Demo: Set Global Cell Options

Important

This feature is currently experimental and is included in 0.4.2-dev.1 build of {quarto-webr}.

Overview

This demo illustrates how to set cell-level options for the entire document by specifying them in the document header. Once established, these options govern the behavior and appearance of {webr-r} code cells. However, they can be overridden locally by specifying cell options within individual {webr-r} cells.

cell-options Document Key

To establish default cell behavior, you can utilize the cell-options subkey in webr. For instance, consider the following structure:

webr:
  cell-options:
    <cell-option>: <value>

Here, <cell-option> and <value> represent one of the supported cell options.

Restricting Access

An example use case is to prevent modifications to interactive code cells while ensuring their content is executed. In this document, we’ve defined the global behavior with:

---
title: "Demo: Set Global Cell Options"
engine: knitr
webr:
  cell-options:
    out-width: "100%"
    autorun: true
    read-only: true
filters:
  - webr
---

Let’s observe the outcome with a cell like this:

{quarto-webr} Output

Cell Code

```{webr-r}
fit = lm(mpg ~ am, data = mtcars)
summary(fit)
```

Attempting to modify the cell will be ineffective. However, in the subsequent cell, we’ve specified a local option that overrides the document’s default, allowing modification. Feel free to try modifying the cell below.

{quarto-webr} Output

Cell Code

```{webr-r}
#| read-only: false
plot(fit)
```

Conclusion

This approach eliminates the need to repeatedly specify options across multiple cells within the document, consolidating them in a single location. Should the need arise, you can always override the behavior by specifying a local value for the cell.

Important

This Quarto extension is open source software and is not affiliated with Posit, Quarto, or webR. The extension is at best a community effort to simplify the integration of webR inside of Quarto generated documents.