R package manager extension for Positron

[kv9898]

Hi folks, I've just made an extension that mimics RStudio's experience of R package management. The extension creates a sidebar that shows the loaded namespaces and installed packages, as in the screenshot below. On top of that, you can install/uninstall packages, update packages, as well as search for installed packages. If you are interested in trying it out and giving some feedback, I will very much appreciate it!

You can access it from the Open VSX marketplace:

[ntluong95]

Do you have any plan to make the same one for Python too?

[kv9898]

Why not? But currently the R extension is not very mature. My current plan is to make it more reliable so that we fall into fewer traps when making the Python extension.

[ntluong95]

It seems not be able to find my R interpreters even I have two:

[ikashnitsky]

hi @kv9898 thanks for your efforts!
I keep bumping in the same issue, also on a work machine without admin access

[kv9898]

This looks like an issue where the extension failed to find a running R runtime from Positron. Does it always fail like this or it succeeds, for example, when you switch your focus to a Python console then back to R console?

[kv9898]

hi @kv9898 thanks for your efforts!
I keep bumping in the same issue, also on a work machine without admin access

can you try if this version works: https://github.com/kv9898/positron-r-package-manager/releases/download/0.1.0/positron-r-package-manager-test-0.1.0.vsix

it now looks for active r console rather than runtimes. if this fixes the problem I will merge this to a new version

[ntluong95]

I just updated my Positron to the newest version and I dont have this problem anymore

Positron Version: 2025.06.0 (system setup) build 156
Code - OSS Version: 1.100.0
Commit: 5f45c99
Date: 2025-05-28T03:53:01.651Z
Electron: 34.5.1
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.0
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200

[kv9898]

lmao okayy. Weird problem weird solution.

[tomasrei]

Hi! I have the latest version of Positron and have installed the extension, but I can't find it in the positron interface (I have restarted).

Am I missing something!?

[tomasrei]

[kv9898]

Ahh my bad. The screenshot I used was kinda misleading. So you should see an icon of an 'opened book' on your left - that's the extension sidebar. Once you find it you can drag it around to where you like it - in my case I moved it to my right to match the RStudio behaviour.

[kv9898]

I just added better documentation to explain this in kv9898/positron-r-package-manager@20d645a, you can access it from README after updating the extension to 0.0.9 (just released).

[kv9898]

fuzzysearch.mp4

@ntluong95 here's how it supports fuzzy search.