Shiny

Preliminary

The following is what we see on a browser after we run an example from shiny package. See http://rstudio.github.com/shiny/tutorial/#hello-shiny. Note that the R session needs to be on; i.e. R command prompt will not be returned unless we press Ctrl+C or ESC.

More shiny examples can be found on https://github.com/rstudio/shiny-examples shiny-examples.

shiny depends on websockets, caTools, bitops, digest packages.

Q & A:

• Tutorial: http://wch.github.io/shiny/tutorial/
• Layout: http://shiny.rstudio.com/articles/layout-guide.html
• Q: If we run runExample('01_hello') in Rserve from an R client, we can continue our work in R client without losing the functionality of the GUI from shiny. Question: how do we kill the job?
• If I run the example "01_hello", the browser only shows the control but not graph on Firefox? A: Use Chrome or Opera as the default browser.
• Q: How difficult to put the code in Gist:github? A: Just create an account. Do not even need to create a repository. Just go to http://gist.github.com and create a new gist. The new gist can be secret or public. A secret gist can not be edited again after it is created although it works fine when it was used in runGist() function.

Resources

• Mastering shiny Hadley Wickham
• Shiny Production with AWS Book by Matt Dancho

Deploy to run locally

Follow the instruction here, we can do as following (Tested on Windows OS)

1. Create a desktop shortcut with target "C:\Program Files\R\R-3.0.2\bin\R.exe" -e "shiny::runExample('01_hello')" . We can name the shortcut as we like, e.g. R+shiny
2. Double click the shortcut. The Windows Firewall will be popped up and say it block some features of the program. It does not matter if we choose Allow access or Cancel.
3. Look at the command prompt window (black background console window), it will say something like

   Listening on port 7510

   at the last line of the console.
4. Open your browser (Chrome or Firefox works), and type the address http://localhost:7510. You will see something magic happen.
5. If we don't want to play with it, we can close the browser and close the command console (hit 'x')too.

RInno

• https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/RInno/
• https://github.com/ficonsulting/RInno

Installs shiny apps packaged as stand-alone Electron apps using Inno Setup, an open source software that builds installers for Windows programs only.

Deploy on cloud

https://www.r-bloggers.com/deploying-r-rstudio-and-shiny-applications-on-unbuntu-server/

Shiny server series part 1: setting up. It includes setting up A- and CNAME records on DigitalOcean.

Deploy on shinyapps.io

See Getting started with shinyapps.io page.

Limitations of the free account (5 applications, 25 active hours) on shinyapps.io.

Shinyapps.io can accept google account to sign up. I create an account and a test application/instance on

• https://taichimd.shinyapps.io/stock/ (quantmod, ggplot2, reshape2, magrittr, rvest packages were used)
• https://taichimd.shinyapps.io/tspgov (ggplot2, reshape2, magrittr, rvest, plotly)

The R packages our shiny app uses will be automatically downloaded by shinyapps.io service. See the package dependencies section on http://shiny.rstudio.com/articles/shinyapps.html.

After we run rsconnect() command to deploy our apps, a new subfolder rsconnect will be created under our app folder. I add this folder to .gitignore file.

For the shiny apps we uploaded to shinyapps.io, we can download them back. The download bundle will also include packrat subfolder (packrat.lock file and desc subfolder). See here for more about packrat.

Deploy with Docker

Deploying an R Shiny App With Docker

Shiny server installation

Each app directory needs to be copied to /srv/shiny-server/ (which links to /opt/shiny-server/) directory using sudo.

The default port is 3838. That is, the remote computer can access the website using http://xxx.xxx.x.xx:3838/AppName.

Ubuntu & firewall

In my case, I need to modify the firewall to allow traffic through to Shiny Server sudo ufw allow 3838. See How to Set Up Shiny Server on Ubuntu 16.04. The tutorial also covers Securing Shiny Server with a Reverse Proxy and SSL Certificate.

RHEL/CentOS 7

https://www.vultr.com/docs/how-to-install-shiny-server-on-centos-7

Raspberry Pi

http://atceiling.blogspot.com/2017/12/raspberry-pi-r-languager-shiny-server.html

R

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
# deb http://archive.raspbian.org/raspbian/ stretch main 

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install r-base r-base-core r-base-dev

Shiny-server

sudo apt-get install cmake

sudo su - -c "R -e \"install.packages('shiny', repos='http://cran.rstudio.com/')\"" 

git clone https://github.com/rstudio/shiny-server.git
cd shiny-server
mkdir tmp
cd tmp
DIR=`pwd`
PATH=$DIR/../bin:$PATH

PYTHON=`which python`
$PYTHON --version

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local -DPYTHON="$PYTHON" ../

make
mkdir ../build
(cd .. && ./bin/npm --python="$PYTHON" install)
(cd .. && ./bin/node ./ext/node/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js --python="$PYTHON" rebuild)

sudo make install

sudo ln -s /usr/local/shiny-server/bin/shiny-server /usr/bin/shiny-server

sudo useradd -r -m shiny

sudo mkdir -p /var/log/shiny-server
sudo mkdir -p /srv/shiny-server
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/shiny-server
sudo chown shiny /var/log/shiny-server
sudo mkdir -p /etc/shiny-server

cd /etc/shiny-server/
sudo wget http://withr.me/misc/shiny-server.conf

sudo shiny-server

http://192.168.X.XXX:3838

建立 server.R 及 ui.R 程式

cd /srv/shiny-server
mkdir hello_shiny
cd hello_shiny
# 分別建立 server.R 及 ui.R

Running shiny server as non-root: run_as

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36201019/run-shiny-server-as-non-root
• https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/219044787-Root-requirements-for-Shiny-Server
• http://docs.rstudio.com/shiny-server/#run_as

Reverse proxy: Deploy your own shiny server

• http://qualityandinnovation.com/2015/12/09/deploying-your-very-own-shiny-server/
• Set up Apache(Nginx or another webserver) to act as a proxy to Shiny Server
• Setting up RStudio Server, Shiny Server and PostgreSQL
• When used with cloudflare, we should disable HTTP proxy (CDN) and use DNS only.

Shiny https: Securing Shiny Open Source with SSL

• http://ipub.com/shiny-https/
• ShinyProxy, SHINYPROXY 1.0.2
• https://www.jasperginn.nl/shiny-server-series-pt3/

How to run an R shiny app

• Building Shiny apps – an interactive tutorial by Dean Attali
• Three ways
  • Click "Run App" in RStudio
  • Call shiny::runApp("~/Directory") in your R console
  • R -e "shiny::runApp('~/shinyapp')" from a terminal
• An example of "app.R". Edit a table via the "DT" package.

Example of embedding shiny in your web page

http://michaeltoth.me/popularity-of-baby-names-since-1880.html

The R Shiny packages you need for your web apps

http://enhancedatascience.com/2017/07/10/the-packages-you-need-for-your-r-shiny-application/

Shiny + Docker

• See this post. It uses the gui of Docker called Kitematic.
• https://hub.docker.com/r/rocker/shiny/ Don't run R Shiny as a non-root user.
• Shiny Server on Docker: CentOS 7 Edition
• https://github.com/rocker-org/shiny
• https://www.r-bloggers.com/dockerizing-a-shiny-app/
• https://github.com/keberwein/docker_shiny-server_centos7 (Shiny + RStudio servers)
• Deploying an R Shiny App With Docker

shinydashboard

• http://rstudio.github.io/shinydashboard/
• Dashboards made easy
• Using Shiny with Scheduled and Streaming Data

flexdashboard

• The output can be a static HTML file or a dynamic HTML (using shiny, highcharter, viridisLite, ...)
• https://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/flexdashboard/
• Introducing flexdashboards. The gauge component is cool.
• Real example containing gauges https://gallery.shinyapps.io/cran-gauge/
• Automated Dashboard for Classification Neural Network in R
• Automated Dashboard with various correlation visualizations in R
• Speeding up R Plotly web apps - R x Javascript part I

Dash bio for R

Introducing Dash Bio for R

shinytheme

shinythemes 1.1.1

shiny + databases: pool package

https://blog.rstudio.com/2017/11/17/pool-0-1-3/

tags, hyperlinks

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42047422/create-url-hyperlink-in-r-shiny
• Customize your UI with HTML

dates

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22834778/r-shiny-daterangeinput-format
• http://www.noamross.net/blog/2014/2/10/using-times-and-dates-in-r---presentation-code.html

websocket

http://illposed.net/jsm2012.pdf

CentOS

• https://www.vultr.com/docs/how-to-install-shiny-server-on-centos-7
• https://github.com/rstudio/shiny-server/wiki/CentOS-step-by-step-Installation-Instructions
• http://blog.supstat.com/2014/05/install-rstudio-server-on-centos6-5/

Gallery

• Shiny User Showcase
• http://www.showmeshiny.com/
• Example of using googleVis: http://shinyeoda.cloudapp.net/
• Integrate with Javascript: https://github.com/wch/shiny-jsdemo and https://github.com/trestletech/ShinyDash-Sample
• interactiveDisplay (Bioconductor package, there is a STOP Application button too): http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/interactiveDisplay.html
• Party vote characteristics at the New Zealand General Election 2014, More things with the New Zealand Election Study
• genSurv : An interactive web-based tool for survival analysis in genomics research. The paper and the source code.
• gene2drug
• Stock
  • http://shiny.rstudio.com/tutorial/written-tutorial/lesson6/
  • Stock Closing Price History.
  • Multiple stocks.
  • google (flash is required, not accurate eg DOW). msn (Nice).
  • yahoo (French only).
  • S&P500 Dashboard, Github source code

Persistent data storage in Shiny apps

http://deanattali.com/blog/shiny-persistent-data-storage/

Files

shinyFiles

shinyFiles package. This package extends the functionality of shiny by providing an API for client side access to the server file system. As many shiny apps are run locally this is equivalent to accessing the filesystem of the users own computer, without the overhead of copying files to temporary locations that is tied to the use of fileInput().

Password protection

• http://ipub.com/shiny-password-protect/
• https://auth0.com/blog/adding-authentication-to-shiny-server/
• https://www.r-bloggers.com/password-protect-shiny-apps/
• Authentication of Shiny-server Application Using a Simple Method
• Adding Firebase Authentication to Shiny, Polished - Modern Authentication for Shiny 2019

Install all required R packages

http://padamson.github.io/r/shiny/2016/03/13/install-required-r-packages.html

Building a Shiny App as a Package

https://rtask.thinkr.fr/blog/building-a-shiny-app-as-a-package/

Collapsible menu

Three R Shiny tricks to make your Shiny app shines (2/3): Semi-collapsible sidebar

Color picker

https://github.com/daattali/colourpicker

Simulations

Monte Carlo Shiny

Tables

• Edit datatables in R shiny app. It uses DT package.
• reactable

D3

• collapsible d3js trees
• d3po: R package for easy interactive D3 visualization with Shiny

Time series

dygraphs

CSS

• https://shiny.rstudio.com/articles/css.html
• How to Use CSS to Style Your R Shiny Projects

Debug

reactlog: Visually debug your reactivity issues

Talks

Shiny in production: Principles, practices, and tools - Joe Cheng 2019

Tips

Shiny tips & tricks for improving your apps and solving common problems by Dean Attali.

Modularize your shiny apps

https://www.r-exercises.com/2018/10/15/modularize-your-shiny-apps-exercises/

shinytest

New in RStudio 1.2: record and run tests for your Shiny code right inside the IDE with the shinytest package

Real Shiny Examples

• CellMinerDB from NCI/NIH.
• voomDDA: Discovery of Diagnostic Biomarkers and Classification of RNA-Seq Data. https://peerj.com/articles/3890/
• Interactive analysis of metagenomics data
• ExpressionDB, An open source platform for distributing genome-scale datasets
• GREIN : GEO RNA-seq Experiments Interactive Navigator and the paper
• SurvELM: An R package for high dimensional survival analysis with extreme learning machine , paper
• Essential guidelines for computational method benchmarking paper
• BISR-RNAseq – an efficient and scalable RNAseq analysis workflow with interactive report generation

Interesting Examples

• Convert a data frame to a mediawiki table
• Very shiny holidays! Shiny + JQuery + CSS.
• Shinyfit: Advanced regression modelling in a shiny app
• Visually explore Probability Distributions with vistributions
• https://github.com/hadley/cran-downloads

  install.packages("cranlogs")
  install.packages("shiny")
  runGitHub("hadley", "cran-downloads")
  # cannot open URL 'https://github.com/cran-downloads/hadley/archive/master.tar.gz': 
  # HTTP status was '404 Not Found'
  
  system("cd ~/github/; git clone https://github.com/hadley/cran-downloads.git")
  runApp("~/github/cran-downloads/")

• Exploring Nginx workers load arbitration

Scaling

• Shiny 1.1.0: Scaling Shiny with async