[ESS] Graphics in emacs window: how to copy R screen devices in non-interactive sessions (remotes)

[Vitalie Spinu]

Hi Everybody,

I would like to add "graphics-in-emacs-window" functionality to ESS in
near future. The most straightforward way to do that is to save graphic
images to a disc files.

Unfortunately I couldn't figure how to save buffered R devices. With
screen devices dev.print does the job, but as screen devices are not
available on remotes, dev.print is out of option. I didn't have luck
with dev.copy either.

So I would really appreciate if someone can suggest a way to save an
incomplete R plot into an image file. In other words: How to write a
function "copyDev" such that the following code

    plot(1:3)
    copyDev("dev1.png")
    abline(h = 2)
    copyDev("dev2.png")

would generate two plots. The current devise is "pdf" or "png" or some
other non-screen device.

Any other ideas of how to implement the R-graphics-in-emacs functionally
are very much welcome.

Thanks, 

   Vitalie