe method, which works on each OS R can run. How would you solve the problem?
>>> Use dev.new() rather than picking a particular device.  If all the possible devices support the "title" argument, then
>>> 
>>> dev.new(title=title)
>>> 
>>> will be fine.  If you might need more customization (or want to protect against a user who chooses a device that doesn't have "title" as an argument), use getOption("device") to examine the call that will be used.
>>> 
>>> Duncan Murdoch
>>>