[R-SIG-Mac] suggestion to improve R GUI on Mac OS X

[Deryk Wenaus]

Hi,

I've been using R for a little while and have a simple suggestion to improve usability. 

While I find the match brace/quotes feature in R! to be handy, especially when writing new code, it is problematic when I am editing existing code. For example, if I want to add an R command around an existing command, I always get () when I just need (. 

I suggest changing the behaviour so that if there is a space or nothing to the right of the cursor then if you type in ( you get ( ). But if there is a character to the right of the cursor, disable this auto-adding. So if you type in ( you get (. 

One last item, When I am on the R command line and press Command-Left Arrow. I want to go to the beginning of the R prompt, ( after the > ) but instead I end up BEFORE the > prompt - not a good place to be! Is there any way to change this behaviour?

The last issue seems to be a minor bug with Undo in the built in editor. Sometimes when I use undo, the last character in one of the lines deleted does not get deleted. - usually it is a ) or }.  At least R is being less destructive. but it is strange nonetheless. 

What is the best editor for Mac OS X? the built in editor, or BBEdit, or TextMate? I have BBEdit, but could not find how to add a new language using the R.plist that is around.

many thanks,
Deryk

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Deryk Wenaus
derykw at gmail.com
University of Waterloo
Independent Studies