Golem App Development in Positron

[dleopold]

I have found myself needing to manage multiple R versions and decided to give the new IDE from Posit, Positron, a spin. One thing I have not figured out is how to get my golem projects to open in my browser instead of the internal viewer pane. In RStudio, I simply add options(shiny.launch.browser = T) to the project's .Rprofile. I can not seem to get the same behavior in Positron. I am posting here because I can get "vanilla" shiny apps to launch in the browser by modifying the Positron setting, "shiny.previewType": "external". But, this does not affect how my golem projects open. For efficient golem app development in Positron I think it is necessary to be able to use an external browser as the default.

[dleopold]

I have a workable solution for now (probably not optimal). I created an app.R file in the project root directory with the following:

options(shiny.autoreload = FALSE)
options(golem.app.prod = FALSE)
devtools::document()
run_app()

[VincentGuyader]

For now, I don’t have much experience with Positron, but it shouldn’t be too different from using VS Code.
I’m calling on @ArthurData , who’s been building golems in VS Code for a while, to get his opinion :)

[ArthurData]

Indeed, for now in Positron, I haven't found another solution than the one suggested by @dleopold.

Here are the steps that worked for me:

1. Install the Shiny extension in Positron.

2. In your Positron settings, add:

"shiny.previewType": "external"

3. Create an app.R file at the root of your project

4. You can then use the Command Palette to launch the Shiny app (make sure the app.R file is open when doing so). I also added a custom keyboard shortcut to launch the app faster.

[dleopold]

@ArthurData Thanks for the confirmation. Any chance you have worked out a good solution for debugging? Not being able to insert browser() to inspect the environment form my running golem app is becoming a big pain point for me

[ArthurData]

@dleopold , could you try the following:

• use your terminal in Positron instead of Positron’s console,

• in the terminal, start an R session (by simply typing R) or a session with Radian,

• once the session has started, try running: golem::run_dev().

If your setup allows it, the app should open in your browser. The browser() function should also work :)

[howardbaik]

Has anyone figured out a way to open the app in an external browser when running golem::run_dev() in the Console?

In RStudio, this was easy to do with options(shiny.launch.browser = TRUE) in my .RProfile (#1193).

But, this is currently not achievable in Positron (posit-dev/positron#8450).