| R @FULLVERSION@ for Windows |
| =================== |
| |
| This distribution contains a binary distribution of R-@RVER@ to run on |
| Windows XP and later (including 64-bit versions of Windows) on ix86 |
| and x86_64 chips. It is designed to be as close as possible to the |
| implementation on Unix, but see the list of differences below. The |
| port was by Guido Masarotto, Brian Ripley and Duncan Murdoch. |
| |
| |
| Installation |
| ============ |
| |
| The distribution is distributed as an installer @RWVER@-win.exe. Just |
| run this for a Windows-style installer. |
| |
| For more details, including command-line options for the installer and |
| how to uninstall, see the rw-FAQ. If you are reading this as part of |
| an installed version of R, that is both a file rw-FAQ in this directory |
| and a file doc\html\rw-FAQ.html. |
| |
| |
| Usage |
| ===== |
| |
| There are two versions of the R executable in @RWVER@\bin\i386 (32-bit) |
| and @RWVER@\bin\x64 (64-bit). By default only the first is |
| installed on 32-bit versions of Windows, and both on 64-bit OSes. |
| |
| GUI: |
| |
| Rgui.exe runs as a standard Windows GUI executable and provides an R |
| console in its own window. It takes the standard R command-line |
| arguments; these are most easily set by making a shortcut to |
| ...\@RWVER@\bin\i386\Rgui.exe (or x64\Rgui.exe) and adding the |
| arguments in the Target field. Set the 'Start in' field of the |
| shortcut to the directory you want to use as the working directory |
| (where workspaces and files are saved to and loaded from). The |
| installer creates a shortcut on the desktop for you (by default). |
| |
| You have a choice of interface: SDI (separate windows) or MDI |
| (multiple child windows in one large window). MDI is the default: |
| select SDI by adding --sdi in the Target field: this can also be |
| selected from the installer. |
| |
| Command-line editing is available: see Help | Console for details. |
| |
| The menus provide shortcuts to some R commands such as help, help.start, |
| apropos, ls, load, save.image, search. |
| |
| The 'load' menu items (Source R code, Display file, Load Workspace) |
| keep track of the directory that was last used, and start their dialog |
| boxes from that directory the next time they are used. That directory |
| can be made the working directory by the File | Change dir menu item. |
| All the 'save' menu items start dialog boxes at the current working |
| directory: this includes 'Save Workspace' and the various ways to save |
| graphics, as well as saving the workspace at the end of the session. |
| |
| Note that a few of the text help files use accented Western European. |
| To see all the characters you must use an appropriate font |
| (European-language True Type fonts should be OK). To check if your |
| preferred font has these characters, try "help(text)" and look at the |
| examples. |
| |
| |
| TERMINAL/BATCH: |
| |
| Rterm.exe will run from a command line such as a 'Command Prompt' |
| window running the standard shell, cmd.exe, as well as the ports of |
| bash and tcsh that we use. Its primary purpose is to allow batch |
| operation, but it does provide all the facilities needed for |
| interactive use, including command-line editing (see the file |
| README.Rterm). |
| |
| Batch use: At its simplest, Rterm.exe can be used in a batch mode by |
| commands like |
| |
| Rterm.exe --no-restore --no-save < infile > outfile 2>&1 |
| |
| although users will probably want to set up simple .bat or .cmd files |
| to run batch jobs. You can also use it via R CMD BATCH: see ?BATCH or |
| R CMD BATCH --help. |
| |
| Use with ESS: You can use Rterm.exe to provide inferior R-mode in ESS |
| under NTEmacs. The pager is automatically set to "console" so text |
| help will be displayed in emacs buffers. |
| |
| |
| GRAPHICS: |
| |
| The screen device is called windows(). This is launched |
| automatically, and can also be launched explicitly by windows() from |
| both Rgui.exe and Rterm.exe. A printer device can be opened using |
| win.print(), and graphs drawn as metafiles by win.metafile(). |
| |
| The graphics device pops up a separate window which has two menus. The |
| device's File menu allows saving or printing or to run dev.off(). |
| |
| The History menu allows the recording of plots. When plots have been |
| recorded they can be reviewed by PgUp and PgDn, saved and replaced. |
| Recording can be turned on automatically (the Recording item on the |
| list) or individual plots can be added (Add or the INS key). |
| |
| The whole plot history can be saved to or retrieved from an R variable |
| in the global environment. |
| The format of recorded plots may change between R versions. |
| Recorded plots should NOT be used as a permanent |
| storage format for R plots. |
| |
| There is only one graphics history shared by all the windows devices. |
| |
| |
| Customization |
| ============= |
| |
| Environment variables can be set as NAME=value at the end of the |
| command line, including in a shortcut. They can also be set (as |
| NAME=value lines) in the file .Renviron in the working directory, or |
| if that does not exist HOME\.Renviron. |
| |
| Many aspects of the console (size, appearance, font, font size, |
| colours) can be customized by editing the file etc\Rconsole, and a |
| copy with a user's settings can be put in her HOME directory or in the |
| working directory. (The exact sequence is to search the directory |
| pointed to by the first found of the environment variables R_USER then |
| HOME, then the Windows "personal" directory (typically |
| 'C:\Users\username\My Documents' on recent versions of Windows and |
| 'C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents' on XP) then |
| {HOMEDRIVE}{HOMEPATH} then the working directory, finally R_HOME\etc. |
| This also applies to .Renviron and other uses of 'HOME' in our |
| documentation.) The file contains a description of the settings that |
| can be altered. See also ?Rconsole. |
| |
| An alternative way to edit the Rconsole file is to use the GUI |
| preferences item on the Edit menu in Rgui.exe. This can change some |
| of the settings (for example colours, font and window sizes) on the |
| current running console. |
| |
| The mapping between Windows fonts and the font number used in R's |
| graphics can be set by editing the file etc\Rdevga, and a copy with a |
| user's settings can be put in the HOME or working directory (see the |
| description of Rconsole). This mapping applies to both the screen |
| device and the printer device. |
| |
| Many R defaults can be set in the file R_HOME\etc\Rprofile or a user's |
| file .Rprofile. In particular: |
| |
| - The pager is set by options(pager=). The default is "internal" |
| which brings up a separate console-like window. The internal pager |
| can use a single window or a different window for each topic shown |
| (configurable in Rconsole). Other possibilities we have used are |
| "notepad" and "console" to list the files in the console (Rgui.exe) |
| or terminal window (Rterm.exe). |
| |
| |
| Adding packages |
| =============== |
| |
| Binaries for many packages are available under |
| CRAN/bin/windows/contrib. These are zip files which should be |
| unpacked in @RWVER@\library. The simplest option is use the items on |
| the Packages menu to install from a zip file or to download from CRAN. |
| |
| Private libraries of packages can be used and can be specified by the |
| environment variable R_LIBS. (Separate directories by ";" in this |
| version.) They will not be linked to HTML help. In more detail, to |
| use packages installed in directory R:\libraries\gm, set |
| |
| R_LIBS=R:\libraries\gm |
| |
| in the environment or your .Renviron file or on the command line, or |
| add the line |
| |
| .libPaths("R:/libraries/gm") |
| |
| to your .Rprofile or at the end of R_HOME\etc\Rprofile. |
| |
| To install a package from source code you need the source-package |
| distribution installed from @RWVER@-win32.exe (but not the R sources). |
| The 'R Installation and Administration' manual contains detailed |
| instructions. |
| |
| |
| Differences from Unix versions of R |
| =================================== |
| |
| - R can be interrupted by Esc in Rgui and by Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Break in Rterm: |
| Ctrl-C is used for copying in the GUI version. C-c C-c works |
| under NTemacs. |
| |
| - Command-line editing is always available, but is simpler than |
| under readline-based input on Unix. For Rgui.exe, see the menu item |
| 'Help | Console', for Rterm.exe the file README.Rterm. |
| |
| - Paths to files can be specified with "/" or "\\". |
| |
| - system() is enhanced here and does not automatically use a shell. |
| See its help page and that of shell(). |
| |
| - graphics device bmp() is available in this version. |
| |
| |
| Using package tcltk |
| =================== |
| |
| The package tcltk supports building graphical interfaces with Tcl/Tk. |
| "Support Files for Package tcltk" needs to be selected from the |
| installer for this to work; alternatively you can use an existing |
| installation of Tcl/Tk 8.6.x by following the instructions in the |
| rw-FAQ. |
| |
| |
| Building From Source |
| ==================== |
| |
| See the 'R Installation and Adminstration' Manual |
| (doc\manual\R-admin.html). |
| |
| |
| Feedback |
| ======== |
| |
| Please send comments and bug reports to |
| |
| R-windows@r-project.org |
| |