Recommended way to serve the site?

[apreshill]

I typically use the Add-in to serve the site, and I just noticed that serve_site() appears to be an exported function.

Yet, when I use the Add-in, this prints to my console:

blogdown:::serve_site()

But then sometimes when I'm editing a blog post, this prints to my console:

blogdown:::preview_site()

Reading the actual function definition here, I see why they are different. But I was confused. I think we want to encourage serve_site() to start? If so, I cannot see where to change where those ::: print to the console.

[cderv]

if so, I cannot see where to change where those ::: print to the console.

I think this is a RStudio IDE thing. The addin function is defined here:

blogdown/inst/rstudio/addins.dcf

Lines 1 to 4 in 2b1449d

	Name: Serve Site
	Description: Run blogdown::serve_site() to live preview a website locally.
	Binding: serve_site
	Interactive: true

and as you see, we just give the function name.

I think RStudio IDE assumes this function to run addin may not be exported so it uses ::: to avoid errors. 🤔

[yihui]

The answer is you only call serve_site().

preview_site() is an internal helper function that you never need to call by yourself. I've tried to hide this call in 59dd8d1. I don't know why it still shows up. I'll investigate more. Update: it seems to be a bug of rstudioapi: https://github.com/rstudio/rstudioapi/issues/213

[apreshill]

Ah gotcha, thank you so much- that helps! I'm working on learning resources and wanted to make sure I understood. Feel free to close :)

@cderv do you think the ::: is worth filing an issue for on the IDE? It is confusing here as folks may assume (like I did) that it was an unexported function.

[yihui]

We can close this issue after rstudio/rstudioapi#213 is fixed.

I think ::: was used because that's the safe way to go (albeit confusing sometimes). For an add-in, the IDE cannot assume the corresponding function is exported from a package. No matter if it is exported or not, ::: works, but if it is not exported, :: won't work. The IDE should probably try a little harder to check if the function is exported or not, and decide whether to use :: or ::: accordingly.

[cderv]

The IDE should probably try a little harder to check if the function is exported or not, and decide whether to use :: or ::: accordingly.

Yes I think so. I'll open an issue in the IDE about that.

[yihui]

Instead of waiting for the RStudio bug to be fixed, I just figured out another way to fix this problem. You should no longer see preview_site() in the console.

[cderv]

Clever solution! That is awesome! 👍