[R-SIG-Mac] built-in editor underlining

[Rob J Goedman]

Hi JiHO,

In general there are 3 ways of achieving this 1) part of R.app, as  
the current internal editor, 2) part of an existing editor that  
supports this kind of functionality like BBEdit/TextWrangler and  
TextMate, or 3) editors that do not support executing AppleScript or  
Perl/Bash/Python directly.

For those editors, e.g. Smultron and SubEthaEdit, I have used a  
product like iKey, which allows you to define a global 'hot' key that  
activates AppleScript for you. In those cases it is not good to use  
Command-E for source file as this is used too often. I tend to use  
F12 and Command-Return for source
file and execute selection.

I rarely use the internal editor for the very few cases where R.app  
still crashes (at the moment I see that only with certain Lattice  
graphics when I make them full screen). Unfortunately you then loose  
the function prompt (which I still use on the R Console, but is more  
typing). On the other hand, you do get project file grouping,  
multiple syntax definitions and a recent example Byron Ellis gave for  
TextMate, the ability to build a package from within a project. I  
think that kind of extensibility is extremely useful.

Rob


On Sep 18, 2006, at 6:28 AM, jiho wrote:

> One thing which make using R.app built in editor very comfortable is
> the ability to send code to R using CMD+E and CMD+ENTER. Do you
> emulate these functions in BBEdit? If yes how? I would really like to
> be able to use an external editor also, just for consistency between
> my different projects. Smultron is my editor of choice and it has R
> syntax highlighting but I don't know how to emulate these functions
> in it.


On Sep 18, 2006, at 7:31 AM, Simon Urbanek wrote:

> Depends. If you found your perfect editor and it integrates
> seamlessly, sure there' is no point in using the integrated one.
> However, that doesn't mean that we should keep it as plain and basic
> as possible. Especially with features that leverage R itself it can
> be more useful if it has additional features - and this is harder for
> other editors to do, so we should take advantage of it.