[ESS] Feature Idea: open help in browser when viewing it in an emacs buffer

[Matthew Landis]

Steve,

My ESS set up already opens help in HTML.  I can't recall the actual 
process of setting it up, but it might be as simple as including this in 
your .emacs:

(setq ess-help-own-frame 'one)
(setq inferior-ess-r-help-command "help(\"%s\", help_type=\"html\")\n")

At least, that's what I've got that seems relevant to help.  I can't 
claim to follow exactly what it's doing though.

By the way, can anyone tell me why, whenever I call help at the R prompt 
(e.g. ?setZ), the help page opens in my browser but also opens a new ESS 
buffer in a new frame, called, e.g. *help[R](setZ)*.  This is mildly 
annoying.  I would love to have a way of not having that little frame 
get in my way each time I call help.

Thanks,

M

On 10/30/2011 1:41 PM, Steve Lianoglou wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I was thinking it might be cool if there was another key shortcut
> defined while browsing help[R] files in an emacs/ess buffer that would
> allow you to launch the html version of the current help file you are
> viewing in your browser.
>
> I'd take a stab at writing such a function to include in
> `ess-help.el`, but my knowledge of elisp is extremely poor, to say the
> least.
>
> Apologies in advance if this feature is currently available and I've
> somehow managed to miss it.
>
> Thanks,
> -steve
>

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Matthew Landis, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
ISciences, LLC
61 Main St. Suite 200
Burlington VT 05401
802.864.2999
www.isciences.com
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