Add runSelectionInActiveTerm command #80 #102

[andycraig]

Fix #80

Fix #102

This PR adds a new command r.runSelectionInActiveTerm, accessed from the command palette as R: Run Selection/Line in Active Terminal. It functions like r.runSelection, but sends the selection to the currently active terminal instead of the terminal registered as rTerm.

What problem did you solve?

Can now send code to an R session not started via vscode-R (e.g., an R session started in an SSH session).

Can now run multiple R terminals at the same time and send code to the currently active terminal.

Screenshot

Notes

This PR increases the required VSCode engine to 1.29.0, to access vscode.window.activeTerminal.

There is no check for whether there is actually an R session running in the active terminal. The code will be sent regardless.

The new command is not bound to any keyboard shortcut by default.

An equivalent command is added for r.runSelection only. Other commands that send code (r.nrow, r.length, r.head, r.thead, r.names, r.runSource) still send code to rTerm only. If there is demand for further equivalent commands, they could be added in a future PR.

[Ikuyadeu]

@andycraig Great work! Your PR information makes me easily understand to contents.
I will check this PR at the weekend.

[Ikuyadeu]

@andycraig OK, I checked. Great work.

I fixed the default runSelection behavior a bit.
Currently, the user needs to call a command.
But it wastes time as same as copy and pastes the source code.

In previous:

1. You make R terminal manually (And the terminal name is R or R interactive)
2. You call command from F1 key

Now:

1. You make R terminal manually (And the terminal name is R or R interactive)
2. You call just runSelection. If the terminal name is R or R interactive, runSelection command will choose that.

I will merge if it will fit for your image.

[Ikuyadeu]

Here is movie, I just put cmd + Enter key 3 times.

[Ikuyadeu]

SSH support is awesome.
Do you have an example behavior of that?

[andycraig]

@Ikuyadeu I added a movie showing use of R in an SSH session to the README.

[andycraig]

@Ikuyadeu Thank you for having a look at this PR and streamlining it! I think using runSelection for multiple 'R'/'R Interactive' terminals is better than my approach.

When using ssh from the command line and then running R, the terminal name is 'ssh', not 'R'. So to deal with 'ssh' terminals you would still need to use runSelectionInActiveTerm (which a frequent user would probably assign to a keyboard shortcut).

Your changes look good to me. Later today, I can add a movie showing use with SSH to the README, and if it looks okay to you I think it will be ready for merging.

[andycraig]

@Ikuyadeu I just noticed that now if there are no open terminals and the user tries to use runSelection, they get an error message 'There are no open terminals', but I think the preferred behaviour now would be for an R Interactive terminal to be created. I will add a commit for this.

[Ikuyadeu]

@andycraig Thank you for your check.
I am looking forward to that, but please do not too hard.

[andycraig]

Thank you, @Ikuyadeu. I wasn't able to spend much more time on it today so I will carry on with it this week.

[andycraig]

It seems that creating and showing a terminal does not necessarily set activeTerminal, which is making this more complicated than it seems like it should be. From microsoft/vscode#64390, 'show is an async request which may or may not change the activeTerminal', and it sounds like onDidChangeActiveTerminal might be needed.

I will continue to work into this.

[andycraig]

I didn't have any success using a listener (e.g., onDidOpenTerminal), so I have gone with a workaround approach that seems to solve the problem.

[andycraig]

I'm going to make some improvements to that last commit, and then add a movie demonstrating SSH.

[andycraig]

@Ikuyadeu If everything looks okay to you, I am happy for this to be merged.

[Ikuyadeu]

@andycraig Great works! I will publish a new version today.

[Ikuyadeu]

I published a new one, also I added collaboraters (@andycraig and @Ladvien) on the README.
From the next version, I skip adding your name on CHANGELOG for separate other contributors.

[andycraig]

@Ikuyadeu I’m fine with my name being skipped in the CHANGELOG since I’m now mentioned in the README. Up to you :)