[R-SIG-Mac] Confused with default device setup

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008, Gang Chen wrote:

> When invoking dev.new() on my Mac OS X 10.4.11, I get an X11 window
> instead of quartz which I feel more desirable.  So I'd like to set
> the default device to quartz. However I'm confused because of the
> following:
>
> > Sys.getenv("R_DEFAULT_DEVICE")
> R_DEFAULT_DEVICE
>         "quartz"
>
> > getOption("device")
> [1] "X11"
>
> What's going on?

I don't know (it is your machine), but here's my guess ....

I dom't see R_DEFAULT_DEVICE set on my Mac, but note that 
R_INTERACTIVE_DEVICE takes precedence in interactive use.  So something in 
your setup is different from mine, maybe some startup files or R.app 
preferences?  The first diagnostic step is to see if R_INTERACTIVE_DEVICE 
is set and why R_DEFAULT_DEVICE is set (and see below for why the current 
setting is dangerous).

> Also is file Renviron under /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/
> etc/ppc/ the one I should modify if I want to change some environment
> variables? But I don't see R_DEFAULT_DEVICE there.

As to where you should set it, it depends on who you want to set it for, 
and how you run R (from R.app or from the command line).  But Renviron is 
not the right place: a file Renviron.site in that directory would be if 
you want a system-wide setting (see ?Startup).  But do be careful, as if 
you make quartz the default for remote interactive or batch sessions you 
are likely to get undesirable behaviour (possibly even crashes for some R 
versions).  In short, don't set R_DEFAULT_DEVICE to an screen device.

>
> TIA,
> Gang

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
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