Rstudio: [Feature request] User-friendlier interface for chunk options in the visual markdown editor

[maelle]

:wave: here! I didn't find a similar feature request, sorry if I missed one.

I'm trying out the visual markdown editor using RStudio 1.4.579. It's very cool!

I was wondering whether more features related to R code chunk options were planned (I guess so :slightly_smiling_face: ). In particular

• When creating a new chunk from the menu (Insert) I'd find a menu similar to the one for links very useful. It'd prompt me to add a chunk name, and would present the current default options of most common chunk options (echo, eval, etc.), with some reminder of their meaning (link to doc?). I realize it's a bit difficult since there are many possible options, some of those having actual default options, others being set in the setup chunk.

• When clicking in a h3 for instance I can convert it to h2. When clicking in the chunk options I'd find it neat to have an interface to modify chunk options. At the moment when clicking inside a chunk I get the tools for "Normal text".

• For some reasons when in a chunk options I start typing ", res", in the normal markdown editor I get useful autocompletion to "results", in the visual editor I don't. I'm using RStudio on Ubuntu 18.04.

[ronblum]

@maelle First, I'm glad to hear that you're using the visual editor, and that you think it's cool! Second, thank you for the enhancement requests. The item might be a bug, but let's leave it in here for now. We'll review your suggestions as we continue development of RStudio. Thank you!

[jjallaire]

@maelle Thanks for the feedback! We are midway through implementing support for code chunks so this is all very timely. I believe we plan on adding the "options" button to code chunks (similar to source mode). Also I think that the lack of completion within chunk options is a bug/oversight which we will remedy.

In terms of a dialog for chunk insertion, let's see what @jmcphers thinks about this. If we did that I think we'd use the same dialog in source mode.

[jjallaire]

UI for setting chunk options should be covered by https://github.com/rstudio/rstudio/pull/7666.

Moving the remainder of the request (Insert Chunk dialog) to v1.5.