[ESS] Windows Emacs: still hangs on install.packages(); no fix?

Martin Maechler maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch
Wed Sep 19 22:57:08 CEST 2012 

On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Vitalie Spinu <spinuvit at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> The freezing problem is most likely gone in beta. ESS no longer waits
> for the output to arrive, and long running (or never-ending like in this
> case) commands no longer stall emacs.
>
>   >> "Ponting, Keith (Keith)" <kponting at avaya.com>
>   >> on Wed, 19 Sep 2012 04:19:42 -0400 wrote:
>
>   > Hi Paul,
>   > Another not what you want, but here goes. I get similar but not identical
>   > behaviour - (Vista, emacs 24.1.1 from Vincent Goulet's excellent bundle
>   > emacs-24.1-modified-1, including ESS 12.04-4). If I <ctrl>C <ctrl>C with the
>   > cursor in the *R* buffer on the line which says "--- Please select a C RAN
>   > mirror for use in this session ---", then the minibuffer responds "no command on
>   > this line", but if I move the cursor up to a command prompt line (beginning ">
>   > "), then the interrupt works.
>
> The C-c C-c problem is also solved in beta. It should now work everywhere, not
> only on input lines.
>
>   > More like what you want: I have the following in my .emacs - you
>   > could try something like this in site-start.el with your solutions 1
>   > or 2 replacing my max.print option:
>
>   > (defun my-ess-post-run-hook ()
>   >   (ess-execute-screen-options) ; from ESS-help Digest vol 77 issue 10
>   >   (local-set-key "\C-cw" 'ess-execute-screen-options)
>   >   (if (string= ess-dialect "R") (ess-eval-linewise "options(max.print=100)" nil nil nil (quote wait)))
>   > )
>   > (add-hook 'ess-post-run-hook 'my-ess-post-run-hook)
>
> This is indeed the way to go.
>
> (defun my-ess-execute-options ()
>   (when (string-match-p "^R" ess-dialect)
>     (ess-command "options(menu.graphics = FALSE)\n")))
> (add-hook 'ess-post-run-hook 'my-ess-post-run-hook)
>
> Use ess-eval-linewise instead if you want your users to see the code in their
> buffers. Same for your CRAN code, enclose it in {...} and don't forget
> to put "\n" at the end.
>
> In beta it's even easier because there is a specialized R post-run hook:
>
> (defun my-R-execute-options ()
>     (ess-command "options(menu.graphics = FALSE)\n"))
> (add-hook 'ess-R-post-run-hook 'my-R-execute-options)
>
> I wonder if this option should be set by ESS. Tcltk menus are pretty annoying.

Maybe we are two close to release now to change,
as we don't currently overview all possible consequences of such a choice,
but I do tend to agree that such an option setting probably should
become default in the future.

Martin

>
> There is also an ESS interface ess-install.packages which pops an IDO
> interface for CRAN selection. You can access it directly with M-x or
> with comma in *R* buffer through handy-commands.
>
> In beta ess-handy-commands are bound to C-c h. So C-c h inst RET should
> do the job for you.
>
> So as you can see there are many reasons to wait for the next release ;)
>
>     Vitalie
>
>   > Keith Ponting
>   > Aurix Ltd, Malvern WR14 3SZ  UK
>   > Any opinions are those of the author not the company.
>
>   >> -----Original Message-----
>   >> From: ess-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:ess-help-bounces at r-
>   >> project.org] On Behalf Of Joshua Wiley
>   >> Sent: 19 September 2012 06:20
>   >> To: Paul Johnson
>   >> Cc: ess-help
>   >> Subject: Re: [ESS] Windows Emacs: still hangs on install.packages(); no
>   >> fix?
>   >>
>   >> Hi Paul,
>   >>
>   >> Probably not really what you want but note that:
>   >>
>   >> require(tcltk)
>   >>
>   >> before running will also fix it.  If you have access to global emacs
>   >> files, perhaps a system R profile?  I'm not sure of a pure ESS approach,
>   >> but maybe other smarter folks will chime in.
>   >>
>   >> Cheers,
>   >>
>   >> Josh
>   >>
>   >> On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 9:45 PM, Paul Johnson <pauljohn32 at gmail.com>
>   >> wrote:
>   >> > Greetings ESS developers:
>   >> >
>   >> > After my impassioned plea in favor of Emacs and ESS
>   >> > (http://pj.freefaculty.org/guides/Rcourse/emacs-ess/emacs-ess.pdf),> > a few of the students relented and tried it out. It is mostly working
>   >> > as I expect, but a widespread problem has developed. The ESS session
>   >> > hangs if the user runs commands that need CRAN access. A command like
>   >> >
>   >> >> install.packages("lmtest")
>   >> >
>   >> > hangs the session.  The ESS buffer says choose CRAN repository from
>   >> > list, but the list never pops up. Is this a tcltk problem? (In Linux,
>   >> > the CRAN chooser is a tcltk thing, I wonder if Windows uses same).
>   >> >
>   >> > I've found a few posts about this problem, which proposes some
>   >> > workarounds, but none are great.
>   >> >
>   >> > https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/ess-help/2008-January/004470.html> >
>   >> > That one says that C-c C-c will break the freeze, but it does not do
>   >> > that in Emacs 24.1 or 24.2 for Windows. For me, Emacs stays frozen,
>   >> > the minibuffer says "Text is read only".
>   >> >
>   >> > I wish this problem could be fixed on your end, but in lieu of that, I
>   >> > need a "solution" that I can engineer for all users on a system,
>   >> > something to put in site-start.d. When I go from one machine to
>   >> > another, I can't remember to re-run these workarounds every single
>   >> > time.
>   >> >
>   >> > Here are the workarounds that do work, but they aren't great.
>   >> >
>   >> > 1. Remember to run this every time you start R in ESS:
>   >> >
>   >> >> chooseCRANmirror(graphics = FALSE)
>   >> >
>   >> > That gives a text chooser for the desired CRAN mirror. That's fine.
>   >> >
>   >> > It is hard to remember to do that every time.
>   >> >
>   >> > 2. In  ~/.Rprofile file, put such:
>   >> >
>   >> > local({r <- getOption("repos")
>   >> >         r["CRAN"] <- "http://rweb.quant.ku.edu/cran"> >         options(repos=r)})
>   >> >
>   >> > The only problem there is that you have to re-do that when you go to a
>   >> > new computer or run in a different user account.  It is driving me
>   >> > insane.
>   >> >
>   >> > Is there something I can put in the Emacs startup file system-wide
>   >> > that forces all CRAN chooser things to obey the graphics=FALSE policy?
>   >> > In the old days, Emacs for Windows had the problem that the file
>   >> > chooser menu could not let the user choose a file.  TO address that, I
>   >> > put this in init.el:
>   >> >
>   >> > (if (eq system-type 'windows-nt)
>   >> >     (setq use-file-dialog nil))
>   >> >
>   >> > If there were something I could put in there to tell ESS to NOT try to
>   >> > open the CRAN mirror chooser, I could be happy.
>   >> >
>   >> > --
>   >> > Paul E. Johnson
>   >> > Professor, Political Science    Assoc. Director
>   >> > 1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504     Center for Research Methods
>   >> > University of Kansas               University of Kansas
>   >> > http://pj.freefaculty.org            http://quant.ku.edu> >
>   >> > ______________________________________________
>   >> > ESS-help at r-project.org mailing list
>   >> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/ess-help>
>   >>
>   >>
>   >> --
>   >> Joshua Wiley
>   >> Ph.D. Student, Health Psychology
>   >> Programmer Analyst II, Statistical Consulting Group University of
>   >> California, Los Angeles https://joshuawiley.com/>
>   >> ______________________________________________
>   >> ESS-help at r-project.org mailing list
>   >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/ess-help
>
>   > ______________________________________________
>   > ESS-help at r-project.org mailing list
>   > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/ess-help
>
> ______________________________________________
> ESS-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/ess-help
>

More information about the ESS-help mailing list