Suggestion: Add links to NEWS and CHANGES on help.start() page

[Henrik Bengtsson]

Hi,

right now it is actually a bit tricky to locate and view the NEWS and
the CHANGES files, especially if you are a beginning and don't even
know that you are supposed to look for them.

I'd like to recommend that links to (local) NEWS and CHANGES are added
to the help.start() overview pages.  help("NEWS")/help("CHANGE LOG")
and help("CHANGES") could display/refer to them as well.

/Henrik

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[Karl Ove Hufthammer]

On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:37:31 +0100 Henrik Bengtsson
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> I'd like to recommend that links to (local) NEWS and CHANGES are added
> to the help.start() overview pages.  help("NEWS")/help("CHANGE LOG")
> and help("CHANGES") could display/refer to them as well.

Are you talking of the NEWS and CHANGES for R itself, or for packages
too? It would be very useful having a convenience function for this for
packages too. Perhaps something like

library(news=MASS) (or MASS as a character string)
and
library(changes=spdep)

similar to library(help=MASS)

Or have I overlooked something, and a function for this already exists?

--
Karl Ove Hufthammer

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[Gabor Grothendieck]

Its also difficult to know about demos unless you specifically issue a
demo(package = "mypackage") command.  It would be nice if these were
listed too.

Note that the NEWS and/or ChangeLog file are listed on the package's
CRAN page such as:

   http://cran.r-project.org/package=zoo

but the demos are not listed even there.

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 3:37 AM, Henrik Bengtsson <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> right now it is actually a bit tricky to locate and view the NEWS and
> the CHANGES files, especially if you are a beginning and don't even
> know that you are supposed to look for them.
>
> I'd like to recommend that links to (local) NEWS and CHANGES are added
> to the help.start() overview pages.  help("NEWS")/help("CHANGE LOG")
> and help("CHANGES") could display/refer to them as well.
>
> /Henrik
>
> ______________________________________________
> [hidden email] mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>

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[Romain Francois]

On 11/13/2009 10:52 AM, Karl Ove Hufthammer wrote:

>
> On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:37:31 +0100 Henrik Bengtsson
> <[hidden email]>  wrote:
>> I'd like to recommend that links to (local) NEWS and CHANGES are added
>> to the help.start() overview pages.  help("NEWS")/help("CHANGE LOG")
>> and help("CHANGES") could display/refer to them as well.
>
> Are you talking of the NEWS and CHANGES for R itself, or for packages
> too? It would be very useful having a convenience function for this for
> packages too. Perhaps something like
>
> library(news=MASS) (or MASS as a character string)
> and
> library(changes=spdep)
>
> similar to library(help=MASS)
>
> Or have I overlooked something, and a function for this already exists?

?news

--
Romain Francois
Professional R Enthusiast
[phone]
http://romainfrancois.blog.free.fr
|- http://tr.im/EAD5 : LondonR slides
|- http://tr.im/BcPw : celebrating R commit #50000
`- http://tr.im/ztCu : RGG #158:161: examples of package IDPmisc

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[Henrik Bengtsson]

Please note my initial comment that it is hard for newcomers to find
or even know about the existence of NEWS (and worse CHANGES) [for R
itself].  Yet, we often imply that they should have read those before
reporting problems.

/Henrik

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 2:31 PM, Romain Francois
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> On 11/13/2009 10:52 AM, Karl Ove Hufthammer wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:37:31 +0100 Henrik Bengtsson
>> <[hidden email]>  wrote:
>>>
>>> I'd like to recommend that links to (local) NEWS and CHANGES are added
>>> to the help.start() overview pages.  help("NEWS")/help("CHANGE LOG")
>>> and help("CHANGES") could display/refer to them as well.
>>
>> Are you talking of the NEWS and CHANGES for R itself, or for packages
>> too? It would be very useful having a convenience function for this for
>> packages too. Perhaps something like
>>
>> library(news=MASS) (or MASS as a character string)
>> and
>> library(changes=spdep)
>>
>> similar to library(help=MASS)
>>
>> Or have I overlooked something, and a function for this already exists?
>
> ?news
>
> --
> Romain Francois
> Professional R Enthusiast
> [phone]
> http://romainfrancois.blog.free.fr
> |- http://tr.im/EAD5 : LondonR slides
> |- http://tr.im/BcPw : celebrating R commit #50000
> `- http://tr.im/ztCu : RGG #158:161: examples of package IDPmisc
>
> ______________________________________________
> [hidden email] mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>

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[Gabor Grothendieck]

In the case of R itself and the Windows platform this might usefully
be placed into the Rgui help menu.

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 8:44 AM, Henrik Bengtsson <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Please note my initial comment that it is hard for newcomers to find
> or even know about the existence of NEWS (and worse CHANGES) [for R
> itself].  Yet, we often imply that they should have read those before
> reporting problems.
>
> /Henrik
>
> On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 2:31 PM, Romain Francois
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> On 11/13/2009 10:52 AM, Karl Ove Hufthammer wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:37:31 +0100 Henrik Bengtsson
>>> <[hidden email]>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I'd like to recommend that links to (local) NEWS and CHANGES are added
>>>> to the help.start() overview pages.  help("NEWS")/help("CHANGE LOG")
>>>> and help("CHANGES") could display/refer to them as well.
>>>
>>> Are you talking of the NEWS and CHANGES for R itself, or for packages
>>> too? It would be very useful having a convenience function for this for
>>> packages too. Perhaps something like
>>>
>>> library(news=MASS) (or MASS as a character string)
>>> and
>>> library(changes=spdep)
>>>
>>> similar to library(help=MASS)
>>>
>>> Or have I overlooked something, and a function for this already exists?
>>
>> ?news
>>
>> --
>> Romain Francois
>> Professional R Enthusiast
>> [phone]
>> http://romainfrancois.blog.free.fr
>> |- http://tr.im/EAD5 : LondonR slides
>> |- http://tr.im/BcPw : celebrating R commit #50000
>> `- http://tr.im/ztCu : RGG #158:161: examples of package IDPmisc
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> [hidden email] mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>
>
> ______________________________________________
> [hidden email] mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>

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[Karl Ove Hufthammer]

On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:31:10 +0100 Romain Francois
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> > Or have I overlooked something, and a function for this already exists?
>
> ?news

I know about the 'news' function, but that doesn't *show* the NEWS or
CHANGES file for a package, at least not in any useful format.

The feature I'd prefer doesn't require any fancy parsing, just an
ordinary listing of the contents of the text files NEWS/CHANGES (in a
separate window, or perhaps opened in the user's browser).

--
Karl Ove Hufthammer

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[Duncan Murdoch]

On 13/11/2009 3:37 AM, Henrik Bengtsson wrote:

> Hi,
>
> right now it is actually a bit tricky to locate and view the NEWS and
> the CHANGES files, especially if you are a beginning and don't even
> know that you are supposed to look for them.
>
> I'd like to recommend that links to (local) NEWS and CHANGES are added
> to the help.start() overview pages.  help("NEWS")/help("CHANGE LOG")
> and help("CHANGES") could display/refer to them as well.
>

I've done this now in R-devel.

(I thought I'd written about this yesterday, but I don't see my post, so
maybe it never made it out.  If it did, the text below may be a repeat.)

It would look better if the files were translated into HTML.  Anyone
want to write a news2HTML function?

I haven't done any of the package-specific suggestions yet; they're
slightly trickier because packages are inconsistent in how they present
news.  For those, I think we should use the news() function, but it
requires the news2HTML translation to give nice looking output.

Duncan Murdoch

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[Duncan Murdoch]

On 13/11/2009 7:39 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> Its also difficult to know about demos unless you specifically issue a
> demo(package = "mypackage") command.  It would be nice if these were
> listed too.

This is in R-devel now.

> Note that the NEWS and/or ChangeLog file are listed on the package's
> CRAN page such as:
>
>    http://cran.r-project.org/package=zoo
>
> but the demos are not listed even there.

The structure is in place for displaying package news, but it doesn't
display yet.  I think Kurt Hornik is working on the actual display.

Duncan Murdoch

>
> On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 3:37 AM, Henrik Bengtsson <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> right now it is actually a bit tricky to locate and view the NEWS and
>> the CHANGES files, especially if you are a beginning and don't even
>> know that you are supposed to look for them.
>>
>> I'd like to recommend that links to (local) NEWS and CHANGES are added
>> to the help.start() overview pages.  help("NEWS")/help("CHANGE LOG")
>> and help("CHANGES") could display/refer to them as well.
>>
>> /Henrik
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> [hidden email] mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>
>
> ______________________________________________
> [hidden email] mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

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[Henrik Bengtsson]

On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 4:06 AM, Duncan Murdoch <[hidden email]> wrote:
> On 13/11/2009 7:39 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>>
>> Its also difficult to know about demos unless you specifically issue a
>> demo(package = "mypackage") command.  It would be nice if these were
>> listed too.
>
> This is in R-devel now.

I just got the Windows version. For others information, the main HTML
help page - help.start() - now ends with sections:

-- Miscellaneous Material --
About R \t Authors \t Resources
License \t Frequently Asked Questions \t Thanks
 \t NEWS

-- Material specific to the Windows port --
CHANGES \t Windows FAQ

The links to the NEWS and the CHANGES are new.

Thanks a bunch Duncan - beautiful and useful.

/Henrik

>
>> Note that the NEWS and/or ChangeLog file are listed on the package's
>> CRAN page such as:
>>
>>   http://cran.r-project.org/package=zoo
>>
>> but the demos are not listed even there.
>
> The structure is in place for displaying package news, but it doesn't
> display yet.  I think Kurt Hornik is working on the actual display.
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 3:37 AM, Henrik Bengtsson <[hidden email]>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> right now it is actually a bit tricky to locate and view the NEWS and
>>> the CHANGES files, especially if you are a beginning and don't even
>>> know that you are supposed to look for them.
>>>
>>> I'd like to recommend that links to (local) NEWS and CHANGES are added
>>> to the help.start() overview pages.  help("NEWS")/help("CHANGE LOG")
>>> and help("CHANGES") could display/refer to them as well.
>>>
>>> /Henrik
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> [hidden email] mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>>
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> [hidden email] mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
>

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