Feedback on Migrating from RStudio to Positron walkthrough

[mine-cetinkaya-rundel]

System details:

Positron and OS details:

Positron Version: 2025.07.0 (Universal) build 187
Code - OSS Version: 1.100.0
Commit: 9df1ac1
Date: 2025-06-25T03:36:19.991Z
Electron: 34.5.1
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.0
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.5.0

Interpreter details:

R 4.5.0.

Feedback:

Get to know the Positron UI

• "the" in the first bullet point shouldn't be hyperlinked, other "the"s are not.

• Clicking on "Plots" puts a blue border around the Plots pane, which is nice!

  • Clicking on others should trigger a similar visual cue.
  • It would be nice it that border was a bit thicker and a more eye-catching color, blue blends in with the default theme.

• I imagine most users would click on this before they start work on a project. However, then, there are no objects defined, so clicking on the "Variables pane" feels like it doesn't do anything. If it similarly placed a border around the pane, it would nicely draw attention. Once there is an object defined, it'a bit more useful.

• Also, related to "Variables pane", I don't see the word "Variables" there anymore; it says "Values". I think previous versions of Positron said "Variables", or I might be missing a step to trigger the right window?

• Are these all called panes? When preparing the Positron workshop with @jennybc and @cwickham we discussed this and terms like "tab" also came up for Connections, for example, where it's a tab in a pane.

• "Positron does tend to have fewer buttons and icons than RStudio, so you will likely find yourself using the Command Palette more often." = "Positron has fewer buttons and icons than RStudio, so you will likely find yourself using the Command Palette more often." ("tends to" sounds like it sometimes has fewer buttons, sometimes doesn't)

• The command palette paragraph might want to include another sentence on opening the command palette specifically with the shortcut provided. Because the command palette is there anyway, simply navigating and typing one of those words, like "focus", doesn't actually bring any results.

Keyboard shortcuts

The button should say "Enable RStudio keybindings" (since that's what the settings menu says).

Alternatively, and I think better yet, "Set RStudio keybindings" only because clicking the button doesn't actually opt in / enable. It brings you to a place where you can choose to do so (or not). (I hesitated clicking worried that it would do it for me -- I've been trying to resist it.)

Basically, with this button and also with the one under Formatting your R code, it would be good to indicate the button won't quietly do something for you, but instead will open the settings menu where you can opt-in/out afterwards.

Projects, folders, and workspaces

• "Positron doesn't have capital-P "projects" per se": I think capital-P "projects" is difficult to understand. I think we mean "the notion of .Rproj?".

Overall

I can't seem to consistently check off the walkthrough items to mark them as done and then revert to not done.

[juliasilge]

Thank you so much for this thoughtful feedback! 🙌

I've addressed a fair amount of this in #8625, and we are tracking how to handle the focus border inconsistency in #3171.

Let me walk through a few other thoughts:

• I think you don't see "Variables" as a pane title because of a custom layout you have made via dragging UI panes around. In the default layout preset (most likely for walkthrough users), you do have a "Variables" pane with a visible title. Let me know if that's not the case!
• I am not able to get into the state you show with the command palette; we might need more info to address that. I am fairly certainly that what we have written here should be good for folks' with a fairly fresh installation.
• If you want to undo your walkthrough progress to reset it, I believe you can use the command "Developer: Reset Welcome Page Walkthrough Progress".

[mine-cetinkaya-rundel]

Thanks!

• I had not realized I had moved the variables pane. Fixed that now, thank you!
• I found out recently that this is because I was thinking about "going to the command palette" as clicking on the search bar on top (and then adding >). If you navigate with Command+Shift+P, that works.
• Thanks, that worked.

[rodrigosf672]

Verified Fixed

Positron Version(s) : 2025.08.0 build 95
OS Version          : Sequoia 15.5

Test scenario(s)

• Verified that language is updated and that user can access and reset walkthrough in Cmd+Shift+P panel.