Store RStudio user preferences in a user-accessible location

[jmcphers]

We've often had requests to store user preferences in a user-accessible location, using a user-editable file format. The motivation is typically to make it possible to develop a set of personal settings which can be moved from machine to machine, stored on version control, etc.

We currently store most user preferences in a private file inside ~/.rstudio/monitored/user-settings (or the platform equivalent), many of them in a JSON uiPrefs blob. Since RStudio's inception, several editing platforms (Sublime and Visual Studio Code) have exposed their preferences as user-editable JSON. We could do the same with a handful of changes:

1. Create a location for RStudio user preferences, probably following the XDG configuration standard
2. Separate the existing user-settings content into internal settings (including machine-specific settings such as contextIdentifier) and external settings.
3. Load and save external settings to the .json file instead of the user-settings file.

[jmcphers]

A natural extension of this work would be to allow for a "global defaults" settings file to be read from a shared location, for use by administrators who wish to set defaults for their users according to constraints/patterns in their environment.

[jmcphers]

A vote for this here: https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115009277088-User-defined-folder-for-RStudio-settings

[haozhu233]

I second to this possible feature.

When I wrote rmarkdown documents, I found it has been very useful to change chunk evaluation location from document to project so if your rmd file is buried in some sub-directory, you can make sure you start from the same space when you run code chunks in console & click the render button. However, after I moved my files to rstudio server and shared the folder with someone else, since they haven't enabled this feature, they usually run into trouble that R cannot find the file. As a team working on RStudio, it will be very useful to be able to setup a unified customizable default profile for cases like this.

[russellpierce]

Bump, as a user interested in this feature. ;)

[BrainStormCenter]

I too that this would be a great feature for RStudio. As an rstatsnewbie working on a couple of different machines (work & home), being able to sync packages and settings between them would be greatly appreciated!!!

[verajosemanuel]

As the foundation of a third party tool for syncing different installations of Rstudio this would be a killer feature

[jmcphers]

@sellorm specifically suggested that we include pane and theme config in the files (see #3129)

[sellorm]

I guess anything/everything from 'Global Options' would be good

[coatless]

It would be great if it was possible to streamline retrieving and modifying the configuration ala the state information given at: https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/200534577-Resetting-RStudio-Desktop-s-State

As it stands now, this is largely done through posting pictures. Unfortunately, this creates headaches for newer users...

[jdblischak]

It would also be convenient if local settings (e.g. in a directory containing an .Rproj file) would override any global settings, e.g. how a local .gitconfig combines with the settings in the global ~/.gitconfig file.

[Zedseayou]

Not sure whether this is a common use case for others, but when my RStudio Server instances crash I often have to manually reset all options. Being able to import settings somehow would be great when creating new instances.

[jmcphers]

See here for another example of how configuration is shared in the absence of something like this:

https://drdoane.com/my-rstudio-configuration/

[JsizzleR]

RStudio Server Pro customer requested, ticket 37036

[jdblischak]

Another useful option to include in a config file is how to filter the files that are displayed in the Files pane, as noted by @kevinushey in #3383 (comment)

[jmcphers]

This change won't add any new options; it will only change the way we store existing ones.

[Robinlovelace]

Just to say, many thanks @jmcphers this will make lots of peoples lives lots easier when this is rolled-out. I'm planning on using it to create a custom docker image optimised for academic geographic research, with Rmd chunks evaluated in-line. One question: will we be able to set shortcuts through the plain text file?

Many thanks for this work in any case, looking forward to it being merged!

[jmcphers]

@Robinlovelace Good news, you don't need this change to set shortcuts; they are already customizable with plain text files. See this article for details: https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/206382178-Customizing-Keyboard-Shortcuts

[Robinlovelace]

Great, thanks @jmcphers ! I guess setting Rmd chunks to evaluate in the console (not inline is what I meant) still requires this change?

[jmcphers]

Yes, that's correct.

[Robinlovelace]

🎉 ! May be jumping the gun but, other than here, where is this new functionality documented?

[jmcphers]

There's an overview in the PR:

#5069

Later, this will be documented in more detail in the RStudio Server Administration Guide.

[AtomicNess123]

Any progress in this enhancement?

[dpprdan]

@AtomicNess123 It's documented for RStudio Desktop Pro (works the same for the Open Source version AFAICT) and RStudio Workbench née Server Pro.