R markdown: Knit button and keyboard knit shortcut doesn't work

Describe the bug I use the same rmd file as in #886 in this report. (The preview problem has been fixed.) When the setting “Knit: Use Background Process” is on, the knit button and keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + Shift + k) don’t work. The output panel of R markdown showed nothing. But after turning off the “Knit: Use Background Process”, the rmd file can be knitted correctly.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. turn on “Knit: Use Background Process”
2. Click on ‘Knit’

Do you want to fix by self? (We hope your help!)

No, I don’t know how vscode works.

// R.exe path for windows
"r.rterm.windows": "D:\Softwares\Anaconda3\Scripts\radian.exe",

// R path for Mac OS X
"r.rterm.mac": "",

// R path for Linux
"r.rterm.linux": "",

// R command line options (i.e: --vanilla)
"r.rterm.option": [--no-save --no-restore],

// An optional encoding to pass to R when executing the file, i.e. 'source(FILE, encoding=ENCODING)'
"r.source.encoding": "UTF-8",

// Keeping focus when running
"r.source.focus": "editor",

// Use active terminal for all commands, rather than creating a new R terminal
"r.alwaysUseActiveTerminal": false,

// Use bracketed paste mode
"r.bracketedPaste": false,

// Enable R session watcher
"r.sessionWatcher": true,

// Delay in milliseconds before sending each line to rterm (only applies if r.bracketedPaste is false)
"r.rtermSendDelay": 8,

Expected behavior The rmd file can be knitted correctly when “Knit: Use Background Process” is on.

Screenshots “Knit: Use Background Process” is on:

“Knit: Use Background Process” is off:

Environment (please complete the following information):

• OS: Windows
• VSCode Version: 1.62.3 (user setup)
• R Version: 4.1.1
• vscode-R version: v2.3.4

[renkun-ken]

@ElianHugh Looks like we should check the usage of workspace folder in the rmarkdown part of code.

[LeiGuo0812]

Before reporting the bug, I’d only ever tried to knit after opening an R markdown file. I’ve tried to load a workspace induced by the file I’m working on, but that seems to do nothing either unlike for @LeiGuo0812. The workspace is correctly saved and loaded by vscode-R and all objects are present, but CTRL+Shift+K to knit and the graphical shortcut seem to be unresponsive.

I believe that it’s just a misunderstanding. The workspace Elian is talking about is the working path set by the explorer in the sidebar, not the .rdata file. After setting the directory in explorer, the button should work.