What's New in R: November 2, 2026
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Welcome to this week's edition of What's New in R! This week, we're featuring a package that turns an R project into a static website where R runs in the browser, a guide to the growing crowd of R package and environment managers, and color palettes inspired by everyone's favorite Blue Heeler. Let's dive in!
James Balamuta (The Coatless Professor) introduces {webrarian}, a package that bundles your R packages, scripts, and data into a static website where R runs right in the visitor's browser via webR. There's no compute server and nothing to install: people get an RStudio-style workspace with an editor, console, file browser, and plot panel. If you've ever wanted to share an analysis with someone who doesn't have R installed, or give students a ready-to-go environment, this is a really interesting option.
There are suddenly a lot of tools for managing R packages and environments, and Isabella Velásquez has written a helpful guide to five of them on R Works. She explains that they work at different levels: {rix} uses Nix to snapshot your entire system environment (R, packages, and system dependencies); {renv}, rv, and uvr manage package dependencies within a single project (with uvr, modeled on Python's uv, also handling R versions); and ir handles dependencies for a single script or Quarto document. For each one, she covers who makes it, how it works, and what it does and doesn't manage. Isabella doesn't crown a winner, but if you've been confused about how these tools differ, this is a great place to start.
If you've got kids (or just love the show), the {blueycolors} package by Eric Ekholm brings color palettes inspired by Bluey to your {ggplot2} charts. It comes with four palettes, Bluey, Chilli, Heeler, and Socks, and Eric notes that Heeler probably has the best contrast. You use scale_color_bluey() and scale_fill_bluey() for discrete data, the _c versions for continuous data, and bluey_palette() if you just want the hex codes. It's on CRAN, so you can install it and start using it today.
Got any ideas for resources I should feature in future issues of What's New in R? Hit reply and send them my way.
Cheers,
David
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