diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index 33d6ae168..f6114f661 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -1,18 +1,110 @@
 # from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51866926
 # and https://github.com/jangorecki/r.gitlab.ci
-image: rocker/r-base
-gitlab:
-   script:
+# and https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/ci/yaml/README.html
+
+# how the Docker+R images work: https://hub.docker.com/r/rocker/r-ver/
+
+stages:
+    - build
+    - deploy
+
+R 3:
+    image: rocker/r-ver:3 # rocker/r-base
+    stage: build
+    allow_failure: false
+    script:
     - apt-get update
     # install dependencies for package
-    - apt-get install --yes --no-install-recommends r-cran-xml2 r-cran-testthat r-cran-devtools
-    - R -e 'devtools::install_deps(dependencies = c("Depends", "Imports", "Suggests"))'
+    - apt-get install --yes --no-install-recommends libxml2-dev libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev zlib1g-dev
+    - R -e 'install.packages(c("devtools", "rlang"))'
+    - R -e 'devtools::install_deps(dependencies = c("Depends", "Imports", "Suggests"), repos = "https://cran.rstudio.com")'
+    - R -e 'print(as.data.frame(installed.packages(), row.names = FALSE)[, c("Package", "Version")])'
     # remove vignettes folder and get VignetteBuilder field out of DESCRIPTION file
     - rm -rf vignettes
     - R -e 'd <- read.dcf("DESCRIPTION"); d[, colnames(d) == "VignetteBuilder"] <- NA; write.dcf(d, "DESCRIPTION")'
     - R CMD build . --no-build-vignettes --no-manual
     - PKG_FILE_NAME=$(ls -1t *.tar.gz | head -n 1)
     - R CMD check "${PKG_FILE_NAME}" --no-build-vignettes --no-manual --as-cran
-    # update code coverage
+    # code coverage
     - apt-get install --yes git
-    - R -e "covr::codecov(token = '50ffa0aa-fee0-4f8b-a11d-8c7edc6d32ca')"
+    - R -e 'covr::codecov(token = "50ffa0aa-fee0-4f8b-a11d-8c7edc6d32ca")'
+    artifacts:
+      paths:
+      - '*.Rcheck/*'
+      name: 'Latest Rcheck log'
+      expire_in: '1 month'
+      
+R 3.4:
+    image: rocker/r-ver:3.4 # rocker/r-base
+    stage: build
+    allow_failure: true
+    script:
+    - apt-get update
+    # install dependencies for package
+    - apt-get install --yes --no-install-recommends libxml2-dev libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev zlib1g-dev
+    - R -e 'install.packages("devtools")'
+    - R -e 'devtools::install_deps(dependencies = c("Depends", "Imports", "Suggests"))'
+    - R -e 'print(as.data.frame(installed.packages(), row.names = FALSE)[, c("Package", "Version")])'
+    # remove vignettes folder and get VignetteBuilder field out of DESCRIPTION file
+    - rm -rf vignettes
+    - R -e 'd <- read.dcf("DESCRIPTION"); d[, colnames(d) == "VignetteBuilder"] <- NA; write.dcf(d, "DESCRIPTION")'
+    - R CMD build . --no-build-vignettes --no-manual
+    - PKG_FILE_NAME=$(ls -1t *.tar.gz | head -n 1)
+    - R CMD check "${PKG_FILE_NAME}" --no-build-vignettes --no-manual --as-cran
+    
+R 3.5:
+    image: rocker/r-ver:3.5 # rocker/r-base
+    stage: build
+    allow_failure: true
+    script:
+    - apt-get update
+    # install dependencies for package
+    - apt-get install --yes --no-install-recommends libxml2-dev libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev zlib1g-dev
+    - R -e 'install.packages("devtools")'
+    - R -e 'devtools::install_deps(dependencies = c("Depends", "Imports", "Suggests"))'
+    - R -e 'print(as.data.frame(installed.packages(), row.names = FALSE)[, c("Package", "Version")])'
+    # remove vignettes folder and get VignetteBuilder field out of DESCRIPTION file
+    - rm -rf vignettes
+    - R -e 'd <- read.dcf("DESCRIPTION"); d[, colnames(d) == "VignetteBuilder"] <- NA; write.dcf(d, "DESCRIPTION")'
+    - R CMD build . --no-build-vignettes --no-manual
+    - PKG_FILE_NAME=$(ls -1t *.tar.gz | head -n 1)
+    - R CMD check "${PKG_FILE_NAME}" --no-build-vignettes --no-manual --as-cran
+    
+#R latest:
+ #   image: rocker/r-ver:latest # rocker/r-base
+  #  stage: build
+ #   allow_failure: true
+  #  script:
+  #  - apt-get update
+    # install dependencies for package
+#    - apt-get install --yes --no-install-recommends libxml2-dev libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev zlib1g-dev
+   # - R -e 'install.packages("devtools")'
+  #  - R -e 'devtools::install_deps(dependencies = c("Depends", "Imports", "Suggests"))'
+   # - R -e 'print(as.data.frame(installed.packages(), row.names = FALSE)[, c("Package", "Version")])'
+    # remove vignettes folder and get VignetteBuilder field out of DESCRIPTION file
+ #   - rm -rf vignettes
+   # - R -e 'd <- read.dcf("DESCRIPTION"); d[, colnames(d) == "VignetteBuilder"] <- NA; write.dcf(d, "DESCRIPTION")'
+#    - R CMD build . --no-build-vignettes --no-manual
+   # - PKG_FILE_NAME=$(ls -1t *.tar.gz | head -n 1)
+   # - R CMD check "${PKG_FILE_NAME}" --no-build-vignettes --no-manual --as-cran
+    
+# R devel:
+  #  image: rocker/r-ver:devel # rocker/r-base
+  #  stage: build
+   # allow_failure: true
+  #  script:
+   # - apt-get update
+    # install dependencies for package
+    #- apt-get install --yes --no-install-recommends libxml2-dev libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev zlib1g-dev
+    #- R -e 'install.packages("devtools")'
+ #   - R -e 'devtools::install_deps(dependencies = c("Depends", "Imports", "Suggests"))'
+    #- R -e 'print(as.data.frame(installed.packages(), row.names = FALSE)[, c("Package", "Version")])'
+    # remove vignettes folder and get VignetteBuilder field out of DESCRIPTION file
+    #- rm -rf vignettes
+  #  - R -e 'd <- read.dcf("DESCRIPTION"); d[, colnames(d) == "VignetteBuilder"] <- NA; write.dcf(d, "DESCRIPTION")'
+    
+coverage_job:
+    # image: rocker/r-ver:3
+    stage: deploy
+    script:
+    - echo "future packaging part"