Updating the Install R Package dialog?

[rdstern]

@lilyclements will you be updating the github option - adding the remaining package(s) to thew drop-down, and maybe getting rid of the upgrade=never option?

Then we, that's @rachelkg and I, should be writing the help information.

@N-thony just so I understand fully where R-Instat is storing R packages, on my machine it said:

[1] "C:/Users/rdste/AppData/Roaming/R-Instat/library"
[2] "C:/Program Files/R-Instat/0.8.0b/static/R/library"

So what happens when I update R-Instat? I assume it still uses that same directory? But now some of the packages in my Roaming directory may be older than those in the new main library - and so I don't want to use them. Or does updating R-Instat clear that directory?

[N-thony]

@N-thony just so I understand fully where R-Instat is storing R packages, on my machine it said:

[1] "C:/Users/rdste/AppData/Roaming/R-Instat/library" [2] "C:/Program Files/R-Instat/0.8.0b/static/R/library"

So what happens when I update R-Instat? I assume it still uses that same directory? But now some of the packages in my Roaming directory may be older than those in the new main library - and so I don't want to use them. Or does updating R-Instat clear that directory?

@rdstern when you install/update new packages they go to the user library i.e. C:/Users/rdste/AppData/Roaming/R-Instat/library. Packages here persist across updates of R-Instat unless explicitly removed by deleting the folder.
What I think by creating a separate directory for each version of R-Instat in the Roaming folder (e.g., C:/Users/rdste/AppData/Roaming/R-Instat/0.8.0b/library), this can ensure that packages from previous versions don't interfere with the new ones. When updating R-Instat, you would then install new packages in the corresponding version-specific library, keeping older versions isolated.

[lilyclements]

@rdstern upgrade=never is in there intentionally because otherwise a box will come up asking if the user wants to update the other packages. We could have it as a checkbox/radio buttons with upgrade being never, always, depending on the options in that parameter.

[rdstern]

@jkmusyoka please can you reply, so the explanations can also help me with the help later?

All I know is that currently the upgrade=never option, which is currently always included, meant that we always used To Script, then deleted that option, and ran the script. This caused a problem, because that script ran into a little problem sometimes. I would like to see the dialog used instead, and am not sure why James always wants to delete that option, while Lily has it always there.

[jkmusyoka]

@rdstern I was excluding the upgrade=never option when first installing the packages so that the dependencies are updated. It was during updating of the packages that I advised the participants not to update. And R-Instat worked okay for both cases. One thing we should improve with the process is to add feedback so that users have a way of knowing when the process has completed. At the moment, we get some feedback but incomplete compared to R-studio output. We dont even get the prompt expected when upgrading is included and this could mislead the users to assume that the process is not complete. At the very least some message on the output window indicating that the installation is complete or otherwise is needed