[R] Associate a .R file with the RGui

[Uwe Ligges]

On 06.11.2022 01:40, David Winsemius wrote:
> 
> On 11/5/22 09:58, Amarjit Chandhial via R-help wrote:
>> Hi Jeff,
>>
>>
>> Please see my original question.
> 
> You were told that RGui is not an editor.
> 
> Are you implying that your initial message contained an implicit request 
> for instructions on how to get R code in an .R file to be opened 
> automagically when double-clicked or to have "open in <some editor>" 
> appear when right-clicked? (I didn't see that clearly expressed.)
> 
> If you want something else to happen with a file that has a .R extension 
> when double-clicked or right-clicked in a GUI file manager, then you 
> need to configure your OS to do whatever else it is that you expect. 
> This is not really an R question. It's an OS question. There are many 
> editors that can also bring up R consoles when the right  key combo is 
> pressed. They do require some study for their specific actions, but this 
> is not really the place to get guidance on the fine details.
> 

Friends, RGui contains an editor. It allows to send lines / code blocks 
to the R concole. We know users who need braille displays use the RGui 
internal editor as that apparently cooperates better with braille 
displays + R as many other editors.
And as it does not hide half of R by its own functions, I'd pefer that 
over some very popular other editors if I had no other choice.


To answer the OP's question, R does not have a built in way to get this 
task directly done, but searching the web suggests a rather simple way 
(well,m a hack as starting R with other command args may fail now, but 
you can extend this and look for a specific naming scheme):

<https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2007-August/138064.html>

let is adapt this for the recent version of R:


1. Add the line

if ( length(z <- commandArgs(TRUE)) ) utils::file.edit(z[1])

to the Rprofile.site file; and

2. Edit the registry to associate the .R extension with the command

C:\Program Files\R\R-4.2.2\bin\x64\Rgui.exe --args "%1"


I think we should implement this in R anyway.

Best,
Uwe Ligges