Unable To See Variable Names In Environment Pane in RStudio v0.98.501

Question

I apologize if this is a trivial question, but I have not found a solution by searching or tinkering.

I just downloaded RStudio v0.98.501 (I previously had the most recent version prior to this one... I do not have the exact version number) and really dislike how the "Environment Pane" makes the variable names look. In the previous version, it was easy to see the entirety of the variable names and you could keep the side bar somewhat slim; however, now you cannot see the longer variable names and you have to slide the side bar almost half way across the screen to see the entire name. Many projects I work on have variable names that are fairly long (maybe 25 or so characters) and this new "feature" has made it impossible for me to see the variables I need to reference in my code.

I am wondering if it is possible to change the "column" width of the variable name "column" as to make the variable names easier to see and read. I have not found a setting that allows me to change this width and you cannot simply click-and-drag as you are able to do in Excel.

Please let me know if this question does not make sense and I will try to clarify further. Unfortunately I cannot post photographs of what I am seeing as I do not have enough reputation points...

Thank you for your help!

EDIT: Apparently I now have enough reputation points to post photos! The first photo is of how far the side bar must be moved in order to see the entire variable name. The second photo is of how far I kept the side bar extended in the old RStudio version and could still see the variable names. You can see how much whitespace is next to the description of the content of the variable - this is whitespace I would like to reduce and allocate to the variable names.

Answer 1

I asked a similar question about adjusting column widths in the envionment pane on RStudio Support, because this has been bothering me since I upgraded to the new version too.

Here was the official response:

"Unfortunately this is currently not possible but its something we're looking into implementing going forward. In the meantime, hovering over the variable names in the Environment pane should bring up a tooltip that states the full name of the variable - hopefully that will be helpful to you for this purpose."

https://support.rstudio.com/hc/communities/public/questions/200865496-Environment-pane-cutting-off-variable-names

Answer 2

While this seems like an old post, and apparently you can get this feature daily builds of RStudio (https://github.com/rstudio/rstudio/issues/4020) which I have not tried, you can just do a work-around each session by right clicking and inspecting the Global Environment element and adjusting the html. It is a bit annoying, but easy enough.

Right click and select "Inspect Element" in Global Environments

Find the HTML for the table-layout, change "fixed" to "auto"

Solved... for this session... until you close RStudio...