R Markdown
R Markdown document creation is supported with the following features:
- Chunk highlighting
- Chunk navigation commands (Select current chunk, go to previous/next chunks, etc.)
- Chunk execution commands (Run current chunk, run above/below chunks, etc.)
- Rmd render commands (Knit, Knit to PDF/HTML/All)
- Live preview rmd (as html)
R Markdown documents can be knit in a VSCode-R managed background process when using the knit command. Beyond the use of a background process, this has the following features:
- Set knitr document directory
- Knit progress tracking
- Smart knitting
By default, knitr evaluates documents as though they are the root folder. For instance, calling source in a document will use the document's folder as the working directory, not the document's workspace. This can be modified in VSCode-R, so as to tell knitr if we want to evaluate from the workspace root or the document directory.
Knit progress is tracked via a progress bar, and can be viewed in the R Markdown output stream. Progress is determined by the percentages reported in the R Markdown output stream and may not be 100% accurate.
The knit button is "smart" in that it checks the document and its workspace for context when knitting. For instance, if a document has a knit function defined in the YAML header, the knit button will call the custom function when knitting. This also works for R Markdown sites, where the knit button will call rmarkdown::render_site instead of rmarkdown::render.
You can live preview R Markdown documents by pressing the "Open Preview to Side" button when focused on a R Markdown document.
You can also preview a document by right-clicking it in the explorer and selecting preview.
You can also run the following code and a browser viewer will open with live rendering of the R Markdown document.
rmarkdown::run("your-rmd-document.Rmd")