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shinypak

Source: vignettes/shinypak.Rmd
shinypak.Rmd

shinypak is a supplemental package for the Shiny App-Packages book. It’s functions are designed to give readers of the book quick and easy access to the app-packages so they can follow along.

Authentication

shinypak assumes you have GitHub and RStudio (or Positron) synced. Read more about setting this up on the gert package website

“In gert, authentication is done automatically using the credentials package. This package calls out to the local OS credential store which is also used by the git command line. Therefore gert will automatically pick up on https credentials that are safely stored in your OS keychain.”

Workflow

After authenticating with GitHub, a typical workflow with shinypak would be:

  1. Install and load the package
install.packages('pak')
pak::pak("mjfrigaard/shinypak", force = TRUE)

  1. Find an example application in a chapter to follow along with (we’ll use 02.3_proj-app).

  2. Find the application in the look-up table with list_apps(). You can specify a regex to return a table of branches matching a particular chapter or topic:

list_apps(regex = "^02.3") 
#>          branch        last_updated
#> 5 02.3_proj-app 2025-03-11 13:43:18
list_apps(regex = "proj-app") 
#>          branch        last_updated
#> 5 02.3_proj-app 2025-03-11 13:43:18
  1. To launch an app from the Shiny App-Packages book, you can supply the name of the branch to launch():
launch(app = "<branch>")
launch(app = "02.3_proj-app")

  • launch() will check if the application has already been downloaded, download the application files into a folder in the current working directory, then launch the app:

    ✔ '02.3_proj-app' not in local working directory [59ms]
✔ downloading '02.3_proj-app' [10.7s] 
✔ got '02.3_proj-app' [163ms]         
✔ Launching app with: shiny::shinyAppDir('02.3_proj-app/app.R')

  • If the branch is storing an app-package, launch() loads the package and then launches the application:

  1. If you’d prefer to download the application without launching it, you can call the get_app() function and the specified branch and application will be downloaded into the current working directory:
get_app(app = "05_roxygen2")

  • You can open the new app project by supplying the open = TRUE argument:
get_app(app = "05_roxygen2", open = TRUE)

  • If the app is already downloaded, the files are updated with the latest commit to the branch.

Helper

The is_r_package() function is useful for determining if a directory contains an R package. Consider the three folders below:

path/to/pkg
├── DESCRIPTION
└── pkg.Rproj
path/to/app
├── DESCRIPTION
└── app.Rproj
path/to/project
└── project.Rproj

If the folder contains an R package, is_r_package() returns TRUE.

is_r_package(path = system.file("pkg", package = "shinypak"))
#> ✔ '/home/runner/work/_temp/Library/shinypak/pkg' is an R package (no .Rproj file found!)
#> [1] TRUE

If the verbose argument is set to TRUE, the details are printed on what is being checked:

is_r_package(
  path = system.file("pkg", package = "shinypak"), 
  verbose = TRUE)
#> ✔ Package found!
#> ✔ Version found!
#> ✔ License found!
#> ✔ Description found!
#> ✔ Title found!
#> ✔ Author found!
#> ✔ Maintainer found!
#> ✔ '/home/runner/work/_temp/Library/shinypak/pkg' is an R package (no .Rproj file found!)
#> [1] TRUE

This can be used to quickly determine if a folder contains an R package or Shiny app (and what is missing). Consider the app folder (with a DESCRIPTION and .Rproj file).

is_r_package(
    path = system.file("app", package = "shinypak"), 
    verbose = TRUE)
#> ✖ Package not in DESCRIPTION!
#> ✖ Version not in DESCRIPTION!
#> ✔ License found!
#> ✖ Description not in DESCRIPTION!
#> ✔ Title found!
#> ✔ Author found!
#> ✖ Maintainer not in DESCRIPTION!
#> ✖ '/home/runner/work/_temp/Library/shinypak/app' is not an R package (no .Rproj file found!)
#> [1] FALSE

This tells is app has fields missing from the DESCRIPTION and the .Rproj isn’t configured with RStudio’s build tools.

Lookup Table

topic_lookup connects branch, part, and chapter:

topic_lookup
branch part chapter
01_whole-app-game Intro Whole app game
02.1_shiny-app Intro Shiny
02.2_movies-app Intro Shiny
02.3_proj-app Intro Shiny
03.1_description Intro Packages
03.2_rproj Intro Packages
03.3_create-package Intro Packages
04_devtools Intro Development
05_roxygen2 App-packages Documentation
06.1_pkg-exports App-packages Dependencies
06.2_pkg-imports App-packages Dependencies
07_data App-packages Data
08_launch-app App-packages Launch
09_inst App-packages External files
10_debugger Debugging Debugging in Positron/RStudio
11_debug-print Debugging Print debugging methods
12.1_debug-mods Debugging Debugging modules
12.2_mod-comms Debugging Debugging module communication
13_logging Debugging Logging app behaviors
14_tests_suite Tests Building testthat test suite
15_specs Tests Test specifications
16.1_test-help Tests Using ensure to help write tests
16.2_test-data Tests Storing and using test data
16.3_test-logger Tests Writing a test logging helper function
16.4_test-snapshots Tests Test snapshots
17_test-modules Tests Testing modules
18_test-system Tests System tests
19_shinyappsio Deploy Deploy to shinyapps.io
20_docker Deploy Deploying with Docker
21.1_gha-style Deploy Deploying with GitHub Actions (styling code)
21.2_gha-shiny-deploy Deploy Deploying shiny app with GitHub Actions
21.3_gha-shiny-docker Deploy Deploying shiny app with Docker and GitHub Actions
22_pkgdown Deploy Deploying a package website
23_llm-shiny-assist Shiny & LLMs LLMs with Shiny Assistant
24_llm-ellmer Shiny & LLMs LLMs with ellmer package
25_llm-shinychat Shiny & LLMs LLMs with shinychat
26_llm-chores Shiny & LLMs LLMs with chores package
27_golem Frameworks golem framework
28_leprechaun Frameworks leprechaun framework
29_rhino Frameworks rhino framework
DEV NA Development branch
gh-pages NA gh-pages branch for pkgdown
main NA main (initial) branch