Install R packages through "Jobs" tab in Rstudio

Question

In Rstudio, I usually install R packages using the console by install.packages('pkg-name') command. However, when some R packages are required in an R script, Rstudio opens a pop-up and asks if I want to install those packages. If I click on "Install", it starts installing those packages inside the "Jobs" tab. This is particularly useful for me because my internet is slow and while a large package is being installed I can continue my works on the console tab. I want to know if there is any way to always install packages through this "Jobs" tab, without using the console.

Answer 1

There's an R package job which can be used to run any r code directly from a script or console. To install a package as a Rstudio job:

# install.packages("job")

job::job({
  install.packages("pkg_name")
})

Also {job} provides Rstudio Addins to easily run selected code as a job. see here for more examples.

Answer 2

You can create a script, let's call it temp.R and include the install.packages command in it. Something like :

install.packages('dplyr', repos = "http://cran.us.r-project.org")
install.packages('tidyr', repos = "http://cran.us.r-project.org")

You can click on Start Local Job

and point to the location of the script and adjust any other setting that you want.

Now click on Start and use R/RStudio while the script finishes in the background.