posit-dev / posit-dev/positron

Variables should evaluate promise (on a double click?) on lazy loaded data frame object

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area: variables enhancement lang: r
Dominant language
TypeScript
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Description

System details:

Positron and OS details:

Positron Version: 2025.07.0 (Universal) build 155
Code - OSS Version: 1.100.0
Commit: a2e754d54283e235419cc122bf0ff8074c0151df
Date: 2025-06-20T15:10:33.344Z
Electron: 34.5.1
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.0
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.5.0

Interpreter details:

R 4.5.0

Describe the issue:

Running data(df) reveals the df in the Session tab. However clicking on the name of the df (or double clicking) does not open the Data Viewer. (In RStudio, it does FWIW.)

Steps to reproduce the issue:

  1. In the R console, run:
data(mtcars)
  1. Double-click on mtcars in the Session window.

Expected or desired behavior:

Open the data frame in the viewer, similar to what would happen if you first run

mtcars <- mtcars

and then double-clicking on mtcars in the session pane. This also moves the data frame to the Data menu from Values, which might be what's triggering the Data Viewer. It makes sense why data(mtcars) lands that entry under Values instead of Data, but would still be nice if clicking on it popped open the Data Viewer instead of having to run View(mtcars).

Were there any error messages in the UI, Output panel, or Developer Tools console?

No.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Reproduce the issue in the Positron Session tab with R by running data(mtcars), then compare double-click behavior with mtcars <- mtcars and View(mtcars). Trace how the Session entry is classified under Values versus Data and how that action reaches the Data Viewer. Done means double-clicking the lazy-loaded data frame opens the viewer without requiring View().

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
r, typescript
Domain
data, frontend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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