Tutorial API

Workbench

Overview

The Tutorial API provides an interface for driving automated interactions with RStudio Pro. The Tutorial API assumes that RStudio Pro is hosted within an <iframe> with the hosting page content surrounding it (e.g., in a sidebar).

The hosting <iframe> must be connected to the DOM and have non-zero dimensions (including not having the display: none style) when the IDE is loaded into it.

The API supports a variety of interactions with the IDE including typing console input, opening source files, opening projects, creating projects, showing help topics, and executing arbitrary R code.

This document describes the basic workings of the Tutorial API, and related settings. A simple example page is provided to demonstrate invoking the APIs.

The Tutorial API files are installed with Posit Workbench in /usr/lib/rstudio-server/extras/tutorial.

  • demo.htm is an example host page
  • rstudio.js is used by a hosting page to interact with the Tutorial API; always use the version of rstudio.js that came with the installed version of Posit Workbench and ensure it is cache-busted to prevent web browsers from using an older cached version (one option would be to rename it and reference it via that new name, e.g., rstudio001.js)
Important

These instructions, and the example page itself, assume the following regarding the domains utilized:

If the IDE is being served from a different domain than http://localhost:8787 edit the demo.htm file and change all instances of http://localhost:8787 to the actual domain where the IDE is available.

Back to top