General Information: README *************************** This is the README file for the distribution of ESS version 5.2.4 The first release of the 5.2 series. ESS is a GNU Emacs and XEmacs mode for interactive statistical programming and data analysis. Languages supported: the S family (S 3/4, S-PLUS 3/4/5/6, and R), SAS, XLispStat, Stata and BUGS. Installation help can be found in sections for both Unix and Windows. ESS grew out of the desire for bug fixes and extensions to S-mode and SAS-mode as well as a consistent union of their features in one package. The current development team is led by Martin Maechler since August 2004. Former project leader A.J. (Tony) Rossini () did the initial port to XEmacs and has been the primary coder. Martin Maechler () and Kurt Hornik () have assisted with S-PLUS, S4, R, and XLispStat. Stephen Eglen () has worked mostly on R support. Richard M. Heiberger () has assisted with S-PLUS and S4 development for Windows. Richard and Rodney A. Sparapani () have done much of the work implementing interactive SAS (iESS[SAS]) and batch SAS (ESS[SAS]) support. We are grateful to the previous developers of S-mode (Doug Bates, Ed Kademan, Frank Ritter, David M. Smith), SAS-mode (Tom Cook) and Stata-mode (Thomas Lumley). License ======= ESS is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. ESS is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License in the file COPYING in the same directory as this file for more details. New Features ============ Changes/New Features in 5.2.4: * The documentation now includes an overview of how to use the emacs TAGS facility for S functions. (The distribution also used to contain a directory etc/other/Tags where a ~1990 version of etags.c was distributed; this is no longer relevant and so has been deleted.) * ESS[SAS] - When you are working with EBCDIC files on an ASCII platform, .log NOTEs may display as gibberish since the EBCDIC characters are not converted to ASCII prior to their display. So, the function ess-ebcdic-to-ascii-search-and-replace is provided for convenience and is bound to C-F11. This function requires the dd command so Windows users will need to have Cygwin or something like it. * ESS: Completion of object names is now always done dynamically rather than allowing the option of using a pre-computed database (by `ess-create-object-name-db') since modern computers seem fast enough for dynamic completion. (We expect few users, if any, have been using the pre-computed database method.) * ESS: object completion in iESS buffers running on Windows was very slow (for GNU Emacs, but not Xemacs) and has now been fixed. Further, it was more or less broken for all versions of S-plus 6.x, and has been fixed to work everywhere but with the Windows' GUI of S-plus. The list of objects now shows unique names also when an object appears more than once in the search path. * ESS[R]: Completion of object names now also includes those starting with ".". Changes/New Features in 5.2.3: * ESS: When new inferior ESS processes are created, by default they will replace the current buffer (this restores behavior from pre 5.2.0). If you wish new ESS processes to start in another window of the current frame, set inferior-ess-same-window to nil. * New variables inferior-Splus-args and inferior-R-args provide a way to pass command line arguments to starting S and R processes. Changes/New Features in 5.2.2: * bug-fixes for 5.2.1 (require 'executable), html docs, etc. * ess-lisp-directory/../doc/info added to Info-directory-list if ess-info not found by info * ESS[R]: If you have other versions of R on your exec-path, such as "R-1.8.1" with Unix or "rw1081" with Windows, ESS will find them and create appropriate functions, such as M-x R-1.8.1 or M-x rw1081, for calling them. By default only Unix programs beginning "R-1" and "R-2" and Windows programs parallel to the version of R in your exec-path will be found, but see ess-r-versions and ess-rterm-versions for ways to find other versions of R. * ESS[R]: Other versions of R, such as "R-1.8.1" on Unix and "rw1081" on Windows, are added to the "ESS / Start Process / Other" menu. * ESS[S]: If you have other versions of S-Plus on your Windows computer, such as S-Plus 6.1 or S-Plus 4.5, ESS will find them and create appropriate functions, such as M-x splus61, for calling the console version (Sqpe) inside an emacs buffer. By default only programs installed in the default location will be found, but see ess-SHOME-versions for ways to find other versions of S-Plus. * ESS[S]: Other versions of Sqpe on Windows, such as "splus61", are added to the "ESS / Start Process / Other" menu. * ESS[R]: (bug fix) ess-quit (bound to C-c C-q) should now quit the inferior R process, when issued from either the inferior buffer, or from a .R buffer. Changes/New Features in 5.2.1: * ESS[S] (R and S-plus): now have toolbar support with icons to evaluate code in the inferior process or to switch there. This code is experimental and likely to change as XEmacs/Emacs issues get resolved. The toolbar should be enabled if your Emacs displays images, but can be disabled with the variable ess-use-toolbar. Thanks to David Smith from Insightful for the S-plus logo. * ESS[SAS]: ess-sas-graph-view (F12) enhanced; you can specify external file viewers for each graphics file type via the alist ess-sas-graph-view-viewer-alist; also .jpg/.gif are now handled by image-mode on XEmacs, if available, otherwise by graphics primitives as before Changes/New Features in 5.2.0: * ESS[BUGS]: new info documentation! now supports interactive processing thanks to Aki Vehtari (mailto:Aki.Vehtari@hut.fi); new architecture-independent unix support as well as support for BUGS v. 0.5 * ESS[SAS]: convert .log to .sas with ess-sas-transcript; info documentation improved; Local Variable bug fixes; SAS/IML statements/functions now highlighted; files edited remotely by ange-ftp/EFS/tramp are recognized and pressing SUBMIT opens a buffer on the remote host via the local variable ess-sas-shell-buffer-remote-init which defaults to "ssh"; changed the definition of the variable ess-sas-edit-keys-toggle to boolean rather than 0/1; added the function ess-electric-run-semicolon which automatically reverse indents lines containing only "run;"; C-F1 creates MS RTF portrait from the current buffer; C-F2 creates MS RTF landscape from the current buffer; C-F9 opens a SAS DATASET with PROC INSIGHT rather than PROC FSVIEW; C-F10 kills all buffers associated with .sas program; "inferior" aliases for SAS batch: C-c C-r for submit region, C-c C-b for submit buffer, C-c C-x for goto .log; C-c C-y for goto .lst * ESS[S]: Pressing underscore ("_") once inserts " <- " (as before); pressing underscore twice inserts a literal underscore. To stop this smart behaviour, add "(ess-smart-underscore nil)" to your .emacs after ess-site has been loaded; ess-dump-filename-template-proto (new name!) now can be customized successfully (for S language dialects); Support for Imenu has been improved; set ess-imenu-use-S to non-nil to get an "Imenu-S" item on your menubar; ess-help: Now using nice underlines (instead of `nuke-* ^H_') * ESS[R]: After (require 'essa-r), M-x ess-r-var allows to load numbers from any Emacs buffer into an existing *R* process; M-x ess-rdired gives a "directory editor" of R objects; fixed ess-retr-lastvalue-command, i.e. .Last.value bug (thanks to David Brahm) * ESS: Support for creating new window frames has been added to ESS. Inferior ESS processes can be created in dedicated frames by setting inferior-ess-own-frame to t. ESS help buffers can also open in new frames; see the documentation for ess-help-own-frame for details. (Thanks to Kevin Rodgers for contributing code.) Changes/New Features in 5.1.24: * The version number is now correct even inside ESS/Emacs Changes/New Features in 5.1.23: * Minor more Makefile clean up. Changes/New Features in 5.1.22: * Besides info documentation, PDF and HTML documentation are also provided (instead of built using "make") and available on the web as well; see ESS web page (http://ess.r-project.org/) and StatLib (http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/general/ESS/doc) * Now that info documentation is available, the README.* files are no longer supported. However, they are still distributed for what it's worth. * ESS is now an XEmacs package! See XEmacs Installation HOWTO (http://www.xemacs.org/Install/index.html) for details (specifically, items 10-15). * ESS[SAS]: more user-friendly enhancements for remote SAS batch jobs with Kermit file transfers (LOG and OUTPUT function key features now supported). Multiple shells now supported so you can run SAS on different computers from different buffers by setting the buffer-local variable ess-sas-shell-buffer to unique buffer names. * Major re-vamping of Makefile/Makeconf. Changes/New Features in 5.1.21: * ESS[SAS]: info documentation now available!, see ESS->Help for SAS; F12 opens GSASFILE nearest point for viewing either within emacs, when available, or via an external viewer; more syntax highlighting keywords; more enhancements for remote SAS batch jobs with Kermit; new framework for remote SAS interactive jobs, see ess-remote * ESS[S]: info documentation now available!, see ESS->Help for the S family * Makefile: tag now independent of rel; info files made by doc/Makefile and installed in new info sub-directory Changes/New Features in 5.1.20: * New `options()$STERM' in the S dialects (S, S-Plus, R). The S program can determine the environment in which it is currently running. ESS sets the option to `iESS' or `ddeESS' when it starts an S language process. We recommend other specific values for S language processes that ESS does not start. * New `ess-mouse-me' function, assigned to S-mouse-3 by default. User may click on a word or region and then choose from the menu to display the item, or a summary, or a plot, etc. This feature is still under development. * GNU Emacs 21.1 is now supported (fixed for S dialects, SAS & BUGS), (some from Stephen Eglen). * XEmacs 21.x is now supported (fixed w32-using-nt bug) * XEmacs on Win (NT) is better supported. * Workaround for bug in Sqpe+6 (S-PLUS 6 for Win). * should now work even when imenu is not available (for old Xemacsen). * ESS[SAS]: XEmacs-Imenu fix; C-TAB is globalized along with your function-key definitions, if specified; you can specify your SAS library definitions outside of autoexec.sas for ess-sas-data-view with SAS code placed in the variable ess-sas-data-view-libname, also the dataset name is defaulted to the nearest permanent dataset to point; Speedbar support now works for permanent datasets, please ignore first./last.; new font-locking is now the default with more improvements for font-locking PROCs, macro statements, * ; and %* ; comments; you can toggle sas-log-mode with F10 which will font-lock your .log (if it isn't too big); submit remote .sas files accessed with ange-ftp, EFS or Tramp (Kermit is experimental) by setting ess-sas-submit-method to 'sh; ess-sas-submit-command and ess-sas-submit-command-options are buffer-local so you can have local file variable sections at the end of your .sas files to request different executables or specify special options and the local file variables are re-read at submit instead of only at file open so that if you make a change it is picked up immediately; * ESS[BUGS]: font-lock with `in' fixed. * for STATA: font-lock bug fixed. * for Rd mode: C-c C-v and `switch-process' in menu. further, C-c C-f prefix (Rd-font) for inserting or surrounding a word by things such as \code{.}, \code{\link{.}}, \emph{.} etc. * new functions (ess-directory-function) and (ess-narrow-to-defun) ess-directory <-> default-directory logic (Jeff Mincy). * Re-organized Makefile and fixed a few bugs. Changes/New Features in 5.1.19: * S+6 now supported (Tony Rossini (Unix) and Rich Heiberger (Windows)) * New BUGS support through ESS[BUGS] mode (Rodney Sparapani) Templates assist you in writing .bug and .cmd code (.cmd and .log are replaced by .bmd and .bog to avoid emacs extension collisions). Substitution" parameters facilitate "automagic" generation of data...in" and "init...in" filenames, "const N=" from your data file and "monitor()/stats()" commands. Activated by pressing F12. * Fixes for `ess-smart-underscore' SAS breakage (Rich Heiberger) * You can change between PC and Unix, local and global SAS function-key definitions interactively (Rich Heiberger) * C-Submit a highlighted region to SAS batch (Rodney Sparapani) * New and improved SAS syntax highlighting (Rodney Sparapani) To get the new functionality, set ess-sas-run-make-regexp to nil. Also available in .log files via F10. * Open a permanent SAS dataset for viewing via F9 (Rodney Sparapani) You must have the library defined in autoexec.sas for it to work. * User-friendly defaults for `sas-program', `ess-sas-batch-pre-command' and `ess-sas-batch-post-command' as well Customize support for these and other ESS[SAS] variables (Rodney Sparapani) * `ess-sas-suffix-2' now defaults to .dat via F11 (Rodney Sparapani) * Emacs/XEmacs, Unix/Windows issues collectively handled in ess-emcs.el * defadvice solves problem of missing *ESS* (thanks to Jeff Mincy) * Improved manual a bit by including things that were only in `README'. Changes/New Features in 5.1.18: * New `ess-smart-underscore' function, now assigned to "_" by default. Inserts `ess-S-assign' (customizable " <- "), unless inside string and comments where plain "_" is used instead. (MM) * Fixes for longstanding interactive SAS breakage (RMH) Changes/New Features in 5.1.17: * Documentation for Windows Installation (Rich Heiberger) * removal of ess-vars, finalization of customize support (in the sense that there is no more use of ess-vars, but that we need to fix ess-cust) (AJ Rossini) * Many small (and large) fixes/contributions (MMaechler) * addition of the "S-equal" variable and provide M-x ess-add-MM-keys a way to remap "_" to `ess-S-assign', typically " <- ", but customizable. (MMaechler) Changes/New Features in 5.1.16: * BUG FIXES * Better SAS support Changes/New Features in 5.1.15: * BUG FIXES Changes/New Features in 5.1.14: * Yet more fixes to SAS mode, (Rich Heiberger and Rodney Sparapani) * Customize support (for most Emacsen which support it) (AJRossini) * ARC and ViSta support out of the box, and fixes for XLispStat (AJRossini) Changes/New Features in 5.1.13: * Version numbering finally all depending on the ./VERSION file, thanks to Martin Maechler. * Yet more fixes to SAS mode, thanks to Rich Heiberger. Changes/New Features in 5.1.12: * Splus 5.1 stabilized, thanks to Martin Maechler, Bill Venables, Chuck Taylor, and others. * More fixes to SAS mode, thanks to Rodney Sparapani and Rich Heiberger. Changes/New Features in 5.1.11: * More fixes to Stata mode, thanks to Brendan Halpin (mailto:brendan@essex.ac.uk). * fixed bugs in ESS-elsewhere, thanks to many testers * README.SPLUS4WIN has DETAILED instructions for S-PLUS 2000, thanks to David Brahm (mailto:brahm@alum.mit.edu). * Fixes to SAS mode, thanks to Rodney Sparapani Changes/New Features in 5.1.10: * More fixes to Stata mode * primitive generic version of ESS-elsewhere * Small fixes to SAS/Stata. Changes/New Features in 5.1.9: * Stata mode works * Literate Data Analysis using Noweb works Changes/New Features in 5.1.8: * Bug fixes * R documentation mode defaults changed Changes/New Features in 5.1.2: * able to use inferior iESS mode to communicate directly with a running S-Plus 4.x process using the Microsoft DDE protocol. We use the familiar (from Unix ESS) C-c C-n and related key sequences to send lines from the S-mode file to the inferior S process. We continue to edit S input files in ESS[S] mode and transcripts of previous S sessions in ESS Transcript mode. All three modes know the S language, syntax, and indentation patterns and provide the syntactic highlighting that eases the programming tasks. Current Features ================ * Languages Supported: * S family (S 3/4, S-PLUS 3.x/4.x/5.x/6.x, and R) * SAS * BUGS * Stata * XLispStat including Arc and ViSta * Editing source code (S family, SAS, BUGS, XLispStat) * Syntactic indentation and highlighting of source code * Partial evaluation of code * Loading and error-checking of code * Source code revision maintenance * Batch execution (SAS, BUGS) * Use of imenu to provide links to appropriate functions * Interacting with the process (S family, SAS, XLispStat) * Command-line editing * Searchable Command history * Command-line completion of S family object names and file names * Quick access to object lists and search lists * Transcript recording * Interface to the help system * Transcript manipulation (S family, XLispStat) * Recording and saving transcript files * Manipulating and editing saved transcripts * Re-evaluating commands from transcript files * Help File Editing (R) * Syntactic indentation and highlighting of source code. * Sending Examples to running ESS process. * Previewing Stability ========= Versions 5.2.x are meant to be release-quality versions. While some new features are being introduced, we are cleaning up and improving the interface. We know about some remaining documentation inconsistencies. Patches or suggested fixes with bug reports are much appreciated! Requirements ============ ESS has been tested with * S-PLUS 3.3, 3.4, 4.5, 2000, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, 6.1, 6.2 * R >=0.49 * S4 * SAS >=6.12 * BUGS 0.5, 0.603 * Stata >=6.0 * XLispStat >=3.50 on the following platforms * Linux (all) * Solaris/SunOS (all) * Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP (SPLUS 4.5/2000/6.*, R, SAS and BUGS) * Apple Mac OS (SAS for OS 9 and X11 R for OS X) with the following versions of emacs * GNU Emacs 20.3, 20.4, 20.5, 20.6, 20.7, 21.1, 21.3 * XEmacs 21.0, 21.1.13-14, 21.4.0-8, 21.4.9-13/21.5.17(1), 21.4.14-15; as of June 2004, ESS does not work with XEmacs Betas such as 21.5.17 * GNU Emacs <20.3 and XEmacs <21.0(2) ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) requires the files.el patch to revert-buffer for the Local Variables updating problem (2) These releases of emacs are no longer supported, so an upgrade is recommended if you plan to use ESS. If you have GNU Emacs 19.29, see *Note Unix installation::. Also, note that the `custom' library bundled with Emacs 19.34 is too _old_, its API is incompatible with the `new custom' bundled with recent Emacsen. The `new custom' for Emacs 19.34 is available for download here (ftp://ftp.dina.kvl.dk/pub/Staff/Per.Abrahamsen/custom/custom-1.9962.tar.gz). Getting the Latest Version ========================== The latest released version of ESS is always available on the web at: ESS web page (http://ess.r-project.org) or StatLib (http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/general/ESS/) The latest development version of ESS is available via `https://svn.R-project.org/ESS/', the ESS Subversion repository. If you have a Subversion client (see `http://subversion.tigris.org/'), you can download the sources using: % svn checkout https://svn.r-project.org/ESS/trunk PATH which will put the ESS files into directory PATH. Later, within that directory, `svn update' will bring that directory up to date. Windows-based tools such as TortoiseSVN are also available for downloading the files. Alternatively, you can browse the sources with a web browser at: ESS SVN site (https://svn.r-project.org/ESS/trunk). However, please use a subversion client instead to minimize the load when retrieving. If you remove other versions of ESS from your emacs load-path, you can then use the development version by adding the following to .emacs: (load "/path/to/ess-svn/lisp/ess-site.el") Note that https is required, and that the SSL certificate for the Subversion server of the R project is Certificate information: - Hostname: svn.r-project.org - Valid: from Jul 16 08:10:01 2004 GMT until Jul 14 08:10:01 2014 GMT - Issuer: Department of Mathematics, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, CH - Fingerprint: c9:5d:eb:f9:f2:56:d1:04:ba:44:61:f8:64:6b:d9:33:3f:93:6e:ad (currently, there is no "trusted certificate"). You can accept this certificate permanently and will not be asked about it anymore. Installation (from tar file) ============================ We now discuss installation, which might happen under Unix or Microsoft Windows. First, we discuss Unix installation. *Note Unix installation::. For Microsoft Windows Installation please skip to the *Note Microsoft Windows installation::. Unix installation ================= 1. cd to a directory where you want to install ESS, creating it if necessary. This directory will be referred to below as ESSDIR. 2. Retrieve the latest version from ESS downloads area (http://ess.r-project.org/downloads/ess) to ESSDIR. 3. Decompress/unarchive the files from the disribution. gunzip ess-VERSION.tar.gz tar xvf ess-VERSION.tar (or: `gunzip < ess-VERSION.tar.gz | tar xvf -' ). (or using GNU tar: `tar zxvf ess-VERSION.tar.gz'). The `tar' command will create the subdirectory ess-VERSION and unarchive the files there. 4. Edit the file `ESSDIR/ess-VERSION/lisp/ess-site.el' as explained in the comments section of that file. 5. Add the line (load "ESSDIR/ess-VERSION/lisp/ess-site") to your user or system installation file (GNU Emacs uses `$HOME/.emacs' and XEmacs uses `$HOME/.xemacs/init.el' for the user initialization file. GNU Emacs uses default.el or site-init.el and XEmacs uses site-start.el for the system installation file). Alternatively, if ess-site.el is in your current Lisp path, you can do: (require 'ess-site) to configure emacs for ESS. 6. That's it! If you are installing just a local copy of ESS for yourself, ESS is now ready to be used. (The remaining step below is for advanced installation.) To edit statistical programs, load the files with the requiste extensions (".sas" for SAS, ".S" for S-PLUS, ".R" for R, and ".lsp" for XLispStat). To start a statistical process within Emacs, such as R, type `M-x R'. 7. (OPTIONAL) READ THIS ITEM THOROUGHLY BEFORE STARTING: If you want to place the compiled files in other locations edit the LISPDIR and INFODIR entries in `Makeconf' in the ESSDIR/ess-VERSION directory (if you are using XEmacs, then you also need to edit the EMACS entry as follows: EMACS=xemacs). You can compile those files by: make all When that completes successfully, install the compiled files: make install This will install the compiled info files and lisp files. If you are an XEmacs user, then you should be done. If not, then you may have to edit/create the file `dir' that is found in the directory specified by `INFODIR': see the sample `dir' in ESSDIR/ess-VERSION/doc/info. If `dir' does not exist in `INFODIR', then the sample `dir' will be installed. _Note:_ ESS can be installed for XEmacs as an XEmacs package much more easily than what has been described anywhere above. However, the latest ESS version will not be available at the same time as an XEmacs package; generally, it can take weeks or months to appear in the latter format. For more information on installing ESS as an XEmacs package see Quickstart Package Guide (http://www.xemacs.org/Documentation/packageGuide.html). Microsoft Windows installation ============================== For Microsoft Windows installation, please follow the next steps: (see separate instructions above for UNIX *Note Unix installation::. 1. cd to a directory where you keep emacs lisp files, or create a new directory (for example, `c:\emacs\') to hold the distribution. This directory will be referred to below as "the ESS distribution directory". It will contain, at the end, either the tar file `ess-VERSION.tar.gz' or the zip file `ess-VERSION.zip', and a directory for the ESS source, which will be termed "the ESS-VERSION source directory". 2. Retrieve the compressed tar file `ess-VERSION.tar.gz' or the zipped file `ess-VERSION.zip' from one of the FTP or WWW archive sites via FTP (or HTTP). Be aware that http browsers on Windows frequently change the "." and "-" characters in filenames to other punctuation. Please change the names back to their original form. 3. Copy `ess-VERSION.tar.gz' to the location where you want the ess-VERSION directory, for example to `c:\emacs\ess-VERSION.tar.gz', and cd there. For example, cd c:\emacs Extract the files from the distribution, which will unpack into a subdirectory, `ess-VERSION'. gunzip ess-VERSION.tar.gz tar xvf ess-VERSION.tar (or: `gunzip < ess-VERSION.tar.gz | tar xvf -' ). (or: from the zip file: `unzip ess-VERSION.zip') The `tar' command will extract files into the current directory. Do not create `ess-VERSION' yourself, or you will get an extra level of depth to your directory structure. 4. Windows users will usually be able to use the `lisp/ess-site.el' as distributed. Only rarely will changes be needed. 5. Windows users will need to make sure that the directories for the software they will be using is in the PATH environment variable. On Windows 9x, add lines similar to the following to your `c:\autoexec.bat' file: path=%PATH%;c:\progra~1\spls2000\cmd On Windows NT/2000/XP, add the directories to the PATH using the `My Computer/Control Panel/System/Advanced/Environment Variables' menu. Note that the directory containing the program is added to the PATH, not the program itself. One such line is needed for each software program. Be sure to use the abbreviation `progra~1' and not the long version with embedded blanks. Use backslashes "\". 6. Add the line (load "/PATH/ess-site") to your .emacs (or _emacs) file (or default.el or site-init.el, for a site-wide installation). Replace `/PATH' above with the value of ess-lisp-directory as defined in `ess-site.el'. Use forwardslashes `/'. (GNU Emacs uses the filename `%HOME%/.emacs' and XEmacs uses the filename `%HOME%/.xemacs/init.el' for the initialization file.) 7. To edit statistical programs, load the files with the requisite extensions (".sas" for SAS, ".S" or "s" or "q" or "Q" for S-PLUS, ".r" or ".R" for R, and ".lsp" for XLispStat). 8. To run statistical processes under emacs: To start the S-PLUS 6.x GUI from ESS under emacs: M-x S (or `M-x S+6'). You will then be asked for a pathname ("S starting data directory?"), from which to start the process. The prompt will propose your current directory as the default. ESS will start the S-PLUS GUI. There will be slight delay during which emacs is temporarily frozen. ESS will arrange for communication with the S-PLUS GUI using the DDE protocol. Send lines or regions from the emacs buffer containing your S program (for example, `myfile.s') to the S-PLUS Commands Window with the `C-c C-n' or `C-c C-r' keys. (If you are still using S-PLUS 4.x or 2000, then use `M-x S+4'.) To start an S-PLUS 6.x session inside an emacs buffer--and without the S-PLUS GUI: M-x Sqpe (or `M-x Sqpe+6'). You will then be asked for a pathname ("S starting data directory?"), from which to start the process. The prompt will propose your current directory as the default. You get Unix-like behavior, in particular the entire transcript is available for emacs-style search commands. Send lines or regions from the emacs buffer containing your S program (for example, `myfile.s') to the *S+6* buffer with the `C-c C-n' or `C-c C-r' keys. Interactive graphics are available with Sqpe by using the java library supplied with S-PLUS 6.1 and newer releases. Enter the commands: library(winjava) java.graph() Graphs can be saved from the `java.graph' device in several formats, but not PostScript. If you need a PostScript file you will need to open a separate `postscript' device. (If you are still using S-PLUS 4.x or 2000, then use `M-x Sqpe+4'.) To connect to an already running S-PLUS GUI (started, for example, from the S-PLUS icon): M-x S+6-existing You will then be asked for a pathname ("S starting data directory?"), from which to start the process. The prompt will propose your current directory as the default. ESS will arrange for communication with the already running S-PLUS GUI using the DDE protocol. Send lines or regions from the emacs buffer containing your S program (for example, `myfile.s') to the S-PLUS Commands Window with the `C-c C-n' or `C-c C-r' keys. (If you are still using S-PLUS 4.x or 2000, then use `M-x S+4-existing'.) If you wish to run R, you can start it with: M-x R XLispStat can not currently be run with M-x XLS Hopefully, this will change. However, you can still edit with emacs, and cut and paste the results into the XLispStat *Listener* Window under Microsoft Windows. 9. That's it! Reporting Bugs ============== Please send bug reports, suggestions etc. to The easiest way to do this is within Emacs by typing `M-x ess-submit-bug-report' This also gives the maintainers valuable information about your installation which may help us to identify or even fix the bug. If Emacs reports an error, backtraces can help us debug the problem. Type "M-x set-variable RET debug-on-error RET t RET". Then run the command that causes the error and you should see a *Backtrace* buffer containing debug information; send us that buffer. Note that comments, suggestions, words of praise and large cash donations are also more than welcome. Mailing Lists ============= There is a mailing list for discussions and announcements relating to ESS. Join the list by sending an e-mail with "subscribe ess-help" (or "help") in the body to ; contributions to the list may be mailed to . Rest assured, this is a fairly low-volume mailing list. The purposes of the mailing list include * helping users of ESS to get along with it. * discussing aspects of using ESS on Emacs and XEmacs. * suggestions for improvements. * announcements of new releases of ESS. * posting small patches to ESS. Authors ======= * A.J. Rossini (mailto:rossini@blindglobe.net) * Richard M. Heiberger (mailto:rmh@temple.edu) * Kurt Hornik (mailto:hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at) * Martin Maechler (mailto:maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch) * Rodney A. Sparapani (mailto:rsparapa@mcw.edu) * Stephen Eglen (mailto:stephen@gnu.org)