[R-SIG-Mac] 2.10.0 beta help functions

[Simon Urbanek]

On Oct 15, 2009, at 17:00 , Prof Brian Ripley wrote:

> On Thu, 15 Oct 2009, Simon Urbanek wrote:
>
>>
>> On Oct 15, 2009, at 16:01 , Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
>>
>>> Hmm, I think you probably have pre-built html pages.
>>
>> Yes, that's likely. They used to be part of the installation but  
>> now are not. The fact that they are missing was useful to point out  
>> that I forgot to switch R.app from html to dynamic help (fixed  
>> now), but I was actually planning on keeping them installed for  
>> other software that relies on it (e.g. JGR). That will give those  
>> packages the chance to update until R 2.11.0.
>
> I am sure Simon knows this, but they are still optional (configure  
> option --enable-prebuilt-html).  More seriously, they are pretty  
> much untested and I've fixed a couple of non-trivial bugs today (so  
> the HTML files need to be regenerated).
>
> Also, I've just updated my checkout of the Mac-GUI project and  
> rebuilt it, and whereas help() now works with dynamic help,  
> help.search() still fails to find pages for packages not under the  
> main library tree (print.hsearch in the Mac-GUI project needs  
> updating).
>

Ok, updated (it wasn't the most beautiful piece of code before and  
it's not now but it might work).


> It's your prerogative to ship prebuilt HTML pages, but they are not  
> going to be shipped on Windows, and not AFAIK on Linux binary  
> builds, so a fair proportion of JGR users will want an update  
> anyway.  They just add to the size of the download and the vast  
> majority of users will never access them.
>

Oh, ok -- I thought we agreed to keep them in binary distributions  
until 2.11, but if Windows doesn't ship them then there is no point,  
indeed...

Thanks,
Simon



> Brian
>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Simon
>>
>>
>>> I simply don't see any code that will generate them, either  
>>> directly or by starting the httpd server to do so.
>>> I just did some quick experiments, and I get blank pages on  
>>> packages without pre-built html, and correct ones on a package I  
>>> just installed with 'R CMD INSTALL --html'.
>>> On Thu, 15 Oct 2009, Rob Goedman wrote:
>>>> Peter,
>>>> On my system (SnowLeopard, below R builds) I did see the warning
>>>> messages (but the internal help worked fine).
>>>> This morning I changed the htmlhelp settings as suggested by the
>>>> warning message ( help_type ='html' ) in main.m and rebuild  
>>>> R.app. The
>>>> warnings are gone and help still works.
>>>> Rob
>>>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> R version 2.10.0 beta (2009-10-15 r50083)
>>>> Copyright (C) 2009 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
>>>> ISBN 3-900051-07-0
>>>> ...
>>>> [R.app GUI 1.30 (5495) x86_64-apple-darwin9.8.0]
>>>> [Workspace restored from /Users/rob/Projects/.RData]
>>>>> ?ls
>>>> Warning message:
>>>> In help("ls", package = NULL) :
>>>> htmhelp = TRUE is deprecated: use help_type ="html"
>>>> On Oct 14, 2009, at 6:42 PM, Simon Urbanek wrote:
>>>>> On Oct 14, 2009, at 7:19 PM, Peter Cowan wrote:
>>>>>> I just installed the nightly from r.research.att.com called "R  
>>>>>> 2.10.0
>>>>>> beta (2009-10-13)" for leopard using the pkg installer.
>>>>>> When I use ?plot or help(plot) the help window opens, but is  
>>>>>> blank.
>>>>>> And, I get this warning:
>>>>>>> ?plot
>>>>>> Warning message:
>>>>>> In help("plot", package = NULL) :
>>>>>> htmhelp = TRUE is deprecated: use help_type ="html"
>>>>>> I know the help system has changed significantly in 2.10.0 and I
>>>>>> apologize if it is poor form to report errors such as this  
>>>>>> while the
>>>>>> still in the beta phase,
>>>>> To the contrary! The whole point of the beta phase is that it gets
>>>>> tested and all errors reported -- I'll look into this, thanks for
>>>>> the report.
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> Simon
>>>>>> but my reliance on these help functions has
>>>>>> prevented me from continuing to use the beta and test other  
>>>>>> changes.
>>>>>> BTW thank you for the option, in the new installer, to only  
>>>>>> install
>>>>>> the 64bit GUI version.
>>>>>> Thank you,
>>>>>> Peter
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>> R-SIG-Mac at stat.math.ethz.ch
>>>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
>>>>
>>>> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
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>>> -- 
>>> 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)
>>> 1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
>>> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595
>>
>
> -- 
> 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)
> 1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595
>
>