#rstats I think I'll switch to Quarto. It seems it can do all Bookdown can do & more, with better support.
β π³ππππ πππππππππ (@GivingTools) March 30, 2022
- Anyone know tools/templates for converting projects from Rmd/Bookdown to Quarto?
- Am I losing something from making the switch?
@xieyihui
At Rethink we set up this template and tools.
For much of my work I was using the Bookdown style and template I worked on here
But I think I am (and we are) moving to Quarto. ... Quarto pages and Quarto books, or whatever they are callled.
Setting up my preferred style and options here - work in progress; repo
Update: the main thing Quarto can't do is 'persist content in the environment between chapters'
For a Quarto book, to enable building/rendering in Rstudio by button click, you may need to change the settings ... ... Configure build tools, project build tools, 'none'
This seems to switch the build options to include 'preview book' and 'render book'
_quarto.yml essentially replaces content from the bookdown's
_bookdown.yml('what content'... now goes in thechapterslist) and- setup options from
_output.yml(or from the yaml at the top ofindex.Rmd
Quarto seems to render with its own engine, not something in R (?). Thus, if you want to run it in an R script you need to invoke a system command, I guess, such as
system("quarto render")
Note there are a variety of options, depending on what Quarto thing you want rendered, and how.
But the above command operates outside of Rstudio. It doesn't seem to use any content within the environment you set up previously in main.R. A quick trial of the 'Build', 'Render book' clickable in Rstudio seems to yield the same.
*Thus it seems that all (build, import, define, load package) operations in the general environment need to be made part of each .qmd file that is called, or sourced from an external script in that file.
Otherwise there is a not-great workaround:
save.image(file = "../workspacename.RData") at the bottom of the .qmd files
and load(file = "../workspacename.RData") at the top, plus reloading necessary packages.
I think Quarto can and will build Rmd files without an extension change, as part of a book etc. However, renaming it as blahblah.qmd will probably enable additional functionality.
Standard Rmd syntax should also typically work in Quarto.
However...
Some syntaxes will be easier to use and worth switching over for readability
Other features are new and great!
E.g., from the rethinkpriorities package template...
Foldables
::: {.foldable}
Content here
:::
Probably should be replaced with a variant of a collapsable callout (note, warning, etc.)
:::{.callout-note collapse="true"}
## The callout header goes here
This is an example of a 'folded' note callout that can be expanded by the user. You can use `collapse="true"` to collapse it by default or `collapse="false"` to make a collapsible callout that is expanded by default.
:::
Note that inline code doesn't seem to work within a callout.
Hover footnotes
This function should just 'work' if you set the right _quarto.yml option:
format:
html:
citations-hover: true
footnotes-hover: true
Here I told citations and footnotes to hover (and they also go at the bottom... nice!)
I wrote this parsing function to adjust content in Rmd from the RP/Bookdown/Sleeger format to Quarto. Will continue to update/adjust it. Note that to go from Reinstein bookdown format you may need to first apply the parse_dr_to_ws.R script to first make it bs4.
Some sample code applying this below, applying the parsing scripts in succession, as well as taking some other steps to change extensions etc.
- List all Rmd and md files that might need adjusting (here, taken from _bookdown.yml ... could try to automate later)
rmd_files <- c("outline_work.Rmd", "present_puzzle.Rmd", "substitution.Rmd", "barriers_breakdown.Rmd", "BARRIERS_FUNDAMENTAL.md", "doesimpactmatter.Rmd", "aware-distance.Rmd", "identity.Rmd", "social.Rmd", "BARRIERS_INFO.md", "eval-aversion.Rmd", "impact_analytical.Rmd", "BARRIERS_JUDGEMENT.md", "quant-biases.Rmd", "factual.Rmd", "PATH_FORWARD.md", "tools.Rmd", "conclusion-agenda.Rmd", "appendix_tutorial.Rmd", "inertia.Rmd", "references.Rmd")
Grab relevant parsing functions.
Here we suppose we first need to go from Reinstein to (Sleegers/Rethink) bs4 bookdown style, applying the parse_dr_to_ws.R ... if not, skip that step.
p_load(rex)
source_url("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/daaronr/dr-rstuff/master/functions/parse_dr_to_ws.R")
source_url("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/daaronr/dr-rstuff/master/functions/parse_rp_bookdown_to_quarto.R")
Now parsing the Reinstein bookdown Rmds to Willem's bs4 style (skip if already as bs4)
map2(rmd_files, rmd_files,
~ dr_to_bs4(here::here("sections", .x), here::here("rmd_rp_style", .y)))
dr_to_bs4("index.Rmd", here::here("index_rp.Rmd"))
Now we move to the Quarto format, parsing and changing names and folder names
# apply all parsing commands and put it into 'chapters' folder
system("mkdir chapters")
map2(rmd_files, rmd_files,
~ rp_rmd_to_quarto(here::here("rmd_rp_style", .y), here::here("chapters", .y)))
newName <- sub(".Rmd", ".qmd", here::here("chapters", rmd_files))
file.rename(here::here("chapters", rmd_files), newName)
rp_rmd_to_quarto("index_rp.Rmd", "index.qmd")
##TODO:
# delete remaining .Rmd files to avoid clutter
# index.qmd file needs will need adjusting,
# you need to create a _quarto.yml file
Print a list of .qml files to put in the chapter listing of the _quarto.yml file:
#output to put into chapters list in _quarto.ylm
cat(
"- index.qmd",
paste("\n- chapters/", str_replace_all(
rmd_files, ".Rmd", ".qmd"),
sep="")
)
- Persisting content in the environment between chapters (discussed above)
A possible workaround: could Quarto allow a 'new chapter' (new html page) to be build from the same .qmd file?
Solution found, thanks JJ Allaire to
Duplicate chunk forgiveness (the equivalent of
options(knitr.duplicate.label = "allow"))
Solution:
Put execute key at top level in _quarto.yml file
execute:
...
error: true
error: true will flag errors but continue building
Thanks @cderv
This seems useful; I will try it. It seems better than
system("quarto render")... because everyone's 'system' may be different