[Rd] options("quit.with.no.save"), and Windows installer changes

[Uwe Ligges]

Martin Maechler wrote:
>>>>>> "Duncan" == Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca>
>>>>>>     on Tue, 04 Jul 2006 08:32:08 -0400 writes:
> 
>     Duncan> I've just committed a couple of changes to R-devel related to requests 
>     Duncan> at userR about the Windows installer.  The first of these affects all 
>     Duncan> platforms, but I've only tested it on Windows:
> 
>     Duncan> I added an option "quit.with.no.save".  If TRUE,
>     Duncan> then the default q("ask") prompt will not offer to
>     Duncan> save the workspace.  This is in response to the
>     Duncan> observation that new users who are instructed not to
>     Duncan> save their workspace, get confused when they
>     Duncan> accidentally answer Yes to the prompt to save it.
> 
> Ok...  but I probably misunderstand a bit:
> 
> The default has not been   q(save = "ask") but  q(save = "default"),
> and that default has depended on startup.
> 
> Even now, "R --no-save"  already did have the desired effect,
> on Unix at least.  For my ESS setup, I have made this an automatic
> default many months ago.
> 
> Wouldn't it be easier and sufficient to make "--no-save" a
> working option on all platforms ?
> Or is the point really about changing the quitting dialog?
> For me quitting *without* a dialog is the most important thing
> which I use (often several times a day).
> 
>     Duncan> I'm not sure about the wording of the user prompt
>     Duncan> question, which is now "Quit and discard
>     Duncan> workspace?".  The problem with this wording is that
>     Duncan> someone who automatically hits "y" will lose their
>     Duncan> work.  I've tried on Windows to make the dialog box
>     Duncan> look different enough that they should be warned.
> 
> good!
> 
>     Duncan> I haven't made any change to the Mac GUI to support this.  On 
>     Duncan> Unix-alikes, the text prompt should respect this option.
> 
>     Duncan> The other change is to the Windows installer, to
>     Duncan> allow the user to choose whether to set
>     Duncan> quit.with.no.save, MDI/SDI display, and help style
>     Duncan> at install time.  The only (intentional) change to
>     Duncan> the current behaviour is to default to CHM help
>     Duncan> instead of plain text.
> 
> People have asked me in private about this, and I didn't know
> the answer:
> Is it true that this means that people can no longer commit the
> "cheap package install trick" on Windows for  R-code-only
> packages?
> Namely
>   1) install a source package on a Linux/Unix/MacOSX machine
>      (where it is often simple to have all the necessary tools available)
>   2) zip the resulting installed package
>   3) unzip it on the target Windows machine into the corresponding
>      library (directory).
> 
> Of course, this trick will not provide any *.chm help files.
> Will the cheap-installed package still work, using the *.txt (or
> *.html) help files?



Well, the user has to ask
    help(topic, chmhelp = FALSE)
in this case, or (s)he get the message:

              No CHM help for 'foo' in package 'pkg' is available:
      the CHM file for the package is missing

Perhaps it is possible to arrange some fallback to plain text help if 
chmhelp is not available: in print.help_files_with_topic call print() on 
the "help_files_with_topic" object again, but change attribute "type" to 
"help" before that call ...

Uwe Ligges




>     Duncan> These changes will show up in builds based on
>     Duncan> revision 38480 or later.
> 
>     Duncan> Duncan Murdoch
> 
> Thanks a lot, Duncan!
> 
> 
>     Duncan> ______________________________________________
>     Duncan> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>     Duncan> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> 
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