ESS with R sessions in different frames

Question

When I have two frames open with different R sessions in each, such as

+------------+------------+    +------------------+
| # file.R   |            |    |                  |
| 1+4        |            |    | > 1+2            |
|            |            |    | [1] 3            |
|            | > 1+1      |    | >                |
|            | [1] 2      |    +------------------+
|            | >          |    | 3  *R:2*         |
+------------+------------+    +------------------+
| 1  file.R  | 2  *R:1*   |
+------------+------------+

When I'm in window 1 and eval a line or region into *R:2*, emacs replaces window 2's *R:1* with *R:2*, so I now have it open in both frame-1-window-2 and frame-2-window-3.

+------------+------------+    +------------------+
| # file.R   |            |    | [1] 3            |
| 1+4        | > 1+2      |    | > 1+4            |
|            | [1] 3      |    | [1] 5            |
|            | > 1+4      |    | >                |
|            | [1] 5      |    +------------------+
|            | >          |    | 3  *R:2*         |
+------------+------------+    +------------------+
| 1  file.R  | 2  *R:2*   |
+------------+------------+

And I have to manually change window 2 back to *R:1*.

Since the *R:2* buffer is visible in frame 2, is there a way to prevent emacs from changing window 2? I believe that there is logic where if sourced code produces output and the buffer is not visible, then it is made visible. I think the issue here is that it is not visible in the current frame.

Answer 1

I think you can work around this by using the function ess-eval-line-invisibly-and-step, instead of ess-eval-line-visibly-and-step. The invisible version won't alter the current window arrangement. There isn't an invisible version for other ess-eval- functions, but most of them take a vis argument, so you could create your own wrappers if you like.

You could also try setting ess-eval-visibly to nil, which might solve the problem directly, and then you would only need to explicitly turn visibility back on when you wanted it.