Simplify vscode-r for new users

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. The transition to vscode-r may be difficult and daunting for new users. For instance, vscode-r has a lot of customisation through the settings menu. However, the depth and breadth of customisation can be daunting to new users. I see @ManuelHentschel has taken steps to improve this with the r.rpath change (great idea by the way), but I think we could do some work to help simplify setup further. I have some ideas for this, but I would like to hear everyone’s thoughts.

Describe the solution you’d like Some ideas I’ve had:

• Group vscode-r settings by their broad purpose. For instance, rmarkdown settings, workspace viewer settings, and help panel settings could be grouped or sorted together. At present, as these settings are not grouped, they are sandwiched in between setup settings like rterm and rpath. We could group these under something like ‘General’ or ‘Editor’. We could have rterm, rpath, rterm send delay (and other similar settings) grouped under ‘Advanced’.
• Potentially collapse R LSP Client into vscode-r, and group its settings as per above
• Potentially enable session watcher by default? I understand that the session watcher is experimental in nature, but it has been some time since its release (nearly a year). I haven’t noticed any bugs with it lately, but that might just be my experience. Given the important abilities of the session watcher, it seems to me that new users would likely want this setting on, even when they don’t know what the session watcher is/does.
• Potentially simplify the readme/landing page (i.e. https://github.com/Ikuyadeu/vscode-R). At present, it is a lot of information to digest for a new user, and doesn’t explain how to get the extension working. It might be useful, for example, to format the page as:

Requirements Installation Features Settings etc…

… and then have links to wiki pages for more in-depth information. I also think it would be a lot less information-overload if we went without the pictures, but that might just be personal preference.

[ManuelHentschel]

That was my concern too. I had a quick look around and didn’t find anything on it, so I suspect you’re right. I guess we could have a hacky conversion function to correct the old settings? E.g. r.workspaceViewer.bla -> r.editor.workspaceViewer.bla

Edit: carrying on with the above, we could have a message box pop up if it detects old settings, and asks if the user wants to convert to the new settings

I implemented a message box like this in the debugger when moving the settings of the debugger:

https://github.com/ManuelHentschel/VSCode-R-Debugger/blob/38490254e0f5281e61fa9dac03bfc7206f9f38bc/src/extension.ts#L25:L29

I wouldn’t try to update the settings automatically though, since vscode uses a combination of settings from different places (global user settings, workspace settings, language-specific settings, …) which would be quite difficult to handle properly.

[eitsupi]

FYI

I think VScode Remote-Containers is very useful for trying out a new language because it absorbs the differences between OS by using Docker and automates the vscode setup. So I have changed the R container definition files which are able to added by Remote-Containers extention(https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-dev-containers/pull/732).

The R container definition files had not been updated for about 2 years though, I hope to update it appropriately and I hope that it will be an option for new users to try vscode-R in the future.