R executable selection

[ElianHugh]

WIP R executable selection

Major contribution: extended R executable selection. Related issues #696 #1130 #1148 #747

This PR may need to be split into two parts: (1) R executable selection and (2) improved multi-root support

Screenshots

TODO

R Executable

• [x] Language status item
• [x] Executable quick pick
• [x] Unix support for standard R installations
• [ ] Unix support for all virtual environments
• [x] Windows support for standard R installations
• [ ] Windows support for all virtual environments
• [ ] Look into better supporting renv

Multi-root

Multi-root executable support potentially requires modification of many vscode-R features

• [x] R terminal
• [ ] Language service
• [ ] Help provider
• [x] Tasks

Other features should probably be deferred to another PR

[ElianHugh]

I'll have access to windows later today, so I should be able to work on the windows side to get to feature parity

[ElianHugh]

An issue I've found that on windows side, if an R executable isn't openable it causes an annoying popup when loading the extension. It doesn't look like fs.access or fs.stat checks for this on windows

[ElianHugh]

This is currently how the picker is looking:

Recommendation is due to the renv lock file denoting a matching R version

[ElianHugh]

Coming back to this PR, I think it's probably okay if support for "all" virtual environments is scaled back to just conda and renv?

[eitsupi]

if support for "all" virtual environments is scaled back to just conda and renv?

I think it's almost the same as conda, but also mamba?

[ElianHugh]

I'm reasonably happy with the executable UI & the executable locator services. main issue for this PR right now are conda activation (seems a little fragile in terms of how I'm handling it) and also feature parity on windows devices

[floriandeboissieu]

I'm waiting eagerly for the R executable selection with conda/mamba support. Any chance to have this PR finalized & merged in the near future?

[ElianHugh]

Hi @floriandeboissieu, thank you for your interest in the PR. Unfortunately this year has been pretty chock-a-block and I haven't had much time to do open source projects unless they are directly related to work. Having said that, I will have plenty of free time over the Christmas break, so I'm hoping to jump back into things then.

[ElianHugh]

Thank you all for the feedback. I am closing this PR in favour of work on a new branch (#1473).