[R-SIG-Mac] rgl window problem

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 12/6/2006 8:43 AM, roger koenker wrote:
> I've recently installed rgl on a:
> 
> R version 2.5.0 Under development (unstable) (2006-09-10 r39242)
> powerpc-apple-darwin8.7.0
> 
> system, from source and everything seemed to be ok, the package
> loads without complaints, however  trying to run any of the examples
> produces the usual window, but no plotting occurs.  The window
> is blank, and moving the cursor over the window gives the dreaded
> spinning pinwheel of cluelessness.
> 
> Can anyone suggest a strategy for further diagnosis?

This sounds as though you are running from the console rather than 
R.app, but have built rgl (or downloaded a copy built) to use AGL in 
Carbon rather than X11.  That doesn't work.  AGL calls only work from R.app.

If someone knows a nice run-time test for whether Carbon will work I'd 
put it in to at least give a meaningful error message.  I'd really 
prefer it to fall back to trying X11 in that case, but that looks much 
harder:  for an OSX newbie like me, I think the AGL/X11 decision needs 
to be done at link time, not run time.  (On Windows I'd load the 
appropriate OpenGL .dll when the package loaded, and do all the calls 
indirectly.  But I don't know how to do this on OSX.)

If my assumption in the first paragraph is wrong, please let me know. 
And if "Carbon" is the wrong name for the graphics system that supports 
the standard Mac GUI and AGL, I wouldn't mind hearing that either.

Duncan Murdoch