Chapter 1 Installing R

You can skip this chapter if you already have access to R and R Studio, and feel confident navigating between the console and environment panes.

To use R on your own PC or laptop, you will need to install two things:

1. R (the programming language)
2. R Studio (a software that makes R easier to run)

You can also access R Studio online which can be great if you have a good internet connection, or are on a computer that you don’t have admin rights to.

R Studio is an integrated development environment which makes it easier to use R. It is made by a company called Posit who create a lot of statistical coding related projects and have a really cool and supportive community.

Important: If you want to use R and R Studio on your own device you need to install both.

If you prefer watching instructions you can watch the installation videos below.

1.1 Install R

R is the programming language we will use. It is freely available, meaning you do not need to pay for R.

To install R, you will need to navigate to (or click the link to) the Comprehensive R Archive Network - cran.

While there, you want to download R for your operating system (most likely Windows or Mac). Click the link that names your operating system and look for the instructions that say install R for the first time.

There will be a link that says something like Download R 4.3.1 for Windows. (The exact version number is not really important yet).

After you have installed R, you can check to see if it works, or go straight to installing R Studio

1.2 Install R Studio

R Studio is a tool that helps make R more user friendly. It also lets you collect all your data files into ‘projects’. This is very useful for managing your projects and ‘workflows’ (more on that here).

To download R Studio follow this link.

You want the R Studio Desktop Free version. You will not need to pay for anything to use R as part of your studies at R(D)SVS. When you click the download link above, you will find a button at the bottom of the page to download R Studio Desktop. After you click that button you will be able to choose the version that works for you. Follow the instructions on the page for your operating system.

1.2.1 Note for those using a managed PC

If you are using a university managed PC then the Software Centre will take care of this for you. All open access university PCs should have a version of R Studio already installed.

1.2.2 Quick R Studio Navigation Guide

If you have never coded before, R Studio might look very intimidating. In this short section we will walk through the different parts of R Studio. If you find yourself getting lost later in the book, come back here to get a refresher.

In Figure 1.1 you will see a view of R Studio as you first open it. There may be some differences, e.g. you will likely have a different R Version number.

Figure: 1.1: R Studio Overview

1.2.2.1 Click on File > New File> R Script

Now your screen should look like Figure 1.2. You will have four panes in your window, and each pane can be dragged around or minimised. Note - you want to create a new R Script file, not an R Markdown or R Notebook file. We will do that next.

Figure: 1.2: R Studio Overview with Script File

1.2.2.2 The file pane

On the top left hand side of the R Studio window you can view the untitled R Script file you have just opened (Figure 1.3). Here you will see views of your files (mostly R Script files and R Markdown files in this book), and views of your data.

Figure: 1.3: The active file pane

1.2.2.3 The console

If you were using plain R (without R Studio) this console window is all you would see. Where you see this > symbol in the console you can type in a simple maths equation.

I recommend you type something now, perhaps 2 + 2

When you have finished typing, hit enter on your keyboard and see what the answer is.

Type 2 + and then hit enter. What happens? You will need to hit ‘escape’ (‘esc’) on your keyboard to make the > symbol appear again.

Hitting ‘enter’ asks R to perform the last command. Because we didn’t tell R what it had to add, it kept waiting to find out what would come next.

Figure: 1.4: The console pane

1.2.2.4 The Environment pane

The Environment is shown in Figure 1.5. At the moment, your environment will be empty. We will talk more about what goes here in the environment section of getting started.

Figure: 1.5: The environment pane

1.2.2.5 Files, plots, packages, help and viewer

The final pane, shown in Figure 1.6, has five tabs in it by default.

These are:

• Files
  • Think of this like a Windows Explorer window (folder window) on your PC. It will show you all the files in your current folder and may just show your .Rproj file right now.
• Plots
  • When we start drawing charts they’ll be saved here.
• Packages
  • Other wonderful people in the R Community write lots of clever code that can be ‘packaged’ up so we can use it. Instead of writing out all the code you need to make a chart, you can use someone’s package instead. We will learn more about these in packages
• Help
  • If you ever get stuck with a commaned you can type ?command_name to view the command’s documentation. Try it now by type ?summary in the console window. Remember you need to press enter on your keyboard after typing the command.
• Viewer
  • This tab will show you more complicated things, like if you use R to build an html page (or a book like this one!) Ignore it for now.

Figure: 1.6: File, plot, package and help viewer

1.2.2.6 Customisation

Data analysis is fun, and its also personal. You can customise your R Studio to look the way you want it to.

Go to Tools > Global Options (Figure 1.7)

Figure: 1.7: Global options

And then go to Appearance > Editor Theme to play around and find the colour scheme, font, and R Studio Theme you like best (Figure 1.8)

Figure: 1.8: Global options, themes

Personally I like the theme XCode, but it’s your R Studio! You choose the one you like.

1.3 Using the Cloud

If you would like to use Posit Cloud (formerly R Studio Cloud), you will need to create an Posit account. This can be a whole new account, a google account, a Clever account, or a github account. I would recommend you get a github account (you can jump to read why here).

After you have logged in, you can access a workspace. A workspace is like an R Studio Project.

You should use the Cloud Free Plan. Again, we do not expect you to buy anything to use R or R Studio.

You will have a maximum of 15 projects you can use, and less storage space than using your own device.

1.4 Install R and R Studio - Video Instruction

If you prefer to get your resources in video format, there’s an explanation of installing R and R Studio here and using R Studio Cloud here.

Please note, these videos are a bit older now so you should expect to see some minor differences, e.g. in version numbers.