RStudio commenting

Problem statement

Word and PDF output can be directly commented on by stakeholders. HTML output does not allow non-technical stakeholders to edit the document.

Scope

This solution applies only to HTML content produced by Rmarkdown. A solution that requires compilation in an environment like RStudio Connect would be acceptable.

Other examples of implementations

Both examples are more focussed on technical users. While it's great that other data scientists can comment AND run your code in a coloborative space we would require this commenting feature on a pre-compiled analysis (notebooks are ok for exploratory use but are not a robust way to build outputs, compared to running the document sequentially (e.g. rmarkdown::render).

Colabotory

• https://colab.research.google.com/
• Python only
• Is an online notebook, like a Jypter and google doc hybrid
• Can comment on a block of code or text

Overleaf

• LaTeX focus
• Let's you click a point in the code and add a comment. Not as nice as Colab's solution.

Key features

• Can select something - e.g. word, image, cell on table - then add a comment on to it
  • More granular is better. e.g. select a cell awesome, select just the whole table, is still ok.
• Nice to have: Can ‘draw’ on the document.
• Comments ‘integrated’ - an example is Google’s Colob and Overleaf. E.g. move code and analysis to the same place (RStudio Connect)? So source and output are inherently linked - this means a comment ‘points’ to a line of the code. Or a block of code or text.
  • Limitation of Colob is python only, and it’s notebooks. In most data science settings, notebooks are for exploring - but ‘analyses’ are run as markdown blocks compiled on run (to enforce
  • A non technical user who is ‘reading’ the document via a web-browser (not executing the code) can make a comment.
  • Code developer can click and jump to where that comes in the source code (overleaf has this implemented for LaTeX)
  • Commenters often will not be R users (e.g. physicians, drug development teams)
  • Comment tied to line of code (e.g. line of code gone, so is comment)
  • Comment can also be marked as resolved in the browser
  • Nice to have: Can tag connect users in organisation (note many stakeholders note users of R environment)
  • Nice to have: Github.com and Github enterprise integration
  • When you recompile - comments persist unless resolved or line completely removed (if anchor for comment disappears, another option could be to move ‘unanchored’ comments somewhere.

Other points

• An alternative simple approach that meets some of the requirements, but has limitations: Make it work on just the HTML output, so could be a js library independent approach. Comments destroyed on rebuild.