Microsoft Releases R Tools For Visual Studio

Microsoft today announced the availability of R Tools for Visual Studio. It combines the power of R and Visual Studio. It is free and open source as well. Apart from the following features, Microsoft is already working on features like a Package Manager GUI, Visual Studio Code (cross-plat), etc.

Features of this preview release:

• Editor – complete editing experience for R scripts and functions, including detachable/tabbed windows, syntax highlighting, and much more.
• IntelliSense – (aka auto-completion) available in both the editor and the Interactive R window.
• R Interactive Window – work with the R console directly from within Visual Studio.
• History window – view, search, select previous commands and send to the Interactive window.
• Variable Explorer – drill into your R data structures and examine their values.
• Plotting – see all of your R plots in a Visual Studio tool window.
• Debugging – breakpoints, stepping, watch windows, call stacks and more.
• R Markdown – R Markdown/knitr support with export to Word and HTML.
• Git – source code control via Git and GitHub.
• Extensions – over 6,000 Extensions covering a wide spectrum from Data to Languages to Productivity.
• Help – use ? and ?? to view R documentation within Visual Studio.
• A polyglot IDE – VS supports R, Python, C++, C#, Node.js, SQL, etc. projects simultaneously.

More info available on the link below.