[R-SIG-Mac] Problems with Rcmdr via XQuartz on OSX Mavericks

[John Fox]

Hi Rob,

Please don't feel the need to apologize -- I greatly appreciate your help
with this problem, and all the Mac-related problems with which you've
helped.

Best,
 John

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert J Goedman [mailto:goedman at icloud.com]
> Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2013 10:33 AM
> To: John Fox
> Cc: peter dalgaard; r-sig-mac at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R-SIG-Mac] Problems with Rcmdr via XQuartz on OSX
> Mavericks
> 
> John,
> 
> I apologize for suggesting to you to do extra work. As I said, I'll do
> some more testing. The thing that threw me off was that this is an
> addition to an existing API (NSProcessInfo) and hence I assumed it was
> all runtime ...
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Rob J. Goedman
> goedman at icloud.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Nov 28, 2013, at 6:45 AM, John Fox <jfox at mcmaster.ca> wrote:
> 
> 
> 	Dear Rob and Peter,
> 
> 	Thanks for the latest clarifications.
> 
> 	I think that I'll modify the Rmcdr installation notes to suggest
> either using the Rcmdr from R in a terminal window or setting the
> NSAppSleepDisabled key permanently in a terminal window -- and hope
> that in the longer term the problem is solved generally for R.app.
> 
> 	Best,
> 	John
> 
> 	On Thu, 28 Nov 2013 06:35:12 -0800
> 	Robert J Goedman <goedman at icloud.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 		Hi, and Happy Thanksgiving for those that celebrate it!
> 
> 		If Peter is right (and I expect he is, but will experiment a
> bit more if the setting can be updated while R.app is running and take
> effect immediately), I would suggest for now folks just use 'defaults
> ...' from a terminal window if they encounter these issues.
> 
> 		Once we understand better what might be affected by allowing
> the sleep mode we can possibly refine that approach.
> 
> 		Regards,
> 		Rob
> 
> 
> 		Sent from Rob Goedman's iPad ...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 			On Nov 28, 2013, at 6:21, peter dalgaard
> <pdalgd at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 				On 28 Nov 2013, at 14:38 , John Fox
> <jfox at mcmaster.ca> wrote:
> 
> 				Dear Peter,
> 
> 				On Thu, 28 Nov 2013 12:00:31 +0100
> 				peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 						On 28 Nov 2013, at 01:46 ,
John Fox
> <jfox at mcmaster.ca> wrote:
> 
> 						Hi Rob,
> 
> 						I had some time today and so
I started
> to implement this solution in the
> 						Rcmdr. I first tested
whether setting
> 
> 						system("defaults write
org.R-project.R
> NSAppSleepDisabled -bool yes")
> 
> 						fixes the problem; I
verified via
> 
> 						system("defaults read
org.R-project.R
> NSAppSleepDisabled")
> 
> 						that the key was in fact set
properly.
> 
> 						I'm afraid that even with
> NSAppSleepDisabled set, the Rcmdr still freezes
> 						periodically. Whatever is
going on is
> probably more complicated than
> 						power-saving.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 					Hmm. The tkfaq issue seems to have
gone away
> for me. You did remember to restart R.app after setting the key?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 				I didn't "remember" to restart R.app because
I
> didn't know that it was necessary to do so. In fact, the code that I
> wrote, but didn't commit, for the Rcmdr carefully resets the key to its
> previous state or deletes it if it didn't previously exist when the
> Commander is closed.
> 
> 				I think that you've almost surely identified
my
> problem, but the solution also raises a question about what to do. I'm
> reluctant to have the Rcmdr make a permanent change to users' OS
> settings. I guess that I could detect whether the NSAppSleepDisabled
> key is set and pop up a dialog box if it isn't, offering to make the
> change, and suggesting that the user restart R.app. (BTW, is there an
> easy way to check whether R is running in R.app or a terminal?)
> Wouldn't it be better to handle this issue in R.app or even in tcltk,
> however?
> 
> 
> 
> 			I suspect that this particular option also affects
> people running simulations from R.app, so that the natural state really
> should be "disabled" and you need not have qualms about tampering with
> it. Presumably, we could do the disabling on install. If people have
> strong reasons to aggressively preserve battery power, they could just
> turn it back on.
> 
> 			I think Rob put on his todo list to figure out
> whether/how you change the setting in an active process, which would
> open up other possibilities.
> 
> 			-pd
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 				If restarting R.app after setting the
> NSAppSleepDisabled key doesn't work for me, I'll then pursue Rob's
> suggestions.
> 
> 				Thanks for this,
> 				John
> 
> 
> 			--
> 			Peter Dalgaard, Professor
> 			Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
> 			Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
> 			Phone: (+45)38153501
> 			Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 	------------------------------------------------
> 	John Fox
> 	McMaster University
> 	Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
> 	http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/
>