ANNOUNCING ESS
**************
Annoucing the release of ESS-5.1.20 (Emacs Speaks Statistics).
------------------------------------------------------------
ESS is an Emacs package which provides a standard interface between
statistical programs and statistical processes. It is intended to
provide assistance for interactive statistical programming and data
analysis, and was is based on and extends the capabilities of S-mode.
The code is freely available but is not in the public domain. It is
distributed under the GNU GPL. Please read the file COPYING which comes
with the distribution, for more information about the license.
For more detailed information about ESS's abilities, please read the
file README with the distribution.
And to help remove any further confusion:
The name is ESS, NOT ESS-mode.
Thank you :-).
New Features
============
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).
* for 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;
* for 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
(<rmh@surfer.stat.temple.edu>))
* 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 (<rossini@u.washington.edu>))
* Many small (and large) fixes/contributions (MMaechler,
(<maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch>)).
* 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, (<maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch>)).
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
(<rmh@surfer.stat.temple.edu>) and Rodney Sparapani
<rsparapa@mcw.edu>)).
* Customize support (for most Emacsen which support it) (AJRossini,
(<rossini@biostat.washington.edu>)
* ARC and ViSta support out of the box, and fixes for XLispStat
(AJRossini, <rossini@biostat.washington.edu>)
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
(<rmh@surfer.stat.temple.edu>).
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
(<rsparapa@mcw.edu>) and Rich Heiberger
(<rmh@surfer.stat.temple.edu>).
Changes/New Features in 5.1.11:
* More fixes to Stata mode, thanks to Brendan Halpin
(<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 (<brahm@alum.mit.edu>).
* Fixes to SAS mode, thanks to Rodney Sparapani
(<rsparapa@mcw.edu>)
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 dialects (S 3/4, S-PLUS 3.x/4.x/5.x/6.x, and R)
* LispStat dialects (XLispStat, ViSta under development)
* SAS
* BUGS
* Stata
* SPSS dialects (SPSS, Fiasco (GNU project)) (under development)
* SCA (under development)
* Editing source code (S, LispStat, SAS, BUGS)
* Syntactic indentation and highlighting of source code
* Partial evaluations of code
* Loading and error-checking of code
* Source code revision maintenance
* Interacting with the process (S, LispStat, SAS)
* Command-line editing
* Searchable Command history
* Command-line completion of S object names and file names
* Quick access to object lists and search lists
* Transcript recording
* Interface to the help system
* Transcript manipulation (S3, S+3, S4, R, 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 5.1.x are meant to be gamma-level releases. While some bugs
are fixed, others may have been introduced, especially with regards to
new features. See the file doc/TODO for details. Bug reports are
solicited; see the Bugs Section below. Patches or suggested coding
fixes with bug reports are much appreciated!
Requirements
============
ESS version 5.1.n (n >= 2) requires Emacs version 19.34(1) or later,
or version XEmacs 19.14 or later. It has been most thoroughly tested
with:
* S-PLUS versions 3.3, 3.4, 4.5, 5.0, 5.1, 6
* R versions >=0.49
* XLispStat versions >=3.50
* S4
* SAS
* Stata >=6.0
* BUGS 0.5 or 0.6
on the following platforms
* SunOS (all)
* Solaris (all)
* SGI (all)
* Linux (S-PLUS 5.0, 5.1, R, XLispStat, S4, Stata 6.0)
* Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT (SPLUS 4.5 and 2000)
with the following versions of emacs
* Emacs 19.34, 20.3, 20.4, 20.5, 20.6, 20.7
* XEmacs 19.16, 20.0, 20.4, 21.0, 21.1.13, 21.4.x
* Emacs 19.28, 19.29 with SAS (with additional modifications)
* NTEmacs 20.3.1 with S-PLUS 4.5.
---------- Footnotes ----------
(1) if you have Emacs 19.29, you _may_ get it to work after
unpacking `19.29.tar.gz', see the installation instructions
Getting the Latest Version
==========================
The latest versions of ESS are always available by WWW from:
`http://ess.stat.wisc.edu/' and
`ftp://ess.stat.wisc.edu/pub/ESS/'
The HTML version of the documentation can be found at:
`http://stat.ethz.ch/ESS/'
The latest (no more than 24 hours behind the developers) version of
ESS can also be retrieved using anonymous cvs:
You need a cvs client (that works with your firewall, if any)
the repository name is
`:pserver:anoncvs@software.biostat.washington.edu:/var/anoncvs'
using a command-line cvs client (i.e. on Unix or DOS), first type:
`cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@software.biostat.washington.edu:/var/anoncvs
login'
password is anoncvs
then type: `cvs -d
:pserver:anoncvs@software.biostat.washington.edu:/var/anoncvs co ess'
Check the `README' file first to see which files you need. Look at
`ANNOUNCE' to learn about new user-visible features; also, many changes
are listed in the `ChangeLog' file.
Reporting Bugs
==============
Please send bug reports, suggestions etc. to
<ESS-bugs@stat.math.ethz.ch>
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.
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 <ess-help-request@stat.math.ethz.ch>;
contributions to the list may be mailed to
<ess-help@stat.math.ethz.ch>. 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 (http://www.biostat.washington.edu/~rossini/)
<rossini@u.washington.edu>
* Richard M. Heiberger
(http://www.sbm.temple.edu/departments/statistics/)
<rmh@fisher.stat.temple.edu>
* Kurt Hornik (http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik)
<hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at>
* Martin Maechler (http://stat.ethz.ch/~maechler/)
<maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch>
* Rodney Sparapani (http://www.mcw.edu/pcor/rsparapa)
<rsparapa@mcw.edu>
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.