The Rcmdr package is a standard R package, and it installs and is loaded in the normal manner. There are, however, a few installation issues, particularly on Macintosh systems, and these are described in this document.
A general point is keep is mind is that the Rcmdr package uses a number of other "contributed" packages (in addition to packages, such as tcltk and MASS, that are part of the standard R distribution), and these must be present for it to work properly: abind, aplpack, car, colorspace, effects, Hmisc, leaps, lmtest, multcomp, relimp, rgl, and (on Windows) RODBC. Many of these packages have their own dependencies, which depend on still other packages, etc.
Once it is installed, to load the Rcmdr package, just enter the command library(Rcmdr).
Notes for specific platforms follow:
The easiest way to install the Rcmdr package if you have an active Internet connection, is via the Rgui Packages -> Install packages menu or via the command
install.packages("Rcmdr")
When you first load the Rcmdr package with the command library(Rcmdr), it will offer to download and install missing dependencies; allow it to do so. If you installed R in Program Files under Windows Vista or Windows 7, you should run R with adminstrator privileges to install packages: Right click the R icon and select "Run as administrator." I suggest that you install R into a different directory, such as C:\R\, to avoid this issue.
On Windows, the Rcmdr package works best with the single-document Rgui interface (SDI). Under the default multiple-document interface (MDI), Tk dialog boxes may not stay on top of the main R window. This is a general issue with applications, such as the R Commander, that are based on the tcltk package.
To enable the SDI, make a copy of the R desktop icon (right-click on the icon, drag it to a different location on the desktop, select Copy Here from the context menu). Right-click the new icon and select Properties. Add --sdi (preceded by a space) to the Target field on the Shortcut tab of the Properties dialog box. The field should read something like "C:\Program Files\R\rw2010\bin\Rgui.exe" --sdi. If you wish, change the name of the icon on the General tab (e.g., to R 2.1.0 SDI). Click OK. Alternatively, you can install R to use the SDI, or you can edit the Rconsole file in R's etc subdirectory.
If you wish to load the R Commander automatically when R starts up, you can add the following to the Rprofile.site file in R's etc directory:
local({
old <- getOption("defaultPackages")
options(defaultPackages = c(old, "Rcmdr"))
})
Linux/Unix systems typically have all of the software required for building packages already installed. The easiest way to install the Rcmdr package if you have an active Internet connection is to run R as root and issue the command install.packages("Rcmdr") at the R prompt.
On Ubutu systems, in particular, the following procedure should work (slightly modified from a suggestion by Ista Zahn):
Last modified: 1 November 2011 by John Fox <jfox AT mcmaster.ca>.