install_github() doesn't build vignette PDFs & local=FALSE doesn't work either

[rpruim]

The new default behavior of install_github() doesn't build the PDFs from Rnw files in the vignettes directory.

Setting local=FALSE fails, presumably because local slipped out of ... somewhere between install_github() and install():

> install_github('devtools',local=FALSE)
Installing github repo(s) devtools/master from hadley
Downloading devtools.zip from https://github.com/hadley/devtools/archive/master.zip
Installing package from /var/folders/qm/fvhzvrvx1qs1cr8c0pkk5f9m0000gn/T//RtmpRMuUAQ/devtools.zip
Error in install(pkg_path, local = TRUE, quiet = quiet, ...) : 
  formal argument "local" matched by multiple actual arguments

Downloading from github and using install() directly with local=FALSE does work.

[rpruim]

I think the culprit is the last line of install_local_single()

install(pkg_path, local = TRUE, quiet = quiet, ...)

[krlmlr]

Hasn't this been fixed in #328? Could you try installing the most recent version of devtools from GitHub?

[rpruim]

It looks like you are right about local=FALSE working correctly with an updated devtools. Sorry about that. But I still think that vignettes should be built by default rather than requiring an option to be set.

[hadley]

Hmmm, actually there's a bit of a recursion problem here - to build the vignettes you usually need to have install the package first. So it might be better to install the package, then build the vingnettes, then reinstall. Not sure how R CMD build gets around this.

[rpruim]

I wonder if when you figure this out it will answer another question I have: Is it possible to create a vignette (Rnw -> PDF) that has links to files that will be installed with the package (in inst/PDF, for example)?

[hadley]

@rpruim probably not :( My sense is that CRAN is getting increasingly hostile to any additional documentation not generated by the vignette process. What additional files are you trying to include?

[rpruim]

PDFs created using Rnw files but also including lots of additional images and using resampling, so they are slow to generate. I don't want to regenerate them every time I check the package :( Furthermore, the files use some custom style files. So it seems simpler just to get the PDF compiled and provide it as a done deal.

My current solution is to put the PDFs in inst/PDFS and then put a real vignette with links to these on github (even though the files are actually also inside the package).

I suppose the other option would be to include them as additional documentation that isn't a vignette, but then they don't show up when searching for vignettes.