Focus on already-open data explorer rather than new tab when running View()

[noamross]

Describe the issue:

When running View() multiple times on the same object in a session, Positron opens a new tab each time, leading to rapid tab proliferation.

Steps to reproduce the issue:

View(mtcars)
View(mtcars)

Expected or desired behavior:

It would be much better if the default behavior of running View() on data already open in a data explorer tab was to navigate to that tab rather than opening a new one. (This is the default behavior in RStudio.)

System details:

Positron and OS details:

Positron Version: 2025.11.0 build 234 Code - OSS Version: 1.105.0 Commit: 807acdfca108da6b9b2d96452fe047238da1bd9f Date: 2025-10-31T23:02:00.803Z Electron: 37.6.0 Chromium: 138.0.7204.251 Node.js: 22.19.0 V8: 13.8.258.32-electron.0 OS: Darwin arm64 25.0.0

Session details:

R 4.4.3

[juliasilge]

If you click the table icon in the Variables pane to open the Data Explorer, that does focus an already open Data Explorer instance rather open a new one. However, if you run View() or %view, that currently always opens a new Data Explorer instance.

[noamross]

Thanks! That's good to know, and I'll see if that eases the workflow. I think it would be helpful for the behavior to be the same. I find with Positron that there are so many panes that might be visible at a given moment, the variables pane is often not the most convenient entry to the data explorer.