Introducing the R Graphical User Interface

By default, R is installed into %ProgramFiles%R (which is usually C:\Program Files\R) and installed into the Start menu under the group R. When you launch R in Windows, you’ll see something like the user interface shown in Figure 2.1. Inside the R GUI window, there is a menu bar, a toolbar, and the R console.

Figure 2.1. R user interface on Windows XP

The default R installer will add an application called R to your Applications folder that you can run like any other application on your Mac. When you launch the R application on Mac OS X systems, you’ll see something like the screen shown in Figure 2.2. Like the Windows system, there is a menu bar, a toolbar with common functions, and an R console window.

Figure 2.2. R user interface on Mac OS X

On a Mac OS system, you can also run R from the terminal without using the GUI. To do this, first open a terminal window. (The terminal program is located in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder.) Then enter the command “R” on the command line to start R.

On Linux systems, you can start R from the command line by typing:

R

Notice that it’s a capital “R”; filenames on Linux are case sensitive.

Unlike the default applications for Mac OS and Windows, this will start an interactive R session on the command line itself. If you prefer, you can launch R in an application window similar to the user interface on other platforms. To do this, use the following command:

R -g Tk &

This will launch R in the background running in its own window, as shown in Figure 2.3. Like the other platforms, there is a menu bar with some common function, but unlike the other platforms, there is no toolbar. The main window acts as the R console.

Figure 2.3. Tk interface for R on Fedora