The R Project SVN R

R @RVER@ for Windows

===================

This distribution contains a binary distribution of R-@RVER@ to run on

Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000 and XP on Intel/clone chips.  It is designed

to be as close as possible to the implementation on Unix, but see the

list of differences below.  The port was by Guido Masarotto, Brian

Ripley and Duncan Murdoch.

See the file `CHANGES' for the new features of this version.

You will need MSVCRT.dll installed.  It is installed on all recent

Windows installations, but not all Windows 95 machines.  You can

download it from

	ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/msvcrt.exe

a self-extracting zip archive that contains instructions.

Installation

============

The distribution can be obtained in two versions:

1) A 21Mb file @RWVER@.exe.  Just run this for a Windows-XP style

installer.  It contains all the R components, and you can select what

want installed.

2) Files miniR.exe and miniR-1.bin to miniR-8.bin.  If you need to,

put miniR.exe and miniR-1.bin on one floppy, and miniR-2.bin to

miniR-8.bin on separate floppies.

This is a small installation, containing text and compiled HTML help

and the Introduction to R and Data Import/Export manuals in PDF.

There is no package tcltk.

For more details, including command-line options for the installers 

and how to uninstall, see the rw-FAQ.  If you are reading this as part of

an installed version of R, that's both file rw-FAQ in this directory

and file doc\html\rw-FAQ.html.

Usage

=====

There are two versions of the R executable in @RWVER@\bin:

GUI:

Rgui.exe runs as a standard Windows GUI executable and provides an R

console in its own window.  It takes the standard R command-line

arguments; these are most easily set by making a shortcut to

...\@RWVER@\bin\Rgui.exe and adding the arguments in the Target field.

Set the `Start in' field of the shortcut to the directory you want to use

as the working directory (where workspaces and files are saved to and

loaded from).  The @RWVER@.exe and miniR.exe installers create a

shortcut on the desktop for you (by default).

You have a choice of interface: SDI (separate windows) or MDI

(multiple child windows in one large window).  MDI is the default:

select SDI by adding --sdi in the Target field.

Command-line editing is available: see Help | Console for details.

The menus provide shortcuts to some R commands such as help, help.start,

apropos, ls, load, save.image, search.

The `load' menu items (Source R code, Display file, Load Workspace)

keep track of the directory that was last used, and start their dialog

boxes from that directory the next time they are used.  That directory

can be made the working directory by the File | Change dir menu item.

All the `save' menu items start dialog boxes at the current working

directory: this includes `Save Workspace' and the various ways to save

graphics, as well as saving the workspace at the end of the session.

Note that the text help files use the latin1 encoding.  To see all the

characters you must use an appropriate font (European-language True

Type fonts should be OK).  To check if your preferred font has latin1

capability, try "help(text)" and look at the examples.   [Note: only a

few help files make use of latin1 characters not contained in the

standard ASCII set so if you like a font without latin1 capability,

use it.]

TERMINAL/BATCH:

Rterm.exe will run from a command line such as an MS-DOS or Commands

Window running the standard shells, command.com (9x/ME) and cmd.exe

(NT4/2000/XP), as well as the ports of bash and tcsh that we use.  Its

primary purpose is to allow batch operation, but it does provide all

the facilities needed for interactive use, including command-line

editing (see the file README.Rterm).

Batch use: At its simplest, Rterm.exe can be used in a batch mode by

commands like

Rterm.exe --no-restore --no-save < infile > outfile 2>&1

(users of Windows 95/98/ME should omit 2>&1) although users will

probably want to set up simple .bat or .cmd files to run batch

jobs. You can also use it via Rcmd BATCH: see ?BATCH or Rcmd BATCH

--help.

Use with ESS: You can use Rterm.exe to provide inferior R-mode in ESS

under NTEmacs, for example with ess-5.1.20.  The pager is

automatically set to "console" so text help will be displayed in emacs

buffers.

GRAPHICS:

The screen device is called windows().  This is launched automatically,

and can also be launched explicitly by windows() or win.graph() (or

x11()) from both Rgui.exe and Rterm.exe.  A printer device can be

opened using win.print(), and graphs drawn as metafiles by

win.metafile().

The graphics device pops up a separate window which has two menus.  The

device's File menu allows saving or printing or to run dev.off().

The History menu allows the recording of plots.  When plots have been

recorded they can be reviewed by PgUp and PgDn, saved and replaced.

Recording can be turned on automatically (the Recording item on the

list) or individual plots can be added (Add or the INS key).

The whole plot history can be saved to or retrieved from an R variable

in the global environment.

There is only one graphics history shared by all the windows devices.

HELP:

There are several options for help, depending on which help files you

installed.

(i) Text help.  This is the default, and the fallback option.

It will display in the currently set pager (use options(pager=) to change).

(ii) Compiled HTML files.  Set this as the default by

options(chmhelp=TRUE) or for individual help items by help(topic,

chmhelp=TRUE).  Full text search is available from the Search tab.

According to Microsoft, to make use of this you will need to have IE3

or later installed and a recent version of Windows or (not Windows

XP or 2000 or ME) use the updater hhupd.exe at

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/htmlhelp/html/hwMicrosoftHTMLHelpDownloads.asp

(iii) HTML help to be displayed in your normal browser.  Set this as

the default by options(htmlhelp=TRUE) or for individual help items by

help(topic, htmlhelp=TRUE).  Using help.start() sets the browser to

the top-level page, from which you can access a search engine.

(iv) Latex help files are available for use with help(topic,

offline=TRUE).  You will need to customize the file

@RWVER@\bin\helpPRINT.bat: it contains instructions.

Customization

=============

Environment variables can be set as NAME=value at the end of the

command line, including in a shortcut.  They can also be set (as

NAME=value lines) in the file .Renviron in the working directory, or

if that does not exist HOME\.Renviron.

Many aspects of the console (size, appearance, font, font size,

colours) can be customized by editing the file etc\Rconsole, and a

copy with a user's settings can be put in her HOME directory or in the

working directory.  (The exact sequence is to search the directory

pointed to by the first found of the environment variables R_USER then

HOME then {HOMEDRIVE}{HOMEPATH} then the working directory, finally

R_HOME\etc.  This also applies to .Renviron and other uses of `HOME'

in our documentation.)  The file contains a description of the

settings that can be altered.  See also ?Rconsole.

An alternative way to edit the Rconsole file is to use the GUI

preferences item on the Edit menu in Rgui.exe.  This can change some

of the settings (for example colours, font and window sizes) on the

current running console.

The mapping between Windows fonts and the font number used in R's

graphics can be set by editing the file etc\Rdevga, and a copy with a

user's settings can be put in the HOME or working directory (see the

description of Rconsole).  This mapping applies to both the screen

device and the printer device.

Many R defaults can be set in the file R_HOME\etc\Rprofile or a user's

file .Rprofile.  In particular:

- The pager is set by options(pager=).  The default is "internal" which

  brings up a separate console-like window.  The internal pager can use

  a single window or a different window for each topic shown

  (configurable in Rconsole).  Other possibilities we have

  used are "notepad" and "pfe32 /v", and "console" to list the files in

  the console (Rgui.exe) or terminal window (Rterm.exe).

Adding packages

===============

Binaries for many packages are available at

CRAN/bin/windows/contrib/1.7.  These are zip files which should be

unpacked in @RWVER@\library.  The simplest option is use the items on

the Packages menu to install from a zip file or to download from CRAN.

The list of packages and functions given by HTML help and used by the

search engine can be updated from a running R process by the command

	link.html.help()

provided the owner of the process has write permission on

@RWVER@\doc\html.

Private libraries of packages can be used and can be specified by the

environment variable R_LIBS.  (Separate directories by ";" in this

version.)  They will not be linked to HTML help.  In more detail, to

use packages installed in directory R:\libraries\gm, set

R_LIBS=R:\libraries\gm

in the environment or your .Renviron file or on the command line, or

add the line

.libPaths("R:/libraries/gm")

to your .Rprofile or at the end of R_HOME\etc\Rprofile.

To install a package from source code you need the source-package

distribution installed from @RWVER@.exe (but not the R sources).  This

contains detailed instructions in file `README.packages'.

Differences from Unix versions of R

===================================

- R can be interrupted by Esc in Rgui and by Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Break in Rterm:

  Ctrl-C is used for copying in the GUI version.  C-c C-c works

  under NTemacs.

- Command-line editing is always available, but is simpler than

  under readline-based input on Unix.  For Rgui.exe, see the menu item

  `Help | Console', for Rterm.exe the file README.Rterm.

- Paths to files can be specified with "/" or "\\".

- Using help.start() does not automatically send help requests to the

  browser: use options(htmlhelp=TRUE) to turn this on.

- system() is enhanced here and does not automatically use a shell.

  See its help page and that of shell().

- graphics device bmp() is available in this version.

Using package tcltk

===================

The package tcltk supports building graphical interfaces with Tcl/Tk.

"Support Files for library(tcltk)" needs to be selected from the

installer for this to work; alternatively you can use an existing

installation of Tcl/Tk 8.4.x by following the instructions in the

rw-FAQ.

Building From Source

====================

See the file @RWVER@\src\gnuwin32\INSTALL in the source distribution

and the rw-FAQ.

Feedback

========

Please send comments and bug reports to

	R-windows@r-project.org