On 01/03/2010 9:53 AM, Ivan Calandra wrote:
Dear users,
From the recent discussion, I've wondered whether a text editor would
be useful.
However, I couldn't find a good explanation of what it is used for.
For now, under Windows XP, I use the standard R Editor to write and run
scripts.
What can I do more with a text editor? It is worth using it?
The built in editor in the R gui is a minimal text editor. The editor I
use (a shareware editor named Textpad) is much more capable. Some of
the features I use frequently:
- I can turn on line numbering, to track down errors quicker
- I can search within a file, or within a collection of files not in the
editor, and the search and replace functions are more capable.
- I can turn on syntax-based highlighting, customized to R, or C, or
LaTeX, or HTML, ...
- I can customize the keys, so a single keystroke runs the current file
through LaTeX or shows it in a browser
- I can view files in hex mode, to see weird bytes
- I can configure it to use Unix-style line endings, which is convenient
when working on the R sources.
Those features are all pretty common in text editors that are aimed at
programmers. I wouldn't particularly recommend Textpad; I think there
are others that are just as capable. On the other hand, I don't know
any that are so much more capable that I'm tempted to switch.
Duncan Murdoch
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