[ANN]: ESS 5.2.1 is released!
Rodney Sparapani
rsparapa at post.its.mcw.edu
Mon Jun 28 23:55:33 CEST 2004
1 ANNOUNCING ESS
****************
The ESS Developers proudly announce the release of ESS
5.2.1
Emacs Speaks Statistics (ESS) provides an intelligent, consistent
interface between the user and the software. ESS interfaces with
S-PLUS, R, SAS, BUGS and other statistical analysis packages under the
Unix, Microsoft Windows, and Apple Mac OS operating systems. ESS is a
package for the GNU Emacs and XEmacs text editors whose features ESS
uses to streamline the creation and use of statistical software. ESS
knows the syntax and grammar of statistical analysis packages and
provides consistent display and editing features based on that
knowledge. ESS assists in interactive and batch execution of
statements written in these statistical analysis languages.
ESS is freely available under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Please read the file COPYING which comes with the distribution, for
more information about the license. For more detailed information,
please read the README files that come with ESS.
1.1 Getting the Latest Version
==============================
The latest version of ESS is always available on the web at: ESS web
page (http://www.analytics.washington.edu/downloads/ess/) or StatLib
(http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/general/ESS/)
There no longer is an anonymous CVS repository for ESS, due to lack
of interest, little demand, and problems with security.
1.2 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
1.3 Requirements
================
ESS has been tested with
* S-PLUS 3.3, 3.4, 4.5, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, 6.1, 2000
* 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 (SPLUS 4.5/2000, 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
* 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).
1.4 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!
1.5 Mailing List
================
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 at stat.math.ethz.ch>;
contributions to the list may be mailed to
<ess-help at 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.
1.6 Reporting Bugs
==================
Please send bug reports, suggestions etc. to
<ESS-bugs at 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.
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.
1.7 Authors
===========
* A.J. Rossini (mailto:rossini at u.washington.edu)
* Richard M. Heiberger (mailto:rmh at temple.edu)
* Kurt Hornik (mailto:hornik at ci.tuwien.ac.at)
* Martin Maechler (mailto:maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch)
* Rodney A. Sparapani (mailto:rsparapa at mcw.edu)
* Stephen Eglen (mailto:stephen at gnu.org)
1.8 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.
1.9 New Features
================
Changes/New Features in 5.2.1:
* ESS[R]: If you have other versions of R, such as "R-1.8.1" on your
exec-path, ESS will find and create appropriate functions, such as
M-x R-1.8.1, for calling them. By default only programs beginning
"R-1" and "R-2" will be found, but see ess-r-versions for ways to
find other versions of R.
* 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 at 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://software.biostat.washington.edu/ess/doc) 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 at 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 at 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.
Rodney Sparapani Medical College of Wisconsin
Sr. Biostatistician Patient Care & Outcomes Research
rsparapa at mcw.edu http://www.mcw.edu/pcor
Was 'Name That Tune' rigged? WWLD -- What Would Lombardi Do
More information about the ESS-help
mailing list