[ESS] help("foo") opens web browser but ?foo doesn't

[Vitalie Spinu]

Hi Henrik, 

On ?ESS, just asks R for ?foo. On C-c C-v and help("foo") it uses
inferior-ess-r-help-command instead. This inconsistency is for
historical reasons mainly. Nowadays there is no need for .help.ESS and
it is just a wrapper for R's help. And indeed in long run ESS should
better respect R's options(...).

May I ask why do you prefer html help?  ESS help pages are superior in
pretty much every respect I can think of.

    Vitalie

  >> Henrik Singmann <henrik.singmann at psychologie.uni-freiburg.de>
  >> on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:49:26 +0100 wrote:

  > Hi all,

  > I know that similar questions have come up from time to time, but the solutions didn't fit my problem.

  > I want ESS to display help pages always in the web browser and
  > managed to do so partly thanks to SO
  > (http://stackoverflow.com/q/2413163/289572) via
  > '(inferior-ess-r-help-command ".help.ESS(\"%s\",
  > help_type=\"html\")") in my custom variables in my .emacs

  > However, the browser only opens for help("foo") but not ?foo.

  > Any thoughts on how to open help in browser also for ?foo (or better always)?

  > Many thanks,
  > Henrik