Project naming is inappropriate

[steveped]

I can't seem to create a correctly named R project within RStudio Cloud. No matter what I name the project in the home screen, it always comes up as 'project.Rproj' in the actual R Session. I'm trying to run a introductory workshop, whilst also teaching best practices, and am unable to use projects as a result. It seems very obvious to me that when you name a project in the home screen, that name should propagate into the Rproj file for that project. I can definitely use here::here() to get around it, but that's placing an unnecessary complication in front of beginners.

For this particular session, RStudio cloud is my backup, given unpredictable corporate installation issues, so most will be on their local installations. For these people an Rproject will behave correctly, whilst for those needing RStudio cloud, I will have to explain why it is different and doesn't follow the rules created by RStudio. This is unhelpful.

[samp]

Hello

Thanks for reaching out and thank you for the input regarding project names. One idea that might help here is to rename the Rproj file after the project is created. You can choose any name.

thanks
sam

[steveped]

Thanks Sam. Then we just end up with an inappropriately named Rproj file in a folder called project which again violates good practice. From my perspective, renaming your Rproj file is very bad practice and should never be suggested. By way of simple example for my needs, if I want to ask the class to create a project called "R_Training_Day1", and to then demonstrate how well this manages file paths, using here::here(), getwd() and that kind of thing, RStudio Cloud proves me very wrong. The only solution is to ask the class to create a project called project, with this being the only viable project name for every single project. If I want more than one project over a multi-day course, it can't be done.

I also note that the Projects drop-down menu is not implemented in RStudio cloud, which again is a deal breaker for my training sessions.

FWIW, I run multiple courses and train 100-200 people/year so I'm not massive player, but do enough to see a non-viable system when I see one. I do think the initiative is great, but this current roll-out violates good practices that have been established by the RStudio community themselves. Unfortunately, I'll go back to setting up my own VMs at this point as RStudio Cloud is just not viable for my sessions.