How can Notepad++ be extended as an IDE for R?

Question

I am working with NppToR as an extension allowing the use of notepad++ to be an IDE for R.

But there are a few features I didn't yet see implemented (I compiled the list from another IDE solution, which is not open source) :

Object Browser - Allow users to see all the data and function objects that are available, including those in loaded and installed R packages. Context menus provide the capability to quickly edit and plot data or load a package.

Full-featured Visual Debugger - Debug R scripts, with step-in, step-over, and step-out capability, allowing users to inspect and modify R objects as they are debugging

A Visual Solution Explorer - Organize, view, add, remove, rearrange, and deploy R scripts. Users can create their own Project Templates for automatic creation of a set of customized scripts for a new R project. Dockable, Floating, and Tabbed Tool Windows. for Creating personally customized workspaces.

Enhanced Help - Complete search capabilities and hover-over tooltips for functions and data objects.

R Code Snippets - Automatically generate fill-in-the-blank sections of R code for a variety of analyses. Tooltip help gives guidance in filling out the snippet.

Any Idea on how to get some of these already in notepad++ through some other noteps++ extensions or R packages ?

Thanks, Tal

Answer 1

Notepad++ isn't really configured to offer these types of features. You'll do better to explore StatET + Eclipse or ESS (Emacs speaks statistics).

Links:

• StatET
• StatET install guide (PDF)
• ESS

Answer 2

In Linux, there is a great package RKWard, which takes care of all the issues that Notepad++ is missing.

Unfotunately, I was unable to make it run under Windows (it says it is missing a dll)

So I am using Notepad++ as my development environment and RStudio for runtime environment