[R] edit windows in RAqua

[Thomas Lumley]

On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, Roger Koenker wrote:

> I'm just beginning to explore Raqua on a new G5 machine.  Generally,
> it feels very natural, but I'm puzzled by the behavior of editing
> windows.  When you use fix() or vi() or edit() you get a new
> window;  this is fine, but is there a way to:
>
> 	o  specify what editor is operating in this window

No. This is a bug, since we claim pico(), vi() etc work

> 	o  control the size of the window

No. This isn't a bug, but would be a useful feature.

> 	o  allow control to revert back to the R console with
> 		the editing window open?

No. This is related to R's lack of threading. We can't do this on any
system.

> I guess what I'm really asking is whether there is a built in way
> to spawn an xterm editing window running vi for such tasks that
> would leave the console active or some equivalent functionality.

This is why many of us use Emacs/ESS rather than the GUI on Mac and
Windows.

It's easy to spawn an xterm running vi and allow R to continue, the hard
thing is getting the contents back to R afterwards.

	-thomas