Use in R Studio Cloud?

[jrosen48]

Thanks for creating a great package.

I am currently using R Studio Cloud with middle grades-aged students. I am curious about whether I could use matahari to understand what code students write in a document. Apart from asking them to load matahari and to run the dance_start() and dance_stop() commands manually (assuming they have shared their project with me), is there any way to do this in an (even) more seemless way?

I am wondering about something like sourcing an R file that loads matahari and then runs dance_start(), but am not sure how to get the tracking to end without students manually running dance_end(). I know this question is a bit open-ended; thanks for considering this.

[seankross]

Hi, I think this is a great idea, though it may need a few iterations before we get it right. My first thought is to add a .Rprofile file to root directory of the RStudio project that a student is working on. That .Rprofile file should contain this code:

library(matahari)
dance_start()

.Last <- function() {
  dance_stop()
  pretty_date_time <- gsub(":", "", gsub(" ", "_", as.character(Sys.time())))
  dance_save(paste0("matahari-log-", pretty_date_time, ".rds"))
}

That should produce a log every time a student starts and stops R, which will be saved to the root directory of the project. Let me know if that works!

[jrosen48]

Thanks so much. I think I understand how this works. I've tried this a few times in R Studio cloud, and haven't been able to view the log file yet. I also tried this locally, and haven't been able to see a file saved when I either close and open R Studio or restart my R session. I will keep working on this; I wonder if I'm doing something incorrectly (or not reloading/restarting my session correctly?).

[seankross]

I just tried to get this working on RStudio cloud and I could not, though it is working for me on my own computer. I will find some RStudio engineer to ask how .Last is handled in RStudio cloud at RStudio conf next month. (I would ask online but I don't know who to ask.)

[seankross]

I got it to work but probably not in a way that is ideal for you class:

1. Open your project with the .Rprofile above in the project directory and terminate R by typing q() into the console.
2. Once R restarts check that the .Rprofile was run with exists(".Last").
3. Exit R again with q(). When R restarts there should be a log in the project directory.

Let me know if that works.