[R] Fancy quotes on Windows

Duncan Murdoch murdoch at stats.uwo.ca
Fri Nov 6 17:49:15 CET 2009


On 11/6/2009 11:39 AM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> On 11/6/2009 11:30 AM, James W. MacDonald wrote:
>> 
>> Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>>> On 11/6/2009 10:40 AM, James W. MacDonald wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I don't use Windows as my primary OS anymore, so didn't notice this 
>>>> until recently. In R-2.10.0 under Windows useFancyQuotes is FALSE by 
>>>> default, but this doesn't seem to affect the rendering of (text) help 
>>>> pages.
>>>>
>>>> This is not a problem if I run via the Rgui or Rterm (via DOS prompt), 
>>>> as the help pages are rendered in a popup window that understands 
>>>> directional quotes. However, if I run under emacs/ESS, the help is 
>>>> rendered within emacs, which doesn't understand directional quotes, so 
>>>> any quoted text is surrounded by \221thetext\222, which is obviously 
>>>> difficult to read.
>>>>
>>>> Is there another setting that I am missing that affects the usage of 
>>>> directional quotes for the help pages?
>>> 
>>> I don't see this.  Are you sure you haven't got a typo somewhere?
>> 
>> Pretty sure. I get the opposite:
>> 
>> Loading required package: utils
>>  > options("useFancyQuotes")
>> $useFancyQuotes
>> [1] FALSE
>> 
>>  > ?mean
>> 
>> This is at a DOS prompt. In the popup box I get
>> 
> 
> Sorry, I should have realized that since you're using ESS.  I was 
> testing in Rgui.
> 
> I see it now; I'll take a look...

Now I don't see it.  Something funny is going on...

Duncan Murdoch

> 
> Duncan Murdoch
> 
>> If ‘trim’ is zero (the default), the arithmetic mean of the
>>       values in ‘x’ is computed, as a numeric or complex vector of
>> 
>> Also, from ?sQuote:
>> 
>> Where fancy quotes are used, you should be aware that they may not
>>       be rendered correctly as not all fonts include the requisite
>>       glyphs: for example some have directional single quotes but not
>>       directional double quotes.  This is particularly troublesome in
>>       Windows ‘Command Prompt’ windows, which by default are set up
>>       to run in the so-called OEM codepage, which in most locales uses a
>>       different encoding from Windows.  Further, if the codepage is
>>       changed (with ‘chcp.exe’, e.g. to 1252 in a Western European
>>       language), the default raster fonts do not support the directional
>>       quotes.
>> 
>>       To work around this, the default for
>>       ‘options("useFancyQuotes")’ is ‘FALSE’ on Windows except
>>       for the ‘Rgui’ console.  There fancy quotes work with the
>>       default Courier New font and more elegantly with Lucida Console
>>       and standard the CJK fonts, but directional double quotes are
>>       missing in raster fonts such as Courier and FixedSys.
>> 
>> Best,
>> 
>> Jim
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> When I run options("useFancyQuotes") in a new session, I see
>>> 
>>>  > options("useFancyQuotes")
>>> $useFancyQuotes
>>> [1] TRUE
>>> 
>>> and when I ask for help, I see help pages that respect that choice, e.g.
>>> 
>>>  > ?mean
>>> 
>>> gives ‘trim = 0’ in the description of x.  If I set
>>> 
>>>  > options(useFancyQuotes=FALSE)
>>>  > ?mean
>>> 
>>> I see 'trim = 0'.
>>> 
>>> Maybe if there's no typo, it's emacs or ESS that's messing up somehow.
>>> 
>>> Duncan Murdoch
>> 
> 
>




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