In a message dated 3/31/03 6:32:45 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
bitwrit@ozemail.com.au writes:

> AT wrote:
> >If you are not trying to write R editing functionality for an editor
> >other than (X)Emacs or WinEdt, what you describe below is already
> >available in these editors using ESS with (X)Emacs and R macros for
> >WinEdt. 
> 
> Well, in fact, I am trying to use the functionality already present in 
> NEdit, which is in my opinion a pretty good editor. Thanks for the tip 
> about WinEdit - I will follow it up

It is WinEdt NOT WinEdit (that is another editor).

Another tip---R macro installation for WinEdt asks you to use its 
initialization file that makes R components possible. I had trouble 
configuring it with earlier my configuration of WinEdt, so I created another 
instance (desktop Icon) of WinEdt that uses R initialization file, while 
keeping the old configuration for other work.

> >John Fox's enhancements for using ESS with Xemacs at page below. You
> >can also use ESS alone, without these enhanced menus, etc.
> 
> Couldn't find much about how ESS actually does the trick. Either this is a 
> very difficult thing to do or it is quite easy but very difficult to find 
> out about. I lean toward the latter at the moment

Emacs or Xemacs are needed as editors to use ESS (Emacs Speaks Statistics)
<A HREF="http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ntemacs.html">http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ntemacs.html</A>
<A HREF="http://www.xemacs.org/">http://www.xemacs.org/</A>

Once (X)Emacs is installed, ESS can be installed from the following site.
<A HREF="http://software.biostat.washington.edu/statsoft/ess/">http://software.biostat.washington.edu/statsoft/ess/</A>

When a file with *.R extension is opened in (X)Emacs with ESS installed, 
either the menus or keyboard commands can be used to send the current line, 
region (block of lines), file, etc., to the running R process. R process can 
be started with 'Meta-x R Ret'. Usually the Esc key on windows keyboards is 
assigned to 'Meta', but this can be changed. Once (X)Emacs and ESS are 
installed, it is quite easy. Really.  

(X)Emacs, ESS combination is quite good on windows, and also works on Linux, 
Unix, etc. It can also be used for other statistical programming like SAS, 
Stata, etc, a major advantage over WinEdt. WinEdit has some very useful 
features for using LaTeX, and other programming, but current configuration 
for using R needs changes to get to the level of (X)Emacs--ESS combination 
(for instance, the R window can not be minimized while sending commands to 
it, occupying precious screen-space). A little reading at the above sites 
should give a pretty good idea of trade-offs and functionality.

Hope this helps.





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