[ESS] Help pops up in web browser

[Julian M. Burgos]

Hi Naresh,

I had a similar issue recently with emacs "automatically" opening the help file from a function when I started to type it.  It took me a lot of head scratching but I figured out that the culprit was one of the company-frontends (probably interacting with some other component of my setup).  I used to have these:

(setq company-frontends
      	  '(company-pseudo-tooltip-unless-just-one-frontend
          	    company-preview-frontend
	              company-echo-metadata-frontend))

I replaced them for this:

(setq company-frontends '(company-pseudo-tooltip-frontend
                          company-echo-metadata-frontend))

And the problem went away.  I do not know exactly why.

I found an old discussion thread where the problem was related to a conflict between the use of autocompletion and the use of html help:

https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/ess-help/2013-April/008868.html

... the problem was that help was *supposed* to show up automatically in a pop-up window, but if you had your help file show up as html (instead of plain text), you get a browser with the help file instead.

I assume that something similar is happening now with company-mode.

Because I prefer the help in html (because hyperlinks, and as I use EXWM and the browser shows up within an emacs buffer) in my .emacs file I have this:

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

But if you want (or need) help in plain text you can use

help_type=text

to ensure that the help shows up as text.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Julian


Naresh Gurbuxani via ESS-help writes:

> To display python documentation, I recently installed company-quickhelp.  While it works well for python, my emacs now has an annoying feature in ess-r mode.
>
> When I linger on an R function, emacs launches a new web browser window displaying help for that function.  For example on typing ‘libr’, emacs launches a new browser window displaying documentation for ‘library’.  Moreover, the browser becomes the active application.
>
> How can this feature be turned off?  I want documentation to be displayed only when asked.  Moreover, I want to see documentation in emacs window.
>
> I am using Windows operating system.
>
> Thanks,
> Naresh
>
> Sent from my iPhone
> ______________________________________________
> ESS-help using r-project.org mailing list
> https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstat.ethz.ch%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fess-help&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cf2e59645331643fba8a808d7b67578a0%7C8e105b94435e4303a61063620dbe162b%7C0%7C0%7C637178487973840545&sdata=XF07W4ooVG2B3eIVE8MhAscHNjQX8O0%2BeK1KnjbxNS8%3D&reserved=0


--
Julian Mariano Burgos, PhD
Hafrannsóknastofnun, rannsókna- og ráðgjafarstofnun hafs og vatna/
Marine and Freshwater Research Institute
Botnsjávarsviðs / Demersal Division
Skúlagata 4, 121 Reykjavík, Iceland
Sími/Telephone : +354-5752037
Bréfsími/Telefax:  +354-5752001
Netfang/Email: julian.burgos using hafogvatn.is