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Any recommendations for a good Windows text editor for R?

I've been using Tinn-R, and it's been working reasonably well, but am curious to know what else people use.

Peter Mortensen
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andrewj
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15 Answers15

19

This list is still pretty current, I think with one notable exception.

Check out R Studio, as well.

Ed Staub
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  • @HelloGoodbye I haven't used it in a while, but AFAICT R Studio is still free to all as long as you don't violate [the AGPLv3 agreement](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html). Unless I misread the agreement, any code you develop that doesn't incorporate part of R Studio is not a "covered work". – Ed Staub Sep 09 '19 at 13:17
  • Hm, seems you were correct. I can't see that RStudio is free if I stick to the AGPLv3 agreement under [pricing](https://www.rstudio.com/pricing/) (which is where I had looked before I wrote my comment), but I have to go to the download page to get to see the pricing ("free"), which to me is a bit unintuitive. – HelloGoodbye Sep 10 '19 at 20:18
17

Emacs with ESS, which you can install via Vincent Goulet's prepackaged versions. No further configuration needed.

One really nice things about Emacs/ESS is that it behaves the same no matter which OS you are on, which makes switching a lot easier.

Peter Mortensen
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Dirk Eddelbuettel
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  • As of Emacs 24, you don't need the prepackaged version any more. You can just install it from melpa or marmalade. – bastibe Oct 30 '12 at 12:14
10

I used Notepad++ with NppToR and found it quite lightweight and effective.

AWB
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    I just tried it. One minor issue is that while NppToR flags opening and closing parentheses and brackets, you don't see similar notification with brackets. If this issue were address, it would be much better. – andrewj Jul 27 '09 at 18:15
9

Vim is usually a favorite.

chollida
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samoz
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7

I use Eclipse and StatET.

Peter Mortensen
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Yann Abraham
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  • I just tried using Eclipse. However, the StatET can't be installed with the current version of Eclipse. – andrewj Jul 28 '09 at 00:35
  • Right, one usually has to wait for a couple of months before all plug-ins have versions compatible with the latest Eclipse. Meanwhile you can grab the previous release ('Ganymede') and give it a go – Yann Abraham Jul 29 '09 at 07:22
  • Just tried the newest version of StatET to go with Eclipse. Overall, Eclipse seems a bit heavy for my purposes. Still waiting for an editor that has great code highlighting and indentation. – andrewj Aug 13 '09 at 14:23
7

Rstudio editor is the best I found so far. It has plots window,console and editor all custom split in one screen that I found incredibly useful. All the historical plots windows are neatly organised and very easy to do a comparison by flipping through it. Historical commands are saved and easy to execute.

http://rstudio.org/

user1229841
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6

Here's an archived list of IDE/script editors for R compiled by Philippe Grosjean.

The original link is now dead.

Bhargav Rao
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pageman
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4

Zeus editor

jussij
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2

SciTE supports R.

Andrew Hare
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  • There is support for R, however, the lexer could be improved. Specifically, it flags e.g. "plot.df" as a keyword rather than an as an ordinary R object. – andrewj Jul 28 '09 at 00:36
2

Emacs is usually a favorite.

chollida
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samoz
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2

I use Tinn-R because it lets me step through my code, or just send bits of it to the R window, which I find incredibly useful. The ability to highlight a few lines and hit send just meshes well with my workflow habits. I'd love to find a similar tool for Python (I'm sure someone will tell me what it is). However the NPPtoR link looks very interesting and I will have to try that.

Peter Mortensen
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kpierce8
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1

Vim and emacs are the hardest to learn, but once you get used to one of them, you're most likely to stay with it for many many years

0

I switched from Tinn-R to Eclipse with the StatET plug-in.

Peter Mortensen
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Thierry
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0

I use gvim. Not sure how popular that is with other Windows users, but the following set of utilities come in handy and can be used by any editor capable of binding keys/functions to commands:

http://code.google.com/p/batchfiles/

batchfiles contains batch (.bat) and javascript (.hta and .js) files useful in conjuction with R and R packages on Microsoft Windows. There is no formal installation, each consists of a single file and is independent of the others so just place any or all of them anywhere in your Windows path and you will be able to access them in any Windows console session.

In particular, the AutoHotKey scripts in that bundle are nice for sending selected text to an R console.

Community
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ars
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0

My vote is for vim, because I can use it on all systems I can think of, both in graphical and terminal mode.

Peter Mortensen
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gappy
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