Fixing help.start() in R for the Mac

This problem is fixed in RAqua/X11; it is only a problem in R 1.7.1 and earlier

The help.start() command in R for the Mac doesn't start up using the default browser. It seems to prefer Internet Explorer, no matter what the Internet Settings are. To make matters worse, if the browser option is set within R, the applescript() command uses an (applescript) alias to start the browser. This causes AppleScript to ask where the browser is each time. Ugh.

Fix:
  1. Leave the default browser as NULL.
  2. Navigate to R.home/doc/html, where R.home is the folder containing R.
  3. Select the index.html file.
  4. Click cmd-I (or go to File -> Get Info)
  5. Click the Open With drop arrow
  6. Change the application from Internet Exploder to your Browser of Choice
  7. Close the Info window

Now everything should be fine.


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Last Updated Wednesday, May 10, 2006, 13:54