Easy to install ESS under Windows

[A.J. Rossini]

Paul -

Thanks much.  Can I have your permission to create a WWW page on
www.analytics with this information?

Second, it would be great to verify that this is "newbie-proof".  It
wasn't clear if your students had figured it out?

(I have to admit that part of my prejudice for Quantian is that it
avoids the install of R, ESS, and (X)Emacs, with the potential
tradeoff being that one has to deal with KDE/Linux).

best,
-tony


Paul Johnson <pauljohn at ku.edu> writes:

> My students don't understand very much about Windows, even though they
> fiercely insist on using it.  It totally baffles me.  Some kept coming
> back to me says "we can't make Xemacs work" or "we can't make ESS work
> in Emacs" and I sat down with a Windows system to try to figure it out.
>
> I agreed with them that Xemacs installation is too slow to be
> feasible. We did find a startup program, but the ftp servers were so
> impossibly slow that I gave up.
>
> I prefer Emacs anyway, so I checked into that.
>
> 4 years ago, back when I did use windows sometimes, I remember that
> someone--was it Richard Heiberger??--had written the simplest possible
> install instruction.  But I can't find that now on the net.
>
> I think that the ESS guide here is pretty good:
>
> http://www.analytics.washington.edu/downloads/ess/doc/html/ess_2.html#SEC9
>
> but we did not tumble on to this until pretty late in the advanture.
>
> So I made some "idiot proof" install instructions.  In particular, I
> want to avoid telling people to edit or create ".emacs" and instead of
> telling them "install wherever you want," I'm telling them exactly
> where to put it, so there's not ambiguity.
>
> --------------------------------------
>
> In case you want to install Emacs on a personal computer, here's what
> you do.  This is not the most elegant strategy, but it does work on
> the Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems that I have used.
>
> Get this file:
>
> emacs-21.3-fullbin-i386.tar.gz
>
> I found copies on many of the ftp mirrors, including:
>
> ftp://cudlug.cudenver.edu/pub/mirrors/ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/
>
> I do not know if the version of the file called
> emacs-21.3a-fullbin-i386.tar.gz
>
> is better or worse. I suspect it is better.
>
> make a directory
>
> c:\ProgramFiles
>
> Note: no space.
>
> open the tarball (using winzip or any other tar-equipt compression
> program you want), you dump the emacs-21.3-fullbin-i386.tar.gz it into
> c:\ProgramFiles.
>
> It creates a directory so you see
>
> c:\ProgramFiles\emacs-21.3.
>
> Look inside there for subdirectories
>
> bin : "binary", meaning programs.  There you see "runemacs.exe" which
> is the thing you would double click on.  You can create desktop
> shortcuts in the usual way if you want.
>
> lisp:  a collection of files in lisp format that supply addon capability
>
> site-lisp:  an empty place where you can install things like ESS
>
>
> In the Windows Explorer, go into the bin directory, double click the
> "addpm" program. That makes a little registry change in your
> system. It adds an Emacs start menu iterm. I always go move the icon
> for emacs into the Editor group and delete the GNU Emacs group. You
> don't have to.
>
>
> Now, go get a version of ESS. I would install this one:
>
> ess-5.1.24.tar.gz
>
> Untar it into the site-lisp directory.
>
> It will create its own directory, so it should be
>
> C:\ProgramFiles\emacs-21.3\site-lisp\ess-5.1.24
>
> THen create a file called "site-start.el" and in the site-lisp
> directory. You need only one line:
>
> (load "c:/ProgramFiles/emacs-21.3/site-lisp/ess-5.1.24/lisp/ess-site.el")
>
> (that's all on one line). Note, if you change directories or such,
> then you have to fix that. Store that file in
> c:\ProgramFiles\emacs-21.3\site-lisp.
>
> Its such a small file I attached it to this email.
>
> (I choose to put this in site-start.el because then ESS will work for
> all users, not just the ones who are smart enough to find directions
> that explain how to put the same element into the user .emacs file.)
>
> That should get the job done.  If your R is working and if the R/bin
> directory is in your path, then Emacs will be able to find it.  So
> open a file with the extension R, then type
>
> M-x  R
>
> (M is for "meta", which may be the ALT key on your system)
>
> If R does not start inside Emacs shell, then it means your R is
> installed incorrectly/incompletely. Most likely, you need to add the
> directory that holds R/bin into your search PATH.  In Windows2000 or
> XP, that's a setting you can change in the control
> panel/system/environment. In Win 95/98, you can put a line in your
> autoexec bat that adds the R/bin to your PATH.  I could look up that
> syntax for you, but don't want to encourage you to use those systems.
>
>
> Honestly, I don't know why it seems so complicated to install Emacs
> and ESS when you look around the internet.  Maybe I'm not helping by
> adding one more voice in the mess.  It must be true that there are
> many many ways to do it.
>
>
> This way works, I've seen it with both eyes on 2 windows computers.
>
>
>
> (load "c:/ProgramFiles/emacs-21.3/site-lisp/ess-5.1.24/lisp/ess-site.el")
> ______________________________________________
> ESS-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/ess-help

-- 
rossini at u.washington.edu            http://www.analytics.washington.edu/ 
Biomedical and Health Informatics   University of Washington
Biostatistics, SCHARP/HVTN          Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
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