[ESS] Configuring Emacs "à la RStudio"

[Ista Zahn]

On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 3:57 AM, Vitalie Spinu <spinuvit at gmail.com> wrote:
>  >>> "Sebastien Vauban" on Tue, 19 Nov 2013 09:31:31 +0100 wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>
>  S> I meant that, upon opening a .R file, extra windows get automatically created,
>  S> and laid out as in R studio: script file, "R shell", data in memory, graphics.
>
> You will have no luck with that. That is the "feature" of emacs which
> makes it stay apart. The fundamental principle is "you get something
> whenever you need it" as opposite to "always have it, whether it is
> needed or not".

Yes, and as the author of the original motivating screenshot, I should
note that the emacs frame was set up to show off some of the available
functionality, not to re-create a fixed-layout IDE. You can try to
make emacs start up with a specific configuration and keep it, but it
is not the emacs way and you will end up fighting with emacs rather
than taking advantage of its strengths. You will be better off just
accepting that emacs/ess wil change your window configuration any time
it sees fit--this can take a while to get used to, but once you adjust
it is a very nice way of working. To ease the adjustment you may find
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/WinnerMode helpful--it allows you to
restore the previous configuration easily after ess changes it.

Best,
Ista


This is precisely why emacs doesn't stay in your way,
> but other editors do. There are hundreds of useful tools in emacs, you
> cannot have them all displayed at once.
>
> It is also why emacs is difficult to learn, as you need to learn how to
> activate the things when you need them; but then you need to know that
> those things exist in the first place :-)
>
>  S> Side question: when opening a .R file, I get ESS[S] written in the modeline.
>  S> What must I do to get ESS[R]?  What's the impact of having S displayed?
>
> This one is historically motivated. The letter stands for the language which
> is S. R is a dialect of S. People proposed to change that some time ago,
> but we decided to keep it for reasons that I cannot now remember.
>
>    Vitalie
>
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