[R-SIG-Mac] R.app Help window problem with mouse click on PDF

[J ö rg Beyer]

Simon, Steven, and all,

I agree with you, Simon -- Adobe Reader is a source of constant problems and
annoyances; if I could do without it, I would. (macfixit.com reports a lot
on this. <add your preferred rant about Adobe here...>)


Ad 1: Workaround 

Simon, your guess was correct. Disabling the file "AdobePDFViewer.plugin" in
"/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/" removes the issue, but a restart may be
necessary. 
(I simply created a folder "Internet Plug-Ins (disabled)" in "Library" and
moved the PDFViewer.plugin to that folder)


Ad 2: Some additional remarks

I have to admit that cryptic error logs don't say that much to me, but I
thought that playing around a bit couldn't hurt.

(1) When I restarted my Mac this afternoon, I found some "Recovered files"
in my trash, all related to AR
-- "SendMail" [folder, empty],
-- "AdobeTempForLS.pdf" [pdf-file, size 0kB]
This is reproducible and directly related to the R.app vs. AR issue.

(2) Just in case it's relevant: After you have clicked on a pdf-link in the
help window, R.app *first* spits out the error message in the console, and
*then* shows the "Chose Application" box -- at this time, the error has
already occurred. We shouldn't see this dialog at all, it's a secondary
symptom, in my opinion.

(3) The error message in R.app's console points to a "MSL.framework" in
"Frameworks" inside the AR application bundle; and it says, the reason for
the error is "image not found". Well, the following is nothing more than a
wild guess: I had a look at the respective framework, and found that the
"Resources" subfolder in "MSL.framework" is *empty*. Maybe AR tries to load
an image that should be part of the framework resources but is missing.
(Possibly nothing more than a naive heuristic, I don't know...)

(4) Playing around with disabling this or that AR plugin in AR's Info window
didn't help. The same applies to changing the preferences or using a fresh
AR installation -- it just didn't work.

So we may have the following options:
-- Uninstall/trash AR
-- Getting used to the issue and permanently or temporarily disable the
   PDFViewer.plugin (Note that AR's "Repair" functionality, or an update,
   will most likely reinstall the plugin)
-- Trying to file a bug report to Adobe  (but I find this idea
   a bit too spooky, so please don't ask *me* ;-)

Cheers,
Joerg




Am 13.10.2006 21:59 Uhr schrieb Simon Urbanek
(<simon.urbanek at r-project.org>):

> On Oct 13, 2006, at 6:41 AM, Jörg Beyer wrote:
> 
>> I can confirm this problem for
>>   Mac OS X 10.4.6
>>   R 2.2.1
>>   Adobe Reader 7.0.8
>> 
>> (I searched the help files and found some valid pdf-links to test
>> -- the one
>> you mentioned is not part of R 2.2.1.)
>> 
>> It would be interesting to see if this behavior is related to a
>> specific Adobe Reader version. Anyone?
>> 
> 
> I can only add that it works as advertised (i.e. the pdf is displayed
> inside the window) *without* AR. Please note that AR does screw up
> the OS a lot and it is quite tedious to restore it (if possible at
> all). I'm not quite willing to mess up my system with AR as I intend
> to work on that machine, so if anyone can shed some light as of what
> exactly AR breaks there, it would be nice. My guess would be that
> removing the AR plugin should restore the correct behavior
> (untested). Note that Adobe's un-installer doesn't uninstall the
> plugin and effectively breaks PDF bindings.
> 
> Cheers,
> Simon
> 
> 
>> 
>>> Apple Mac OS X 10.4.8
>>> R.app Version 2.4.0 GUI 1.17 (3868)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> If I invoke a help window containing a URL to a PDF,
>>> and I click on the hyperlink to the PDF, I get a
>>> "Choose application" dialog window.  After dismissing
>>> the window, the R help window disappears and I see
>>> the following error output in the R.app GUI command line
>>> window (see below).
>>> 
>>> Anyone else noticing this behaviour?
>>> 
>>> Reproduce:
>>> Start R.app
>>> Enter help command
>>>> help("Methods", package = "methods")
>>> 
>>> Click on the PDF hyperlink at the bottom of the help page
>>> 
>>>   http://developer.r-project.org/howMethodsWork.pdf
>>> 
>>> 
>>> (The hyperlink does work when I copy and paste it to a
>>>  browser.)
>>> 
>>> If I then reinvoke help
>>>> help("Methods", package = "methods")
>>> and click on the hyperlink, the help window goes
>>> blank but no "Choose Application" dialog appears,
>>> no error message in the console.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ============================================================
>> Joerg Beyer
>> PHILIPPS-University Marburg
>> Dept. of Psychology
>> 
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>> 
>> 
>