[R-SIG-Mac] loading Rcmdr, R-Tcl/Tk errors due to X11
James Wettenhall
wettenhall at wehi.EDU.AU
Wed Oct 19 09:21:15 CEST 2005
Thanks Jan,
That makes some sense to me. But I'm still not really clear on how best
to advise a user of my R-Tcl/Tk package who says "I'm just a dumb GUI
user. I don't want to use the R command-line, I only want to use your
Tcl/Tk GUI. And I don't want to learn what an environment variable is.
etc."
It's very unlikely that the sort of user I'm talking about would be using
emacs (and I don't use it either). I'm more interested in making it as
easy as possible for a user to get started with an R-Tcl/Tk GUI who
doesn't know how to use the R command-line and who doesn't know about
things like environment variables and .Rprofile files etc. So that's why
I was wondering whether it would be possible for tcltk's .First.lib() or
equivalent to test whether X11 is running, and if not, give a friendly
error message.
Best wishes,
James
> I run R from the terminal, from the Aqua GUI, from Carbon/Cocoa
> emacs, or from X11 emacs. In order to make sure that X11 is
> always available I start X11.app from the login items in system
> preferences. This is not enough, because running R from carbon/cocoa
> emacs cannot
> find $DISPLAY even if X11.app is running and it is defined in .tcshrc
> -- so in addition my Rprofile.site has
>
> local({
> options(device="x11")
> options(repos="http://cran.r-project.org")
> options(pkgType="source")
> Sys.putenv(DISPLAY=":0.0")
> })
>
> .First <- function() {
> cat("\n Welcome to Jan's R-2.3.0 !\n\n")
> }
>
> This guarantees that library(tkrplot) or library(tcltk) always
> works in all my different GUI's.
>
> On Oct 18, 2005, at 19:24 , James Wettenhall wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> This problem of getting Tcl/Tk errors in R on MacOSX because X11 isn't
>> running seems to be quite common, and unfortunately R's tcltk
>> package is
>> currently unable to check whether X11 is running (if the operating
>> system
>> is Darwin) and if not, give a friendly error message advising the
>> user to
>> run X11. My expertise on this is limited, but do people think it
>> would be
>> possible for the tcltk package to automatically check for X11?
>> Obviously
>> this is platform dependent - X11 is not required on Windows.
>>
>> A colleague of mine had Tcl/Tk errors and she found that she could
>> only
>> start R-Tcl/Tk applications when her network cable was removed from
>> her
>> laptop. When the network cable was plugged in, X11 appeared to
>> start OK,
>> but then it silently froze up due to some network problem. So the
>> R-Tcl/Tk interface failed to initalize as a result.
>>
>> Hope this was of interest to some people.
>> Best wishes,
>> James
>>
>>
>>
>>> Hi Cormac,
>>>
>>> The error you are getting is because X11 isn't launched prior to when
>>> you are launching the tcltk package in R. Try rebooting, and attempt
>>> to launch X11 before loading R. If X11 still doesn't launch, then
>>> your problem isn't with R, and you might reinstalling X11.
>>>
>>> You also probably want to look at the OS X installation instructions
>>> for R Commander (http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Misc/Rcmdr/
>>> installation-notes.html).
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>> On 18-Oct-05, at 3:54 PM, Cormac Lawler wrote:
>>>
>>>> (originally posted to R-Help - advised to post here)
>>>> Hi,
>>>> I'm using a Mac, I've downloaded R (base), and I'm trying to
>>>> download
>>>> the package R Commander. I thought I had already done this (both
>>>> from
>>>> the web and from within R) but it doesn't seem to be working - it's
>>>> not there as a "search()" reveals. However, there are plenty of
>>>> files
>>>> on my system linked with Rcmdr - located in
>>>> HD>Library>Frameworks>R.framework>Versions>2.1.1>Resources>Library>R
>>>> cm
>>>> dr.
>>>> Is it simply in the wrong location to use it? The other
>>>> possibility is
>>>> that I keep getting a tcltk error whenever I try to load up the
>>>> package from the Package Manager from within R - and when I try to
>>>> upload the tcltk package, this also gives the same error [1]. I also
>>>> get a "Couldn't launch application" error whenever I try to
>>>> launch the
>>>> X11.app.
>>>>
>>>> This is probably so basic it's staring me in the eyes, but I need
>>>> your
>>>> help please. I'd be happy to give any extra info you need.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>> Cormac
>>>>
>>>> [1] Loading required package: tcltk
>>>> Loading Tcl/Tk interface ... Error in dyn.load(x, as.logical(local),
>>>> as.logical(now)) :
>>>> unable to load shared library
>>>> '/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/library/tcltk/libs/
>>>> tcltk.so':
>>>> dlcompat: dyld: /Applications/R.app/Contents/MacOS/R can't open
>>>> library: /usr/local/lib/libtk8.4.dylib (No such file or directory,
>>>> errno = 2)
>>>> In addition: Warning messages:
>>>> 1: cannot create HTML package index in: make.packages.html()
>>>> 2: cannot create HTML package index in: make.packages.html()
>>>> Error: .onLoad failed in 'loadNamespace' for 'tcltk'
>>>> Error: package 'tcltk' could not be loaded
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>
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>
> ===
> Jan de Leeuw; Distinguished Professor and Chair, UCLA Department of
> Statistics;
> Editor: Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Journal of Statistical
> Software
> US mail: 8130 Math Sciences Bldg, Box 951554, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1554
> phone (310)-825-9550; fax (310)-206-5658; email: deleeuw at stat.ucla.edu
> .mac: jdeleeuw ++++++ aim: deleeuwjan ++++++ skype: j_deleeuw
> homepages: http://gifi.stat.ucla.edu ++++++ http://www.cuddyvalley.org
>
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