Interactive visualisations and GUIs with Shiny

Slides available here.

Examples

• Research tools
  • Stocks (code)
  • Regression analysis (code)
• Educational applications
  • Taylor approximations (code)
• Web apps
  • Paris Metro Meeting Point (code, blog post)

Learning resources

See the excellent Shiny tutorial and the examples included with the package (runExample("name")):

• introductory: 01_hello, 02_text;
• core concepts: 03_reactivity, 04_mpg;
• more controls and widgets: 05_sliders, 06_tabsets, 07_widgets;
• tools for web apps: 08_html, 09_upload, 10_download.

Running Shiny apps locally

• runApp("~/shinyapp")
• runGist("gistID") # rungGist("4034323")

•         username=
          ...=)```
  

• runUrl("http://archiveURL") accepted formats: zip, tar, and tar.gz

Using the above methods will occupy the current R session. In order to avoid this, run the app as a separate process. On Linux/Mac: R -e "shiny::runApp('~/shinyapp')"

Running apps remotely

Deploying a Shiny app on a server makes it reachable to a wider audience. Once online it can be embedded into your blog using <iframe>. Online apps can also be more convenient for personal use. There are several options for deployment:

• Your (friend's) server. If you have a server or know somebody who does, simply grab a copy of the Shiny Server software. It is free and open-source. Note that standard installation requires root access, in case this is an issue, take a look at this tutorial.
• Glimmer. RStudio is offering beta tester accounts for their app hosting service, Glimmer. Register here. Don't forget the checkbox Shiny hosting service.
• SRCF users (Cambridge University only) can also run Shiny Server. Daniel Richman kindly explained how to set it up on your SRFC account. See tutorial.