Re: ANNOUNCE: GtkConsole 0.0.1

[Lyndon Drake <lyndon stat auckland ac nz>]

Hi,

It has been pointed out that I neglected to tell you where you can get GtkConsole from.  For now it's available at http://stat.auckland.ac.nz/~lyndon/gtkconsole.html, but I may have to move it from there at some stage.

GtkConsole 0.0.2 (still alpha; it works for me, but there are some problems with it and some features missing) is now available.  This version now moves the cursor to the correct place.

Two people have asked whether I've looked at zvt.  I have, but it's not really what I'm looking for.  

Firstly, zvt is a proper terminal emulator; GtkConsole is not (and never will be).  

Secondly, GtkConsole is supposed to be closer to the type of behaviour you get by running R from withing Emacs than to R on a terminal.  That's why GtkConsole is a subclass of GtkText.  We get all the text handling features, and it will be relatively simple to add good stuff like syntax highlighting.  R already runs in an xterm, and we will continue to support that interface (if it's run in on a terminal, graphics windows etc. will still use Gtk+).

Thirdly, because of the way R is designed, it would be very difficult to connect R and the terminal widget, while still supporting lots of nice GUI features (believe me, I tried it).  Even if noone else can use GtkConsole, I need it.

Lyndon