Question

I am using emacs-snapshot with the ssh.el package, following the instructions from the ess manual.

There are a few ways to open an R session, but this is how I do it:

1. open emacs
2. C-x C-f /server:dir/file.R this puts me in ESS [S] mode
3. Type ‘plot(1)’
4. C-c C-n to run
5. emacs asks for starting directory, and I choose the /server:dir/
6. I would like for a figure to pop up but it wont.

This also doesn’t work when using ess-remote in shell or tramp mode, but it does work if I set the starting directory to my local desktop.

Any advice much appreciated. My current workaround is to print the file to pdf and then open pdf in DocView mode, but this takes a few extra steps and is slow.

Answer 1

I do it the other way around:

• ssh -X some.server.com to connect to a remote server with x11 forwarding.

• emacsclient -nw to restart an Emacs session that is already running

• plot(cumsum(rnorm(100))) in R as usual

Then the plot windows appears on the initial machine I ssh‘ed away from.

Edit: As a follow-up to the comment: This works for any emacs, either emacs or emacs-snapshot. For a long time I used (server-start) in the ~/.emacs but now I prefer that (just once) lauch emacs --daemon after which I can then connect to via emacsclient (which also exists as emacsclient-snapshot). I really like this — it gives me Emacs around R in a persistent session that I connect, disconnect and reconnect to.