[R] Firefox not showing R help.

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 28/02/2015 6:43 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:
> 
> See inline below.
> 
> On 01/03/15 10:59, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>> On 28/02/2015 4:10 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:
>>>
>>> Firefox recently updated itself on my laptop.  Now when I ask for R help
>>> --- e.g. ?plot --- I just get my home page. And no help. If I do "?plot"
>>> again after Firefox has opened its window, I just get yet another
>>> Firefox window, opened to my home page.  (I have my preferences set to
>>>
>>>       "When Firefox starts Show my homepage"
>>>
>>> --- as I always have had in the past.)
>>
>> I would guess that browseURL() won't work for any URL.  Is that right?
> 
> Yes.  That is correct. E.g. if I do
> 
>      browseURL("http://www.r-project.org/")
> 
> I get taken to my home page, rather than to the R home page.
> 
>>
>> What does getOption("browser") give you in R?
> 
> "/usr/bin/firefox"
> 
>> If it is just a character
>> string (e.g. "xdg-open" is what I get in Ubuntu), does it work from your
>> command line, outside of R, e.g. for me that test would be
>>
>> xdg-open http://www.r-project.org
> 
> I tried
> 
>     /usr/bin/firefox http://www.r-project.org/
> 
> from the Linux command line and was taken to the R home page, 
> seamlessly.  I also tried
> 
>      xdg-open http://www.r-project.org/
> 
> and that worked equally well.
> 
> Finally I tried
> 
>      options(browser="xdg-open")
> 
> and then
> 
>      ?plot
> 
> and BINGO!!! the HTML help came up as requested.
> 
> So I have a working solution to my problem.  But I *really* don't 
> understand why changing the browser from "/usr/bin/firefox" to 
> "xdg-open" made a difference.  (Since there appears to be no difference 
> at the Linux command line.)
> 
> Anyway; thanks very much for solving my problem.

I believe browseURL will quote the URL, i.e. it would execute

/usr/bin/firefox "http://www.r-project.org/"

Perhaps Firefox is confused by the quotes?  Doesn't seem likely...

Duncan Murdoch


> 
> cheers,
> 
> Rolf
> 
>>
>> If that doesn't work, but you can figure out a command line way to open
>> a particular URL, change getOption("browser") to use that.
>>
>> Duncan Murdoch
>>
>>>
>>> The Firefox that I am currently running is (according Firefox help
>>> --> "About Firefox") is version 36.0.
>>>
>>> Can anyone suggest to me how I can get my html R help back?
>>>
>>> For what it's worth:  I am using Linux, Fedora 17.  (Yes, I know it's
>>> elderly, but then so am I. :-) )
>>>
>>> Also in case it has any relevance:
>>>
>>>>> sessionInfo()
>>>> R version 3.1.2 (2014-10-31)
>>>> Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)
>>>>
>>>> locale:
>>>>   [1] LC_CTYPE=en_NZ.utf8       LC_NUMERIC=C
>>>>   [3] LC_TIME=en_NZ.utf8        LC_COLLATE=en_NZ.utf8
>>>>   [5] LC_MONETARY=en_NZ.utf8    LC_MESSAGES=en_NZ.utf8
>>>>   [7] LC_PAPER=en_NZ.utf8       LC_NAME=C
>>>>   [9] LC_ADDRESS=C              LC_TELEPHONE=C
>>>> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_NZ.utf8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
>>>>
>>>> attached base packages:
>>>> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
>>>>
>>>> other attached packages:
>>>> [1] spatstat_1.40-0.064 misc_0.0-16
>>>>
>>>> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
>>>>   [1] abind_1.4-0     deldir_0.1-7    goftest_1.0-2   grid_3.1.2
>>>>   [5] lattice_0.20-29 Matrix_1.1-4    mgcv_1.8-3      nlme_3.1-118
>>>>   [9] polyclip_1.3-1  tensor_1.5      tools_3.1.2
> 
>