From maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch  Mon Apr 18 10:47:39 2005
From: maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch (Martin Maechler)
Date: Mon Apr 18 10:47:57 2005
Subject: [Rd] ESS 5.2.7 released
Message-ID: <16995.29739.56260.570019@stat.math.ethz.ch>

Dear ESS users,	    {BCC'ed to RPM and Debian maintainers of ESS}

We have now released ESS 5.2.7.  This is a bug fix release against 5.2.6
where - the new UTF-8 "support" gave problems for Xemacs, and
      - accidentally, 'auto-fill-mode' was activated for *.R buffers
with a few new features, see "New Features" below , notably some
extended Sweave supported, originally contributed by David Whiting.

I'm crossposting to R-devel just to make you aware that R 2.1.0,
bound to be released today, comes with UTF-8 (unicode) support and
that doesn't work correctly in ESS versions prior to 5.2.6.

Downloads from the ESS site http://ESS.R-project.org/ or
directly http://ess.r-project.org/downloads/ess/ as *.zip and
*.tar.gz files. Hopefully, *.deb and *.rpm will also be made
available in due time.

For the ESS core team,
Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich.

--------------- ANNOUNCE ------------------------------


ANNOUNCING ESS
**************

   The ESS Developers proudly announce the release of ESS

   5.2.7

   Emacs Speaks Statistics (ESS) provides an intelligent, consistent
interface between the user and the software.  ESS interfaces with
S-PLUS, R, SAS, BUGS and other statistical analysis packages under the
Unix, Microsoft Windows, and Apple Mac OS operating systems.  ESS is a
package for the GNU Emacs and XEmacs text editors whose features ESS
uses to streamline the creation and use of statistical software.  ESS
knows the syntax and grammar of statistical analysis packages and
provides consistent display and editing features based on that
knowledge.  ESS assists in interactive and batch execution of
statements written in these statistical analysis languages.

   ESS is freely available under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Please read the file COPYING which comes with the distribution, for
more information about the license. For more detailed information,
please read the README files that come with ESS.

Getting the Latest Version
==========================

   The latest released version of ESS is always available on the web at:
ESS web page (http://ess.r-project.org) or StatLib
(http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/general/ESS/)

   The latest development version of ESS is available via
`https://svn.R-project.org/ESS/', the ESS Subversion repository.  If
you have a Subversion client (see `http://subversion.tigris.org/'), you
can download the sources using:
     % svn checkout https://svn.r-project.org/ESS/trunk PATH

which will put the ESS files into directory PATH.  Later, within that
directory, `svn update' will bring that directory up to date.
Windows-based tools such as TortoiseSVN are also available for
downloading the files.  Alternatively, you can browse the sources with a
web browser at: ESS SVN site (https://svn.r-project.org/ESS/trunk).
However, please use a subversion client instead to minimize the load
when retrieving.

   If you remove other versions of ESS from your emacs load-path, you
can then use the development version by adding the following to .emacs:

     (load "/path/to/ess-svn/lisp/ess-site.el")

   Note that https is required, and that the SSL certificate for the
Subversion server of the R project is

     Certificate information:
      - Hostname: svn.r-project.org
      - Valid: from Jul 16 08:10:01 2004 GMT until Jul 14 08:10:01 2014 GMT
      - Issuer: Department of Mathematics, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, CH
      - Fingerprint: c9:5d:eb:f9:f2:56:d1:04:ba:44:61:f8:64:6b:d9:33:3f:93:6e:ad

(currently, there is no "trusted certificate").  You can accept this
certificate permanently and will not be asked about it anymore.

Current Features
================

   * Languages Supported:
        * S family (S 3/4, S-PLUS 3.x/4.x/5.x/6.x/7.x, and R)

        * SAS

        * BUGS

        * Stata

        * XLispStat including Arc and ViSta

   * Editing source code (S family, SAS, BUGS, XLispStat)
        * Syntactic indentation and highlighting of source code

        * Partial evaluation of code

        * Loading and error-checking of code

        * Source code revision maintenance

        * Batch execution (SAS, BUGS)

        * Use of imenu to provide links to appropriate functions

   * Interacting with the process (S family, SAS, XLispStat)
        * Command-line editing

        * Searchable Command history

        * Command-line completion of S family object names and file
          names

        * Quick access to object lists and search lists

        * Transcript recording

        * Interface to the help system

   * Transcript manipulation (S family, XLispStat)
        * Recording and saving transcript files

        * Manipulating and editing saved transcripts

        * Re-evaluating commands from transcript files

   * Help File Editing (R)
        * Syntactic indentation and highlighting of source code.

        * Sending Examples to running ESS process.

        * Previewing

Requirements
============

   ESS has been tested with

   * S-PLUS 3.3-4, 4.5, 2000, 5.0-1, 6.0-2, 7.0

   * R >=0.49

   * S4

   * SAS >=6.12

   * BUGS 0.5, 0.603

   * Stata >=6.0

   * XLispStat >=3.50

   on the following platforms

   * Linux (all)

   * Solaris/SunOS (all)

   * Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP (SPLUS 4.5/2000/6.*, R, SAS and
     BUGS)

   * Apple Mac OS (SAS for OS 9 and R for OS X)

   with the following versions of emacs

   * GNU Emacs 20.3-7, 21.1, 21.3, 21.4

   * XEmacs 21.0, 21.1.13-14, 21.4.0-8, 21.4.9-13(1), 21.4.14-15,
     21.4.17, 21.5.18

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) require the files.el patch to revert-buffer for the Local
Variables updating problem

Stability
=========

   Versions 5.2.x are meant to be release-quality versions.  While some
new features are being introduced, we are cleaning up and improving the
interface.  We know about some remaining documentation inconsistencies.
Patches or suggested fixes with bug reports are much appreciated!

Mailing List
============

   There is a mailing list for discussions and announcements relating to
ESS.  Join the list by sending an e-mail with "subscribe ess-help" (or
"help") in the body to <ess-help-request@stat.math.ethz.ch>;
contributions to the list may be mailed to
<ess-help@stat.math.ethz.ch>.  Rest assured, this is a fairly
low-volume mailing list.

   The purposes of the mailing list include

   *  helping users of ESS to get along with it.

   *  discussing aspects of using ESS on Emacs and XEmacs.

   *  suggestions for improvements.

   *  announcements of new releases of ESS.

   *  posting small patches to ESS.

Reporting Bugs
==============

   Please send bug reports, suggestions etc. to

   <ESS-bugs@stat.math.ethz.ch>

   The easiest way to do this is within Emacs by typing

   `M-x ess-submit-bug-report'

   This also gives the maintainers valuable information about your
installation which may help us to identify or even fix the bug.

   If Emacs reports an error, backtraces can help us debug the problem.
Type "M-x set-variable RET debug-on-error RET t RET".  Then run the
command that causes the error and you should see a *Backtrace* buffer
containing debug information; send us that buffer.

   Note that comments, suggestions, words of praise and large cash
donations are also more than welcome.

Authors
=======

   * A.J. Rossini (mailto:blindglobe@gmail.com)

   * Richard M. Heiberger (mailto:rmh@temple.edu)

   * Kurt Hornik (mailto:Kurt.Hornik@R-project.org)

   * Martin Maechler (mailto:maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch)

   * Rodney A. Sparapani (mailto:rsparapa@mcw.edu)

   * Stephen Eglen (mailto:stephen@gnu.org)

License
=======

   ESS is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later
version.

   ESS is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License
in the file COPYING in the same directory as this file for more details.

New Features
============

   Changes/New Features in 5.2.7:
   * If you use Custom to change the variable ess-toolbar-items, the
     new toolbar is used in all subsequent ESS buffers.

   * ESS[SAS]: new feature:  if ess-sas-log-max >0 and your .log grows
     to more than ess-sas-log-max bytes, just the first ess-sas-log-max
     bytes are refreshed; this is helpful when your .sas program
     generates lots of error messages and gets too big for emacs to
     display

   * ESS[R/S]: `M-;' in R/S editing modes will now indent with either
     one or two hashes depending on context.

   * ESS[R]: David Whiting's Sweave extensions (to 'noweb') are now
     available (from ess-swv.el loaded by default).

   Changes/New Features in 5.2.6:
   * Removed non-ASCII characters in a few files.

   * ESS[R]: now works better when UTF-8 locale is active; in
     particular, you get correct directional quotes in R's startup
     message  for R-devel (unstable development version of R 2.1.0)
     when using  environment variables LANGUAGE=en@quot
     LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

   * ESS[SAS]: toggling of .log mode improved (`F10'); toggling of .lst
     mode now also available (`C-F10'); killing all buffers associated
     with .sas program no longer bound to `C-F10' since its a bit
     overzealous; EXPERIMENTAL new feature:  if your .log grows to more
     than 2.5MB, just the first 2.5MB are refreshed; this is helpful
     when your .sas program generates lots of error messages and gets
     too big for emacs to display; the truncation size is controlled by
     the variable ess-sas-log-max and defaults to 2500000.

   * S-Plus 7 for Windows is now recognized.

   * ESS[S] (incl. R): in auto-fill mode, strings are not wrapped
     anymore.

   * ESS[S] (incl. R): font-lock now correctly differs between R and S,
     e.g., for "_"; both now fontify warning(.) and S does terminate()
     additionally.

   * Support for `bell' aka `beep' aka `ding' aka `alarm' in all
     inferior modes: When \a is output "to the the console" at the
     beginning of a line, the bell is rung.

   Changes/New Features in 5.2.5:
   * ESS[R]: `C-c C-q' or `Quit S' from the menu now should work (again
     and less klunkily) and do not append `-exited' to the buffer name.
     Further, the behavior of `(ess-cleanup)', called from ess-quit,
     now depends on the new customizable variable
     `ess-S-quit-kill-buffers-p' which defaults to `nil'.
     Consequently, the question _"Delete all buffers associated with
     ..?"_ will not be asked anymore by default.

   * ESS[SAS] - ess-ebcdic-to-ascii-search-and-replace will now work
     with the `recode' application as well which is available on many
     platforms

   * ESS[S] (incl. R): Name completion for slots of S4 objects now
     works!

   Changes/New Features in 5.2.4:
   * The documentation now includes an overview of how to use the emacs
     TAGS facility for S functions.  (The distribution also used to
     contain a directory `etc/other/Tags' where a ~1990 version of
     `etags.c' was distributed; this is no longer relevant and so has
     been deleted.)

   * ESS[SAS] - When you are working with EBCDIC files on an ASCII
     platform, .log NOTEs may display as gibberish since the EBCDIC
     characters are not converted to ASCII prior to their display.  So,
     the function ess-ebcdic-to-ascii-search-and-replace is provided for
     convenience and is bound to `C-F11'.  This function requires the
     `dd' command (only available on unix or unix-like platforms).

   * ESS: Completion of object names is now always done dynamically
     rather than allowing the option of using a pre-computed database
     (by `ess-create-object-name-db') since modern computers seem fast
     enough for dynamic completion.  (We expect few users, if any, have
     been using the pre-computed database method.)

   * ESS: object completion in iESS buffers running on Windows was very
     slow (for GNU Emacs, but not XEmacs) and has now been fixed.
     Further, it was more or less broken for all versions of S-plus 6.x,
     and has been fixed to work everywhere but with the Windows' GUI of
     S-plus.  The list of objects now shows unique names also when an
     object appears more than once in the search path.

   * ESS[R]: Completion of object names now also includes those
     starting with ".".

   Changes/New Features in 5.2.3:
   * ESS: When new inferior ESS processes are created, by default they
     will replace the current buffer (this restores behavior from pre
     5.2.0). If you wish new ESS processes to start in another window
     of the current frame, set inferior-ess-same-window to nil.

   * New variables inferior-Splus-args and inferior-R-args provide a
     way to pass command line arguments to starting S and R processes.

   Changes/New Features in 5.2.2:
   * bug-fixes for 5.2.1 (require 'executable), html docs, etc.

   * ess-lisp-directory/../doc/info added to Info-directory-list if
     ess-info not found by info

   * ESS[R]: If you have other versions of R on your exec-path, such as
     "R-1.8.1" with Unix or "rw1081" with Windows, ESS will find them
     and create appropriate functions, such as `M-x R-1.8.1' or `M-x
     rw1081', for calling them.  By default only Unix programs
     beginning "R-1" and "R-2" and Windows programs parallel to the
     version of R in your exec-path will be found, but see
     ess-r-versions and ess-rterm-versions for ways to find other
     versions of R.

   * ESS[R]: Other versions of R, such as "R-1.8.1" on Unix and
     "rw1081" on Windows, are added to the "ESS / Start Process /
     Other" menu.

   * ESS[S]: If you have other versions of S-Plus on your Windows
     computer, such as S-Plus 6.1 or S-Plus 4.5, ESS will find them and
     create appropriate functions, such as `M-x splus61', for calling
     the console version (Sqpe) inside an emacs buffer.  By default only
     programs installed in the default location will be found, but see
     ess-SHOME-versions for ways to find other versions of S-Plus.

   * ESS[S]: Other versions of Sqpe on Windows, such as "splus61", are
     added to the "ESS / Start Process / Other" menu.

   * ESS[R]: (bug fix) ess-quit (bound to `C-c C-q') should now quit the
     inferior R process, when issued from either the inferior buffer,
     or from a .R buffer.

   Changes/New Features in 5.2.1:
   * ESS[S] (R and S-plus): now have toolbar support with icons to
     evaluate code in the inferior process or to switch there.  This
     code is experimental and likely to change as XEmacs/Emacs issues
     get resolved. The toolbar should be enabled if your Emacs displays
     images, but can be disabled with the variable ess-use-toolbar.
     Thanks to David Smith from Insightful for the S-plus logo.

   * ESS[SAS]: ess-sas-graph-view (`F12') enhanced; you can specify
     external file viewers for each graphics file type via the alist
     ess-sas-graph-view-viewer-alist; also .jpg/.gif are now handled by
     image-mode on XEmacs, if available, otherwise by graphics
     primitives as before

   ...........................

   [[ new features in older versions 
       ---> see the file ANNOUNCE in the ESS distribution ]]

   ...........................


[Rd] ESS 5.2.7 released
Martin Maechler