proto4426/shiny-apps-1

R Shiny apps

Collection of R Shiny web applications

This is a public repository of example R Shiny apps developed by Matthew Leonawicz at Scenarios Network for Alaska & Arctic Planning, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

If I recall correctly, I began exploring RStudio's Shiny package when I first heard of it in late 2012. Needless to say, a lot has changed since then, including not only all the alpha-release code-breaking changes I had to adjust to when making my first apps and what features and capabilities Shiny has to offer, but also simply how I go about coding apps has changed over time symbiotically with the package's continued development. None of the apps in this repository are quite that old, though a few are close. Even so, they have been maintained and updated and tweaked since then to keep with the times as necessary.

While code is available here for each app, keep in mind that this repository represents a historical trajectory of R Shiny app development that begins from a time when Shiny was in early alpha release- back when Shiny used reactive functions instead of expressions and was still based on Bootstrap 2, as just a couple examples. Several apps contained here precede many of Shiny's now most powerful and widely utilized features, though most are more than modern enough.

Nevertheless, even those apps that are much older than the rest have been maintained and occasionally updated alongside the continued development of the Shiny package, e.g., updating older apps to utilize Bootstrap 3 when the Shiny package made that transition. These apps are useful for study and exploration if you are in the process of learning Shiny and looking for something different. Just bear in mind that because of the timeline involved and working with what was available in Shiny as time progressed, all apps will not share a completely identical coding style even though they will have been updated since first created.

R Shiny apps available online

A list of apps can be found on my GitHub pages. This list is broken out roughly by generation, which provides some sense of which apps are relatively old and which are relatively new. This is also a convenient page from where you can launch each app. This repository and the app list on my GitHub page do not have a one to one correspondence, but there is plenty of overlap.

More R Shiny apps

Some apps that are designed for specific projects tend to get their own unique GitHub repository rather than be placed here among this random assortment of apps (some are duplicated here but not all). Some of these apps are publicly available as well and their code can be perused conveniently among my other project repositories.

Staying up to date

I sometimes post about new Shiny apps or app updates on our blog, but you are more likely to find new information more quickly at my twitter. This is just a lot quicker and easier for me to use for anything where a thorough blog post is not required.

Data visualization

In addition to statistical analysis, a common reason people use R and Shiny in particular is for the ability to share quality data visualizations. If you also have a broader interest in data visualization with R, I occasionally share data animations on my YouTube channel (the highly operative phrase being "time permitting").

I also have an R package on GitHub, mapmate, that I made to consolidate a suite of reproducible examples and code to show how I go about making some of my animations. The package is geared toward meeting this simple goal since I receive a lot of questions about my data videos. But if you would like to see the package broadened in its functionality and have it become something more production-level, you are welcome to contribute here.