pkgdown 1.4.0

  2019/09/05

  r-lib, pkgdown

  Hadley Wickham

We’re happy to announce that pkgdown 1.4.0 is now available on CRAN. pkgdown is designed to make it quick and easy to build a website for your package. Install it with:

install.packages("pkgdown")

Development and deployment modes

The main change in this version is that build_site(), build_reference() and build_home() gain a devel parameter that controls whether you’re in deployment or development mode.

  • devel = FALSE activates deployment mode, which installs the package into a temporary library, and runs examples/articles in a new process. It’s the default for build_site().

    If you’re using build_site() as part of an existing deployment workflow, you may need to set install = FALSE so that the package doesn’t get installed twice.

  • devel = TRUE activates development mode, simulates package loading with pkgload::load_all() and does all work in the same process. This makes it most suitable for rapid iteration, and so is the default for build_reference().

There were two related changes to build_reference() and build_home(): build_reference() no longer runs devtools::document() and build_home() no longer rebuilds README.Rmd. This makes pkgdown’s responsibilities more clear: it only modifies files in docs/.

Other important changes

  • build_home() now strips quotes from Title and Description fields when generating page metadata. Additionally, you can now override the defaults via the title and description fields in the home section of _pkgdown.yml. Setting a custom title is good practice as it allows you to add “R” and “package” to the title, which is likely to be useful for SEO.

  • vignette("linking") describes how pkgdown’s automatic linking works, and how to ensure that cross-package links point to the right place.

  • For external packages, if we can’t find an existing pkgdown website to link to we now link to https://rdrr.io.

  • The rendering of \examples{}, \dots, \tabular{}, \subsection{}, and \preformatted{} has been improved.

  • The navbar is now automatically hidden with headroom.js, and the sidebar is implemented with pure CSS.

Acknowledgements

A big thank you goes to @jayhesselberth (the co-maintainer of pkgdown), and to to the 77 other people who contributed to the release: @abodnahk, @agila5, @AliciaSchep, @andrie, @aravind-j, @asardaes, @Bisaloo, @Blackglade, @burgerga, @cboettig, @cderv, @chfleming, @choisy, @CrumpLab, @davidski, @DavisVaughan, @ddiez, @docbiz, @dongzhuoer, @dpprdan, @echasnovski, @EmilHvitfeldt, @emilyriederer, @espinielli, @florisvdh, @flying-sheep, @Fredo-XVII, @grabear, @GregorDeCillia, @gustavdelius, @gvegayon, @hadley, @ijlyttle, @IndrajeetPatil, @jackwasey, @jangorecki, @jemus42, @jennybc, @jeroen, @JohnCoene, @katrinleinweber, @kevinushey, @kkmann, @krlmlr, @maelle, @maksymiuks, @manish-saraswat-olx, @maurolepore, @maxheld83, @maximilianmordig, @mcanouil, @MichaelChirico, @mitchelloharawild, @mjsteinbaugh, @msberends, @muschellij2, @NEONKID, @noamross, @nteetor, @paul-buerkner, @peterdesmet, @ramiromagno, @rorynolan, @royfrancis, @s-fleck, @scizmeli, @sdhutchins, @seanhardison1, @seymakalay, @sharlagelfand, @surmann, @talgalili, @TheOnlyArtz, @thierrygosselin, @thomasp85, @tobyhodges, and @yiluheihei

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