help.start {utils} | R Documentation |
Start the hypertext (currently HTML) version of R's online documentation.
help.start(update = TRUE, gui = "irrelevant", browser = getOption("browser"), searchEngine = FALSE)
gui |
just for compatibility with S-PLUS. |
browser |
the name of the program to be used as hypertext browser. It should be in the PATH, or a full path specified. Alternatively, it can be a function which will be called with an URL as its only argument. |
update |
logical: should this attempt to update the indices to reflect the currently installed packages. |
searchEngine |
logical: if true go directly to the search engine page. A workaround for some Firefox 3 versions (see ‘Notes’). |
The Windows file association mechanism is used to send the HTML file to a browser, launching one if necessary.
Unlike Unix systems, running help.start
does not send all
future help requests to the browser: use options(htmlhelp=TRUE)
to set that.
Alternatively, a specific browser can be started if browser
is
specified, but help
will still use the file association mechanism.
help.start
and the Java-based search engine have been tested
under Internet Explorer 6/7, Opera 7.54,
Mozilla 1.7 and Firefox 1.5/2.0/3.0. Users of IE
will probably need to allow ‘active content’ from the
‘information bar’ before the search engine can be used.
There is a Java-based search facility available from the HTML page
that help.start
brings up. Should this not work, please
consult the ‘R Installation and Administration’ manual which is
linked from that page.
Note to users of Firefox 3.0 to 3.0.6: the search results have links
that are resolved incorrectly by that browser if starting from the
normal HTML index page. The workaround is to start with
help.start(searchEngine = TRUE)
. This was fixed in Firefox 3.0.7.
help()
for on- and off-line help in ASCII/Editor or
PostScript format.
browseURL
for how the help file is displayed.
RSiteSearch
to access an on-line search of R resources.
## Not run: help.start() help.start(browser="C:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\IEXPLORE.EXE") help.start(browser="C:/Program Files/Opera/Opera.exe") help.start(browser="C:/Program Files/mozilla.org/Mozilla/mozilla.exe") help.start(browser="C:/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/firefox.exe") ## End(Not run)