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Tabout in R

·488 words·3 mins
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I noticed a painpoint while working in RStudio: I didn’t have the ’tabout’ functionality I had in Obsidian and VScode.

“There must be a way to do this! 🤔” I thought.

Indeed, there was! So, here’s how I did it (and how you can, too).

Credits to Matthias Nistler for this wonderful post on creating custom shortcuts in R.

Create R Package
#

  1. Go to “New Project”
  2. Choose “New Directory” then “R Package”
  3. Give your package a cool name. I named mine codersnest
  4. Pick a project location.

This creates a hello.R file and hello function.

hello file and function

Delete the hello.R file in your project folder (mine is ~\Documents\codersnest) and hello.Rd in the man subfolder (i.e. ~\Documents\codersnest\man)

Create Addin
#

Install Dependencies
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In the console, run:

install.packages(c("usethis", "devtools", "rstudioapi"))

Define Addin Function
#

Cool Trick
#

Matthias showed a nifty trick to create new files.

In a new file (Ctrl+Shift+N), type the code below, then press Ctrl+Enter:

usethis::use_r("tabout")

This creates and focuses a new tabout.R file. Pretty cool right?

Enough Playing
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Copy and paste the code below into tabout.R

tabout <- function() {
  # Get the active document context
  context <- rstudioapi::getActiveDocumentContext()

  # Get the current selection
  selection <- context$selection[[1]]

  # Get the current cursor position
  cursor_pos <- selection$range$end
  line <- cursor_pos[1]
  col <- cursor_pos[2]

  # Get the text of the current line
  line_text <- context$contents[line]

  # Check if the cursor is just before a closing bracket
  if (substr(line_text, col, col) %in% c(")", "]", "}")) {
    # Move the cursor to the right of the closing bracket
    rstudioapi::setCursorPosition(c(line, col + 1))
  } else {
    # Perform the usual Tab action if not before a closing bracket
    rstudioapi::insertText("  ")  # Insert two spaces
  }
}

Save as an Addin
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Go to “File” > “New File” > “Text File” > paste the following:

Name: Tabout
Description: Enables Tabout functionality in R
Binding: tabout
Interactive: false

Matthias explained what each key is:

  • Name is a short description of what the addin does. This will be displayed when you want to set the shortcut later.
  • Description is a longer description of its functionality.
  • Binding sets the name of the function that should be called by the shortcut.
  • Interactive defines whether this addin is interactive (e.g., runs a Shiny application) or not.

This text file MUST be saved as addins.dcf in the inst/rstudio directory of your project folder (e.g. ~\Documents\codersnest\inst\rstudio\addins.dcf).

Finalize Package
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In the console, run the following commands sequentially:

## Defines the rstudioapi dependency for your package
usethis::use_package("rstudioapi")

## Check for errors
devtools::check()

## Update/create your package
devtools::build()

# devtools::build() output
> [1] "C:/Users/Abdul-Hameed/Documents/codersnest_0.1.0.tar.gz"

At the top right corner, click the project name then “Close Project”:

Install Package
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Install the package with the command:

# Same path as the one above
install.packages("C:/Users/Abdul-Hameed/Documents/codersnest_0.1.0.tar.gz", repos = NULL)

Bind tabout() to Tab
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Go to “Tools” > “Modify Keyboard Shortcuts” > search “tabout” > set shortcut toTab > “Apply” > 4+4!!!

Set Keybinding

CONGRATULAAAAATIONS!!! 🎉🥳😇