HTML shows help for R-release not R-devel

[hturner]

When we make a change to a help file in the development version, rebuild R and use which_r to switch to r-devel, the R console uses R-devel with the latest changes, but ? still opens help files from the release version that is installed in the dev container.

Somehow we need to work out how to switch to show help files from r-devel.

The help files are rebuilt, because we can see the updated help file if we run r-devel directly from the terminal.

[hturner]

I have worked out how to do this; it requires several small changes:

1. In the VS Code settings, set "r.libPaths" to "/usr/local/lib/R/site-library". This is where we have installed the languageserver and httpgd packages, so adding this library makes sure these packages are always available.

2. In the VS Code settings, add the "Reload" extension. This adds a "Reload" button in the footer to easily reload the VS Code Windows.

3. Update the which_r script as follows:

   • When switching R, also set "r.rpath.linux" to the new R path. E.g. to switch to the r-devel version, we want

     "r.rpath.linux": "/workspaces/r-dev-env/build/r-devel/bin/R",
     "r.rterm.linux": "/workspaces/r-dev-env/build/r-devel/bin/R",

   • Update the message shown after selecting a new version of R, to explain how to update the help, e.g.

     R terminal will now use version: /workspaces/r-dev-env/build/r-devel/bin/R
     To update the HTML help, click "Reload" in the VS Code status bar (bottom right) to reload your VS Code window.

4. Update step 3 of the R Contribution Workflow:

   • To use the re-built R, simply open a new R terminal. If you have made changes to the help files, click "Reload" in the VS Code status bar (bottom right) to reload your VS Code window.

[hturner]

The original settings are in .devcontainer/devcontainer.json. These are moved to .vscode/settings.json by local_script.sh. So items 1 and 2 should be implemented by chaing these original settings in .devcontainer/devcontainer.json`

Item 3 would need to be done as part of which_r script (lines 62-62) in a similar way to changing r/rterm.linux. The message to be updated is currently line 66.

Item 4 is modifying the docs.

[hturner]

Fixed by #255