[R] Is there a way to open R terminal running in the background

Duncan Murdoch murdoch.duncan at gmail.com
Wed Apr 19 18:53:30 CEST 2017


On 19/04/2017 12:45 PM, Brad P wrote:
> Duncan,
>
> I was thinking to have an additional button in the GUI which would use
> an R function to open the window/process running in the background.
> I don't think this is a VBS question, as it is simply used to start the
> GUI without opening R and calling it directly.
> I suppose this may be considered a Windows question - I will look
> further into opening a process running in the background using DOS commands.

If you run "R.exe CMD BATCH MyGUI.R", then R doesn't maintain a window 
at all.  It just reads input and writes output.  So I think it really is 
the higher level thing (VBS in your case, cmd.exe if you run that at a 
prompt) that might have the ability to do what you want.

Duncan Murdoch

>
> Thank you for your time.
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 12:14 PM, Duncan Murdoch
> <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com <mailto:murdoch.duncan at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 19/04/2017 11:44 AM, Brad P wrote:
>
>         Hello,
>
>         I am working on a GUI, which is working well so far.
>         I am working on a Windows 7 machine with 64 bit R (Microsoft R
>         Open 3.3.2)
>
>         Essentially:
>         1) a VBS executable is used to open the GUI leaving the R
>         terminal running
>         in the background but not showing using:
>
>         CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Run R.exe CMD BATCH MyGUI.R , 0, TRUE
>
>
>     I think this is more of a Microsoft question than anything specific
>     to R.  How do you ask VBS to show you a process that it is running?
>
>     No idea where to go with VBS questions.
>
>     Duncan Murdoch
>
>
>         2) for the GUI I use code similar to that shown below
>
>         My question is, when the GUI is opened, an instance of R runs in the
>         background.
>         Is there a way to show ('open') that R terminal?  And similarly
>         put it back
>         as invisible.
>         I am imagining that I can write an R function to either open
>         this directly
>         or by using Windows OS commands
>
>         I have found  a way to open a terminal using the code at this
>         link, but it
>         is not ideal (I want an actual R terminal):
>         http://freesourcecode.net/rprojects/104/sourcecode/ex-RGtk2-terminal.R
>         <http://freesourcecode.net/rprojects/104/sourcecode/ex-RGtk2-terminal.R>
>
>
>
>         # MyGUI.R
>         ##################################################################
>         library(RGtk2)
>
>         # initiate main window
>         main_window <<- gtkWindow(show = FALSE)
>         main_window["title"] <- "My GUI"
>         main_window$setDefaultSize(800, 600) # (width, height)
>
>         # problem: red [X] in top-right leaves underlying R instance open
>         main_window$deletable <- FALSE  # makes the top-right [X] delete
>         option not
>         work ...
>         # Can this button be reprogrammed??
>
>         # function to read in data file
>         open_cb <- function(widget, window) {
>           dialog <- gtkFileChooserDialog("Choose a CSV file", window,
>         "open",
>                                          "gtk-cancel",
>         GtkResponseType["cancel"],
>         "gtk-open",
>                                          GtkResponseType["accept"])
>           if (dialog$run() == GtkResponseType["accept"]) {
>             fileName <<- dialog$getFilename()
>             dat <<- read.csv(fileName, header=TRUE, na.strings=c("","NA"))
>           }
>           dialog$destroy()
>           statusbar$push(info, paste("Dataset", fileName, "is currently
>         loaded."))
>         }
>
>         # variable to indicate whether it is time to stop R
>         StopNOW <<- 0
>
>         quit_cb <- function(widget, window){
>           StopNOW <<- 1
>           window$destroy()
>           quit(save = "no")
>         }
>
>         # Lists actions in dropdown or toolbar menus
>         actions <- list(
>           list("FileMenu", NULL, "Input File"),
>           list("Open", "gtk-open", "_Import CSV File", "<control>O",
>                "Select a CSV file to load as a spreadsheet", open_cb),
>           list("Quit", "gtk-quit", "_Quit", "<control>Q",
>                "Quit the application", quit_cb)
>         )
>         action_group <- gtkActionGroup("spreadsheetActions")
>         action_group$addActions(actions, main_window)
>
>         ui_manager <- gtkUIManager()
>         ui_manager$insertActionGroup(action_group, 0)
>         merge <- ui_manager$newMergeId()
>         ui_manager$addUi(merge.id <http://merge.id> = merge, path = "/",
>         name = "menubar", action =
>         NULL, type = "menubar", top = FALSE)
>         ui_manager$addUi(merge, "/menubar", "file", "FileMenu", "menu",
>         FALSE)
>         ui_manager$addUi(merge, "/menubar/file", "open", "Open",
>         "menuitem", FALSE)
>         ui_manager$addUi(merge, "/", "toolbar", NULL, "toolbar", FALSE)
>         ui_manager$addUi(merge, "/toolbar", "quit", "Quit", "toolitem",
>         FALSE)
>
>         menubar <- ui_manager$getWidget("/menubar")
>         toolbar <- ui_manager$getWidget("/toolbar")
>         main_window$addAccelGroup(ui_manager$getAccelGroup())
>
>         # Status bar shown at bottom left of GUI
>         statusbar <- gtkStatusbar()
>         info <- statusbar$getContextId("info")
>         statusbar$push(info, "Ready")
>
>         notebook <- gtkNotebook()
>         notebook$setTabPos("bottom")
>
>         vbox <- gtkVBox(homogeneous = FALSE, spacing = 0)
>         vbox$packStart(menubar, expand = FALSE, fill = FALSE, padding = 0)
>         vbox$packStart(toolbar, FALSE, FALSE, 0) # Uncomment if toolbar
>         is used
>         vbox$packStart(notebook, TRUE, TRUE, 0)
>         vbox$packStart(statusbar, FALSE, FALSE, 0)
>         main_window$add(vbox)
>
>         # open GUI window
>         main_window$show()
>
>         gtkWidgetGrabFocus(main_window)
>
>         # This repeat loop & stopNOW variable keeps the GUI window open
>         until closed
>         repeat {
>         Sys.sleep(0.001)
>             if (StopNOW == 1) break
>           }
>         # End GUI Code
>
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>
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