Edit an Existing Quarto Blog Post's YAML Header

edit_post() opens the same interactive dialog as qpost(), pre-populated with the metadata from an existing post. On submit it rewrites only the YAML front matter, leaving the post body untouched.

Usage

edit_post(file_path = NULL, backup = TRUE)

Arguments

file_path

Optional path to a .qmd file. When NULL (the default), edit_post() uses the file currently open in the RStudio or Positron editor.

backup

Logical. If TRUE (the default), a .bak copy of the original file is created before any changes are made.

Value

Nothing. The side effect is an updated YAML front matter in the target .qmd file.

Details

edit_post() requires a pane-capable IDE (RStudio or Positron) because it relies on rstudioapi to display the dialog. It cannot be used in a plain R console or non-interactive script.

Changing the title

When you modify the title in the dialog and click Done, you are asked whether to create a new post directory for the new title:

• Yes — copies all files from the old post directory into a new directory named after the new title's kebab-case slug. The original directory is renamed to _old-slug.bak/ and its index.qmd has draft: true set. The new file is opened in the editor automatically.

• No — updates only the YAML title: field; the directory name stays unchanged.

Important: if the post has already been published, creating a new directory changes its URL. This will break existing links, bookmarks, and search-engine entries pointing to the old address.

The backup directory is protected from accidental publication by two independent mechanisms: the leading _ in its name causes Quarto to skip it during rendering (consistent with Quarto's own _freeze/ and _site/ convention), and draft: true in the YAML acts as an additional human-readable signal. To recover the old title, rename the directory by removing the leading _ and the .bak suffix.

The dialog shows a reminder in the title field as soon as it detects a change, so you are always aware before clicking Done.

date-modified

This field is automatically set to today's date on every save.

Examples

if (FALSE) { # interactive()
edit_post()
}