shiny-electron-template-windows

How to Make an R Shiny Electron App

Note

A setup guide by L. Abigail Walter
Instructions adapted from Travis Hinkelman
R Shiny Electron template created by Dirk Shumacher
Template & Instruction updated by Jinhwan Kim

For more info, see previous repository

Tip

For macOS, see this repository

Guide article in R-bloggers (based on 2023.03, may not work in 2024-)

Creating Standalone Apps from Shiny with Electron [2023, macOS M1]

Versions info

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Getting started

A. Environment setup

Note

All of the following steps can be run exclusively in the RStudio Terminal (right to console).

so Terminal means Rstudio's terminal using Alt + Shift + m

Also, I recommend to run Rstudio as Administrator.

1. Install R, Rstudio.

2. Install Node.js: from offical page

3. Install Electron Forge using npm (npm is installed with Node.js)

4. In the Terminal, run sudo npm i -g @electron-forge/cli, (sudo requires password) If you have trouble try npm install --save-dev @electron-forge/cli

5. Install Innoextract from this link (Windows Only) and move it to program files and add Environment variable PATH (See this)

Note

Check your versions of node and npm in Terminal with node -v, npm -v.

6. Give Star ⭐, Fork this repository to your own account. Then clone it to your local PC

B. Electron project

7. Open an R project with cloned repository's .Rproj file.
8. In your project directory (may Github/shiny-electron-template-windows), install Electron locally by running npx create-electron-app <APPNAME>.

Warning

You can not use app as <APPNAME>
Assume using myapp in this tutorial

9. In your myapp folder, delete src directory
10. Copy (or move) below files to your myapp folder:

• get-r-win.sh: This installs a "local" R, that will be used by the electron app.

• add-cran-binary-pkgs.R: For install R packages into your project locally

• start-shiny.R: Let electron call your shiny app

• Folder shiny from this template, containing:

  • shiny/app.R: ⚠️THIS IS YOUR SHINY APP'S CODE, replace this with your app's code and other files like /www

• Folder src from this template, containing:

  • src/helpers.js
  • src/index.css
  • src/index.js
  • src/loading.css
  • src/loading.html
  • src/main.js: configure shiny electron app (like width, height)

11. Change your directory to new app folder cd myapp with Terminal

C. Setup R

12. Install local R with sh ./get-r-win.sh
    • First, check the version of R on your machine. In the R Console, run version.

Warning

Your PC's R version and electron's R version must same, so if template's version is not same, you have to change as proper url

You may see URL (cloud.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/) which shows latest version of R. and if you move your mouse to Download R-4.4.2 for ... you can see URL of it on the left bottom and you can use it to .sh file

13. Build app.R as your application's code.

Note

not only app.R also other required files for shiny application (like /www)

14. If you don't have the automagic package installed, run install.packages("automagic") in the console.

15. In the Rstudio terminal, run Rscript add-cran-binary-pkgs.R to get packages for R.

Note

If your shiny application uses not-CRAN packages (like github / bioconductor), See Add not-CRAN packages below.

D. Setup electron

16. Change package.json as [fix] packages-json's content. And modify author information. (not merge)

Note

Node package's version confirmed in 2024.11

17. Change forge.config.js as [fix] forge.config.js's content. (not merge)

18. Run npm install in Terminal to add new dependencies you listed in package.json to the node_modules folder.

E. Build shiny.exe

Note

You need to run step after this, whenever you want to update shiny application.

19. Test your shiny application work by electron-forge start in Terminal.

20. If the app runs successfully, congratulations! Create the .exe(as ZIP) on the electron-forge make in Terminal. Your app can be found in the /out folder. (Strongly recommend to open with Administrator)

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Additionals

• Raise an issue, please.

Error with require() of ES Module

It doesn't affect to run shiny.

Add not-CRAN packages

• manually copy library from your Local's R library to r-win/library, You can check Local's R library with .libPaths() in R console.

Infinite loading in Electron-forge start / make

• First, change app.R code as basic example.
• If this works well, your app.R code has problem. In my case, I updated R package in shiny application but not in library of R-win directory.
• So update them with recent version, and try again will work.