R Session Watcher: Shiny apps in webviewer without local storage

[vnijs]

This extension + session watcher is really nice! Thanks all for creating this.

I wanted to follow up on #150 (comment). Being able to start a shiny app from vscode that opens in an external browser would be really nice.

Some related questions:

• Is there a way for the shiny app to "know" that it was launched from vscode?
• Alternatively, how would you check from R is local storage if available?

BTW I just setup "radian" for use with the VSCode R-extension and really like it. Since it is shown in some of the new gifs and screenshot it would be good to provide some notes on how to best set it up. Also, a link to https://github.com/randy3k/radian would be useful for new users

[renkun-ken]

I wanted to follow up on #150 (comment). Being able to start a shiny app from vscode that opens in an external browser would be really nice.

I'm considering which makes more sense: whether "Open in external web browser" should appear as an option to be specified in R or an option of vscode-R, or if there's a way for user to use a command or click a button to open the webview in external browser (like in RStudio).

Is there a way for the shiny app to "know" that it was launched from vscode?

There are definitely a few methods to make shiny app know it was launched from vscode. One is to set an environment variable when browser command is executed so that the shiny app can detect the value of the environment variable. The other is to append query string to the URL of the shiny app, something like http://127.0.0.1:8765/?browser=vscode so that the shiny app can also get the value of browser in the query string.

Alternatively, how would you check from R is local storage if available?

There are certain known limitations of WebView in VSCode we cannot surround at the moment including the use of websocket and local storage. I'm no web expert therefore I can't tell you how we can check this.

Since it is shown in some of the new gifs and screenshot it would be good to provide some notes on how to best set it up

We'll probably add some brief introduction to radian in README.md for users who are interested.

[vnijs]

I'm considering which makes more sense: whether "Open in external web browser" should appear as an option to be specified in R or an option of vscode-R

You are talking about something like r.shinyWebView = "external" in vscode-r I assume. A button might be nice but I assume a setting would be easier to implement

One is to set an environment variable when browser command is executed so that the shiny app can detect the value of the environment variable.

That would be very convenient!

[renkun-ken]

The shiny apps open in browser WebView can be open in external browsers. Closing.