Is html help configurable now?

[Georg Mainik-2]

Hello,


Looking for a workaround that activates html help instead of the help in
xemacs/ESS and I found this:

https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/ess-help/2003-December/001657.html

Is the this setting still hard-wired?

If not, can it be configured in a host specific or user specific way?



Thanks

Georg

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[Martin Maechler-4]

>>>>> "GM" == Georg Mainik <gmainik@...>
>>>>>     on Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:25:29 +0200 writes:

    GM> Hello, Looking for a workaround that activates html help
    GM> instead of the help in xemacs/ESS and I found this:

    GM> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/ess-help/2003-December/001657.html

which is basically

>> ------------------------------
>> ;; To run R from the *R* buffer and also use html help.
>> ;; rmh 2003 Dec 17
>> ;;
>> ;; Start R with M-x R, then from the *R* buffer, either
>> ;; a. load this file
>> ;; b. eval the next two lines with M-:
>> (setq inferior-ess-help-command   "help(\"%s\", htmlhelp=TRUE)\n")
>> (setq ess-help-kill-bogus-buffers t)
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> At the moment, this file must be loaded each time after the *R* buffer
>> is started.  It can't be run from either the .emacs or site-start.el file.

    GM> Is the this setting still hard-wired?

Well, I think I would not have recommended that solution even
back in 2003, because the   inferior-ess-help-command
variable has always been "customizable"
[Emacs: Menu "Options" --> (at botton) "Customize Emacs"]

*BUT* as I now find when I try it:
It does *not* work to customize the variable, as "later", in
essd-r.el,  we explicitly set its value to
  help(*, htmlhelp=FALSE)
which completely counterfeys the whole customization...
.... aargh...

     {ESS-core should work on this; but I can't for the next few
      weeks ..}

    GM> If not, can it be configured in a host specific or user
    GM> specific way?

Yes, in theory:  The R developers have for a long time provided
this customization via R startup settings, since
till and including  R 2.9.2,  the   'htmlhelp' argument of help
has had the default   htmlhelp = getOption("htmlhelp")
and the user or site (or host) specific R startup options could
set   options(htmlhelp = TRUE)  e.g.
{(*) Note that from R 2.10.0 on,  htmlhelp=TRUE/FALSE is deprecated
 and  help_type = "html" (or "text" or ..)  should be used instead.}

*HOWEVER*
As I said above, mostly for historical reasons I think
(when sites had htmlhelp=TRUE default, but the ESS aficionados wanted
 help buffers in ESS, i.e., htmlhelp=FALSE)
we've more or less hardwired   inferior-ess-help-command
to  htmlhelp=FALSE.

And as said, I think we (ESS core) should change this ASAP,
not the least because the upcoming R version 2.10.0 comes with
it's own little https server and builds html pages on the fly...

Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich

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[Stephen Eglen]

>
> And as said, I think we (ESS core) should change this ASAP,
> not the least because the upcoming R version 2.10.0 comes with
> it's own little https server and builds html pages on the fly...

hi Martin,

if it is relevant, could you or someone else on Rcore say something more
about this feature -- is R moving towards building help pages on the
fly?  If so, will ESS get 'left behind' if the dynamic help pages are
rendered only in html, and we don't have a way of reading them?  Or is
this building of html pages for other purposes?

(I've recently started using w3m under Emacs, and it is great for
limited browsing, so I could investigate getting ESS and w3m to
co-operate.)

Stephen

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[rsparapa]

Stephen Eglen wrote:

> hi Martin,
>
> if it is relevant, could you or someone else on Rcore say something more
> about this feature -- is R moving towards building help pages on the
> fly?  If so, will ESS get 'left behind' if the dynamic help pages are
> rendered only in html, and we don't have a way of reading them?  Or is
> this building of html pages for other purposes?
>
> (I've recently started using w3m under Emacs, and it is great for
> limited browsing, so I could investigate getting ESS and w3m to
> co-operate.)
>
> Stephen
>
>

Hi Stephen:

FWIW I've pretty much given up on w3m.  Instead I use ffap:

(require 'ffap)
(global-set-key [button3] 'find-file-at-point)
(setq browse-url-mozilla-program "firefox")

Rodney

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[Martin Maechler-4]

>>>>> "StEgl" == Stephen Eglen <S.J.Eglen@...>
>>>>>     on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:51:47 +0100 writes:

    >>
    >> And as said, I think we (ESS core) should change this
    >> ASAP, not the least because the upcoming R version 2.10.0
    >> comes with it's own little https server and builds html
    >> pages on the fly...

    StEgl> hi Martin,

    StEgl> if it is relevant, could you or someone else on Rcore
    StEgl> say something more about this feature -- is R moving
    StEgl> towards building help pages on the fly?  

Short answer: yes.

    StEgl> If so, will ESS get 'left behind' if the dynamic help
    StEgl> pages are rendered only in html, and we don't have a
    StEgl> way of reading them?  Or is this building of html
    StEgl> pages for other purposes?

the main benefit currently has been the building of cross
package hyperlinks  (from the original Rd  \link[pkg]{...}),
and as 'text' output has no links, that was not considered.
But note that also text output is (or can be?) produced  "on the fly".

One of my main reasons for not (yet?) wanting to leave
emacs-buffer help is the nice emacs-like help-buffer navigation
*AND* the simple one-key ("l") evaluation of examples' in the help.


    StEgl> (I've recently started using w3m under Emacs, and it
    StEgl> is great for limited browsing, so I could investigate
    StEgl> getting ESS and w3m to co-operate.)

ideally, by using an emacs html renderer, we'd get the best of
both worlds:
   - Fast emacs-like help buffer navigation
   - send R example code from the help buffer to *R*
   - hyperlinks between help pages (and "to outside URSs")
      working nicely

Martin

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[Georg Mainik-2]

>     StEgl> (I've recently started using w3m under Emacs, and it
>     StEgl> is great for limited browsing, so I could investigate
>     StEgl> getting ESS and w3m to co-operate.)
>
> ideally, by using an emacs html renderer, we'd get the best of
> both worlds:
>    - Fast emacs-like help buffer navigation
>    - send R example code from the help buffer to *R*
>    - hyperlinks between help pages (and "to outside URSs")
>       working nicely

Whatever the solution will be, it would be nice to have a config
parameter deactivating the redirection of help pages into an emacs buffer.

Giving R courses for beginners, I observe that most students are rather
familiar with web browsers than with the emacs editor.


Many thanks


Georg

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[Martin Maechler-4]

>>>>> "GM" == Georg Mainik <gmainik@...>
>>>>>     on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:18:28 +0200 writes:

    StEgl> (I've recently started using w3m under Emacs, and it
    StEgl> is great for limited browsing, so I could investigate
    StEgl> getting ESS and w3m to co-operate.)
    >>
    >> ideally, by using an emacs html renderer, we'd get the best of
    >> both worlds:
    >> - Fast emacs-like help buffer navigation
    >> - send R example code from the help buffer to *R*
    >> - hyperlinks between help pages (and "to outside URSs")
    >> working nicely

    GM> Whatever the solution will be, it would be nice to have a config
    GM> parameter deactivating the redirection of help pages into an emacs buffer.

Definitely!  I entirely agree.
Martin

    GM> Giving R courses for beginners, I observe that most students are rather
    GM> familiar with web browsers than with the emacs editor.

    GM> Many thanks
    GM> Georg

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On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:51:47 +0100,
Stephen Eglen <S.J.Eglen@...> wrote:

[...]

> (I've recently started using w3m under Emacs, and it is great for
> limited browsing, so I could investigate getting ESS and w3m to
> co-operate.)

I've also been an asiduous user of w3m (via its Debian w3m-el Emacs
interface in Debian).  Since the new help system, however, the function
I was using to display the html broke.  I was able to get back the
functionality with this:

o A function in ~/.Rprofile:

---<--------------------cut here---------------start------------------->---
.rutils.help.start <- function (update=FALSE, gui="irrelevant",
                                browser=getOption("browser"), remote=NULL) {
    if (!is.function(browser) && (length(browser) != 1 || !is.character(browser) ||
        !nzchar(browser)))
        stop("invalid browser name, check options(\"browser\").")
    home <- if (is.null(remote)) {
        if (tools:::httpdPort == 0L)
            tools::startDynamicHelp()
        if (tools:::httpdPort > 0L) {
            if (update)
                make.packages.html()
            paste("http://127.0.0.1:", tools:::httpdPort, sep="")
        }
        else stop("help.start() requires the HTTP server to be running",
            call.=FALSE)
    }
    else remote
    paste(home, "/doc/html/index.html", sep="")
}
---<--------------------cut here---------------end--------------------->---

  that's just a hacked help.start() to return only the URL that R's http
  server produced.

o A simple Emacs Lisp function to parse and display in w3m:

---<--------------------cut here---------------start------------------->---
(defun r-utils-htmldocs ()
  "Use w3m to navigate R html documentation.
Documentation is produced by a hacked help.start()."
  (interactive)
  (let ((rhtml ".rutils.help.start()\n")
        (tmpbuf (get-buffer-create "**r-utils-mode**")))
    (ess-command rhtml tmpbuf)
    (set-buffer tmpbuf)
    (let* ((begurl (search-backward "http://"))
      (endurl (search-forward "index.html"))
      (url (buffer-substring-no-properties begurl endurl)))
      (w3m-goto-url-new-session url))
    (kill-buffer tmpbuf)))
---<--------------------cut here---------------end--------------------->---

The `r-utils-mode' comes from r-utils.el, but could be set to anything
else.

There might be better/more efficient ways to do it, but this works well
for me in GNU Emacs 23.1.50.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.18.3)
of 2009-10-23 on elegiac, modified by Debian and ESS 5.5.

BTW, can I give you an updated r-utils.el (I see that the one on the
website is rather old)?

--
Seb

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[rsparapa]

Seb wrote:
> BTW, can I give you an updated r-utils.el (I see that the one on the
> website is rather old)?
>

That would just be the dog chasing it's tail.  Is there a link that
we can provide where the latest stable version can always be found?

Rodney

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