[R-SIG-Mac] Packages that require Gtk2 under Mountain Lion and R-3.0.1

[John Maindonald]

The GTK_2.24.17-X11.pkg (ca. 41MB) version from http://r.research.att.com/
installs well enough, or so it seems, under Mountain Lion and R-3.0.1.  When 
however I do the following, R crashes:

> library(rattle)
Rattle: A free graphical interface for data mining with R.
Version 2.6.26 r77 Copyright (c) 2006-2013 Togaware Pty Ltd.
Type 'rattle()' to shake, rattle, and roll your data.
> sessionInfo()
R version 3.0.1 (2013-05-16)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin10.8.0 (64-bit)

locale:
[1] en_AU.UTF-8/en_AU.UTF-8/en_AU.UTF-8/C/en_AU.UTF-8/en_AU.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] rattle_2.6.26
> rattle()

The crash report is at http://maths-people.anu.edu.au/~johnm/r/issues/rattle.report

The result is similar if I try

library(play with)
playwith()

This was not unexpected; see http://rattle.togaware.com/rattle-install-troubleshooting.html

I've noted also a reported solution at 
  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15868860/r-3-0-and-gtk-rgtk2-error

This however uses Macports, which there has been I think some advice to avoid.

I'd like of course to find a simple solution to getting RGtk2 properly installed, one
preferably that can be suggested to relatively novice users.   Are there relatively
straightforward changes to operating system paths that are likely to fix the problem?

John Maindonald             email: john.maindonald at anu.edu.au
phone : +61 2 (6125)3473    fax  : +61 2(6125)5549
Centre for Mathematics & Its Applications, Room 1194,
John Dedman Mathematical Sciences Building (Building 27)
Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200.