R Commander Mac OS X Installation Notes for Versions of R Before R 3.0.0

These installation notes are intended for Mac OS X users of versions of R prior to R 3.0.0. R version 3.0.0 comes with an X-Windows installation of Tcl/Tk, and it is thus unnecessary to install Tcl/Tk for X Windows in a separate step.

I strongly recommend that you upgrade to the current version of R, and then follow the standard R Commander installation notes for Mac OS X users. Using an old version of R will restrict you to an old version of the R Commander as well, and these old versions are now unsupported.

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 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. 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).

The procedure for installing the R Commander under Mac OS X for versions of R prior to 3.0.0 is a bit complicated, so please read and follow these instructions carefully. These instructions and the associated files are intended for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), 10.6 (Snow Leopard), 10.7 (Lion), and 10.8 (Mountain Lion) systems. I assume that you've already installed R.

Check to see if the X11 windowing system (X Windows) has already been installed on your computer. For OS X 10.5, 10.6, and 10.7, the file X11.app should appear in the Utilities folder under Applications in the finder. This application should always be installed under OS X 10.7. If X11.app is missing under OS X 10.5 or 10.6, you can install it from your Mac OS X installation disc as follows:

Insert your Mac OS X install disc. (If you have two discs it will be on the"Install Disc 1").
Double click on Optional Installs.
Double click on Optional Installs.mpkg, then click Continue and accept the license agreement.
Click the triangle next to Applications in order to expand the list of applications.
Check "X11", and then click Continue and Install. Click Close when the installation finishes.

Under OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion), the X11 application is called XQuartz.app, and it is no longer included with the operating system.

When you first try to use X11, however -- for example, by installing and then loading the Rcmdr package in R (see the bullets below) -- OS X will offer to help you install X11, with a message like "To open 'R,' you need to install X11. Would you like to install X11 now?"
Click the continue button, which will take you to the Apple support website, and thence to http://xquartz.macosforge.org, where you can download the disk image (dmg) file for XQuartz.
When you open this file by double-clicking on it, you'll find XQuartz.pkg; double-click on it to run the installer, clicking through all the defaults.
After the installer runs, you'll have to log out and back on to your Mac OS X account.

Install Tcl/Tk for X Windows. Note that this step is necessary only for versions of R prior to R 3.0.0. Installers (tcltk-8.5.5-x11.dmg or tcltk-8.5.5-x11.pkg) for various versions of Mac OS X are available

Install Tcl/Tk for X Windows by double-clicking on the downloaded file tcltk-8.5.5-x11.dmg and then double-clicking on the installer file tcltk.pkg, or by double-clicking on the downloaded file tcltk-8.5.5-x11.pkg.
Under OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion), depending upon how your security preferences are set, you may see the message, "'tcltk.pkg' can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer." At this point, you can proceed by clicking OK to close the message box; then right-clicking (or control-clicking) tcltk.pkg; and finally clicking the Open button in the resulting dialog box. On the other hand, you might get tired of Apple trying to restrict the software that you install on your Mac, and simply change your security and privacy preferences to "allow applications downloaded from anywhere."
Continue through the installation.

Start R by running R.app. At the R > command prompt, type the following command and press the return key (to avoid errors, you can copy the command from this document and paste it at the R > command prompt):

install.packages("Rcmdr")

R will ask you to select a CRAN mirror; pick a mirror site near you.

Once it is installed, to load the Rcmdr package, simply issue the command

library(Rcmdr)

at the R > command prompt and press return. When you first load the Rcmdr package, it will offer to download and install missing dependencies; allow it to do so. Note that under Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) you will likely have to install XQuartz.app at this point (see above).

Last modified: 2023-02-23 by John Fox <john.david.fox AT proton.me>.