The trackdown
package offers a simple solution for collaborative
writing and editing of R Markdown (or Sweave) documents. Using
trackdown
, the local .Rmd
(or .Rnw
) file can be uploaded as a
plain-text file to Google Drive. By taking advantage of the easily
readable Markdown (or LaTeX) syntax and the well-known online interface
offered by Google Docs, collaborators can easily contribute to the
writing and editing process. After integrating all authors’
contributions, the final document can be downloaded and rendered
locally.
You can install the released version from CRAN with:
install.packages("trackdown")
To install the development version from GitHub, run the following code:
# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("claudiozandonella/trackdown",
build_vignettes = TRUE)
library(trackdown)
trackdown
WorkflowDuring the collaborative writing/editing of an .Rmd
(or .Rnw
)
document, it is important to employ different workflows for computer
code and narrative text:
Thus, the workflow’s main idea is simple: Upload the .Rmd
(or .Rnw
)
document to Google Drive to collaboratively write/edit the narrative
text in Google Docs; download the document locally to continue working
on the code while harnessing the power of Git for version control and
collaboration. This iterative process of uploading to and downloading
from Google Drive continues until the desired results are obtained. The
workflow can be summarized as:
Collaborative code writing using Git & collaborative writing of narrative text using Google Docs
trackdown
offers different functions to manage the workflow:
upload_file()
uploads a file for the first time to Google Drive.update_file()
updates the content of an existing file in Google
Drive with the contents of a local file.download_file()
downloads the edited version of a file from Google
Drive and updates the local version.render_file()
downloads a file from Google Drive and renders it
locally.trackdown
offers additional features to facilitate the collaborative
writing and editing of documents in Google Docs. In particular, it is
possible to:
.Rmd
(or .Rnw
) document. This helps collaborators to evaluate the
overall layout including figures and tables and allows them to add
comments to suggest and discuss changes.Google Docs offers users a familiar, intuitive, and free web-based interface that allows multiple users to simultaneously write/edit the same document. In Google Docs it is possible to:
Moreover, Google Docs allows anyone to contribute to the writing/editing of the document. No programming experience is required, users can just focus on writing/editing the narrative text.
Note that not all collaborators have to have a Google account (although
this is recommended to utilize all Google Docs features). Only the
person who manages the trackdown
workflow needs to have a Google
account to upload files to Google Drive. Other collaborators can be
invited to contribute to the document using a shared link (See
Instructions).
All documentation is available at https://claudiozandonella.github.io/trackdown/.
To know more about trackdown
, please reference:
vignette("trackdown-features")
for a detailed description of the
function arguments and features.vignette("trackdown-workflow")
for a workflow example and
discussion of how to collaborate on narrative text and code.vignette("trackdown-tech-notes")
for details regarding technical
details like authentication and file management.trackdown
Development of the trackdown
package is an ongoing project, surely
there are many issues to fix and features to propose/add. Anyone is
welcome to contribute to the development.
Please note that this project is released under a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.
See Community guidelines for further information.
To cite trackdown
in publications use:
Emily Kothe, Claudio Zandonella Callegher, Filippo Gambarota, Janosch Linkersdörfer and Mathew Ling (2021). trackdown: Collaborative Writing and Editing of R Markdown (or Sweave) Documents in Google Drive. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5167320.
The BibTeX entry is:
@Manual{,
title = {trackdown: Collaborative Writing and Editing of R Markdown (or Sweave) Documents in Google Drive},
author = {Emily Kothe and Claudio Zandonella Callegher and Filippo Gambarota and Janosch Linkersdörfer and Mathew Ling},
year = {2021},
note = {R package version 1.1.1},
url = {https://github.com/claudiozandonella/trackdown},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.5167320},
}
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