Navigating R Studio for programming

Silvie Cinková

2025-07-18

The four panes of RStudio

File, Console, Environment, and Files tabs

Console

Command line of the bare R
Type a command (e.g. 1 + 1) and hit Enter to execute it.
Console displays the output.
> at line start: R is ready to accept your next command
Console does not save your scripts. Use files to save your work.
Clear Console: hit the broom icon or Ctrl + L.

De-clutter the Console with the broom icon.

File formats for writing scripts

File formats for writing R scripts

Run a script with comments

Comment your code correctly.

Highlight and run a line or several lines or source the whole file at once.

Environment pane

lists objects currently loaded in R
- variables
- functions you have written
Delete objects with the broom icon.
- Toggle List and Grid view.
- Grid view can mark individual objects for deletion.

Environment with objects in Grid View

Packages pane

Installed packages You typically install packages from https://cran.r-project.org/

Install packages

Get Help

Roll down menu top left pane
Help tab in bottom right pane
https://stackoverflow.com/questions
MS Copilot, ChatGPT & Co. quite good.
Wickham et al.: R for Data Science
Grolemund: Hands-On Programming with R
https://www.tidyverse.org/

Plots pane

plots output from Console/R file
you can export them interactively

Plots pane