[R] Severe growing pains with new help system

[Petr PIKAL]

Hi

I have just installed R 2.10.0 version (I used dev version before) and 
have similar problems with help files.
starting plain version freshly installed R on WXP

R version 2.10.0 (2009-10-26)
Copyright (C) 2009 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
ISBN 3-900051-07-0

?plot

only text help appears

> help.start()
starting httpd help server ... done
If nothing happens, you should open
'http://127.0.0.1:31757/doc/html/index.html' yourself

pops up browser window with

ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL: 
http://127.0.0.1:31757/doc/html/index.html
The following error was encountered:
Connection to 127.0.0.1 Failed
The system returned:
    (111) Connection refused
The remote host or network may be down. Please try the request again.

If I try to start help from local /doc/html/packages.html I can start the 
browser but when trying to access let say plot help I end with

Tyto webové stránky nebyly nalezeny. 
# web pages was not found

Na webové adrese se nepodařilo nalézt žádnou webovou stránku: 
file:///D:/programy/R-2.10.0/library/graphics/html/plot.html
# There is no web page  
file:///D:/programy/R-2.10.0/library/graphics/html/plot.html

Více informací o této chybě
Níže uvádíme původní chybovou zprávu
# more information about this fault

Chyba 6(net::ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND): Soubor nebo adresář se nepodařilo 
nalézt.

One workaround could be to copy help files from old version of R but I 
wonder if this is intended method.

I apologise if I overlooked some simple solution but I did not find a clue 
in NEWS and/or CHANGES.
It may be due to security setting of our network but before I will ask our 
IT guys I would like to cope with it myself. I could bear with text help 
but html help is much more convenient.

BTW. Does this kind of html help work with PC which is not connected to 
web?

Best regards
Petr Pikal

r-help-bounces at r-project.org napsal dne 27.10.2009 00:05:53:

> I don't see anything below that is new today.  Are you saying you didn't 

> test any of the pre-release versions?  You're basically stuck with the 
> features that come out in .0 releases until the next one.  I'll fix the 
> typo in 4, but the rest of it is unlikely to change much in the next six 

> months.
> 
> Duncan Murdoch
> 
> On 26/10/2009 6:46 PM, Kevin Wright wrote:
> > (On Windows XP with R 2.10.0)
> > 
> > 1. In the past, I have used a desktop search engine (X1) to pre-index 
all of
> > R's html help files.  Obviously, this no longer works with dynamic 
help
> > pages.  It also appears that the .Rd files are converted to a binary 
format
> > when installed and cannot be indexed by X1.
> > 
> > 2. I like to use firefox to type 'xyplot' into the 'awesome bar' and 
go to
> > the appropriate help page.  This obviously no longer works.
> > 
> > 3. I daily run several different R sessions to keep different projects
> > separate.  The NEWS file says:
> > 
> > - The HTML help can now locate cross-references of the form
> > \link[pkg]{foo} and \link[pkg:foo]{bar} where 'foo' is an
> > alias in the package, rather than the documented (basename
> > of a) filename (since the documentation has been much ignored).
> > 
> > This appears to only be true if the original R session is still 
active.
> > Close one R session and the links die in the browser.  Aahg!  What 
madness!
> > 
> > 4.  The NEWS file says:
> > 
> > o A new dynamic HTML help system is used by default, and may be
> > controlled using tools::startDynamicHelp().  With this enabled,
> > HTML help pages will be generated on request, resolving links
> > by searching through the current .libPaths().  The user
> > may set option("help.ports") to control which IP port is used
> > by the server.
> > 
> > This should be 'options', of course.  The 'options' page does not 
reference
> > "help.ports", but from an email on r-help I see options(help.ports =
> > sample(6800:6850)).  So I can fix the port at 6800, but the help page 
for
> > xyplot still disappears after closing an R session.
> > 
> > 5. If I want to use --enable-prebuilt-html, I assume that I will have 
to
> > download the source and configure/build it myself instead of using the
> > pre-compiled Windows binaries?  Same with packages?  (Sorry if this is
> > obvious, I've never needed to do this before.)
> > 
> > 
> > Looking for a new workflow and remembering why I don't like to use 
".0"
> > releases...
> > 
> > Kevin Wright
> > 
> >    [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> > 
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > PLEASE do read the posting guide 
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide 
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.