From baron at psych.upenn.edu  Sat Dec  5 22:36:39 2009
From: baron at psych.upenn.edu (Jonathan Baron)
Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2009 16:36:39 -0500
Subject: [Rd] request to make --enable-prebuilt-html the default build on
	linux
Message-ID: <20091205213639.GA31919@psych.upenn.edu>

I don't understand the advantages of generating html help dynamically,
but I have found some clear disadvantages.

One is that I can no longer use a bookmark in my browser to access the
list of packages and go from there to individual help pages.

The other is that, if I try to use ESS instead (using
options(help_type="html") in .Rprofile) - it is a mess.  ESS splits
the emacs frame (which then must be closed by hand) and opens a new
window (or at best a new tab) for every request, requiring these to be
closed too.

You could say that this is a problem with ESS, which is true, but,
again, I don't see the down side of having static html help pages.
(Maybe there is one.  But it certainly isn't disk space: all together
these take about as much of that as a couple of digital photos.)

Jon
-- 
Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron



[Rd] request to make --enable-prebuilt-html the default build on linux
Jonathan Baron