(On Windows XP with R 2.10.0)

1. In the past, I have used a desktop search engine (X1) to pre-index all of
R's html help files.  Obviously, this no longer works with dynamic help
pages.  It also appears that the .Rd files are converted to a binary format
when installed and cannot be indexed by X1.

2. I like to use firefox to type 'xyplot' into the 'awesome bar' and go to
the appropriate help page.  This obviously no longer works.

3. I daily run several different R sessions to keep different projects
separate.  The NEWS file says:

- The HTML help can now locate cross-references of the form
\link[pkg]{foo} and \link[pkg:foo]{bar} where 'foo' is an
alias in the package, rather than the documented (basename
of a) filename (since the documentation has been much ignored).

This appears to only be true if the original R session is still active.
Close one R session and the links die in the browser.  Aahg!  What madness!

4.  The NEWS file says:

o A new dynamic HTML help system is used by default, and may be
controlled using tools::startDynamicHelp().  With this enabled,
HTML help pages will be generated on request, resolving links
by searching through the current .libPaths().  The user
may set option("help.ports") to control which IP port is used
by the server.

This should be 'options', of course.  The 'options' page does not reference
"help.ports", but from an email on r-help I see options(help.ports =
sample(6800:6850)).  So I can fix the port at 6800, but the help page for
xyplot still disappears after closing an R session.

5. If I want to use --enable-prebuilt-html, I assume that I will have to
download the source and configure/build it myself instead of using the
pre-compiled Windows binaries?  Same with packages?  (Sorry if this is
obvious, I've never needed to do this before.)


Looking for a new workflow and remembering why I don't like to use ".0"
releases...

Kevin Wright

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