This is the third revision to combine Electron with R-Portable (version 4.1.1) and RStudio Shiny package to deliver Electron Applications that run standalone with R and Shiny.

shinyElectron

Clone and run for a quick way to see Electron in action with R's Shiny.

This is a minimal Electron and R application that expands on the Quick Start Guide within the Electron documentation. This allows any shiny application to be run portably without having R installed directly on the user's computer.

Use this app along with the Electron API Demos app for API code examples to help you get started.

Files

A basic Electron application needs just these files:

• package.json - Points to the app's main file and lists its details and dependencies.
• main.js - Starts the app and creates a browser window to render HTML. This is the app's main process.

You can learn more about each of these components within the Quick Start Guide.

R adds a few more files required, these are used and defined in main.js:

• R-Portable-Win - The windows R files (Just take them from ProgramFiles)
• R-Portable-Mac - The mac R files (Just take them from Applications and run R-Portable-Mac/bin/R to untangle it)
• R-Portable-Linux - The linux R files (Build folowing Painless-R-compilation-...-Ubuntu up to make check and compile packages now with install.packages() or devtools)
• R-Portable-*/library - The location to protably install R packages find these files with .libPaths() to find the library paths
• app.R - The shiny application to start
• cc.ico - The icon used for the application made
• config - Contains configuration files for building and runing the app
• scripts - Contains the instalation scripts used to build your application
• DESCRIPTION - Required for testing action on GitHub, can be safely removed
• Other files to be coppied to resources\app

To Use

Installing

To clone and run this repository you'll need Git and Node.js (which comes with npm) installed on your computer. From your command line:

# Clone this repository
git clone https://github.com/zekrom-vale/shinyElectron/tree/stable
# Install Electron Packager (if first time)
npm install -g --save-dev @electron/packager
# Go into the repository
cd electron-quick-start
# Install dependencies
npm install

Then install any pakages with R (Not with the portable version as that does not resolve dependencies). Copy those installed files to the relevent library R-Portable-*/library. Do not remove the existing library files as it breaks the base packages.

Configure

The configuration files are included in the config folder, if you want to use aother file format feel free as long as node-config supports it.

default.yaml The default options to use, see node-config to learn more on loading order.

R:
    url: "http://127.0.0.1:" # The url of where shiny is hosted most likely the loop back at 127.0.0.1
    port: 9191 # The url of where shiny is hosted `${url}${port}`
    kill: false # Should R be killed on exit?
    app: app.R # The R script to run with shiny
    path:
        fixHome: true # Should the app fix R's `R_HOME_DIR` in `R-Portable-*/R` ignored if isPortable is false
        isPortable: true # should R be run as portable?
window:
    delay: 2000 # How long to wait to show the window
    poll: 1000 # How long to wait to try to conect to the URL again after failing
    loading:     # A URL to load for the loading bar
        path: loading.html # The URL or file to load
        isURL: false # Is path a file or a URL?
        config: # Loading window settings
            show: false # Show the window?  Using true may break things
            width: 1200 # Width of the window
            height: 1000 # Height of the window
            title: My app # Title of the loading window
    config: # Main window settings
        show: false # Show the window?  Using true may break things
        width: 1200 # Width of the window
        height: 1000 # Height of the window
        title: My app # Title of the window
        webPreferences: 
            nodeIntegration: false # Should node be interated into JS?  Not implimented yet
    dev: false # Load developer tools?
    fullReload: true # Reload the entire R sesion?
    # Recomended this to be true and R.kill be false
    # Use the folowing in R shiny server:
    # onSessionEnded(function(){
    #     quit(save = "no")
    #  })
app:
    CompanyName: None
    FileDescription: CE
    ProductName: Shiny Electron App
    out: ElectronShinyApp # Where to build the files to see below for more
    name: electron-quick-start # used in the specific arch and platform build under `${out}/${name}-${platform}-${arch}`
    icon: assets/icons/png/1024x1024.png # Icon of the run file
    quitOnClose: true # When all windows are closed is the application termniated?

linux.yaml Linux specific options, anything here will overwite default.yaml

R:
    kill: pkill -9 "R" # The command to kill R
    path: ./R-Portable-Linux/bin/R # The path to R
    home: ./R-Portable-Linux # The home dir of R

darwin.yaml MacOS specific options

R:
    kill: false # pkill -9 "R" # The command to kill R
    path: # The path to R
        portable: R-Portable-Mac/bin/R
        home: R-Portable-Mac # The home dir of R
        local: /Library/Frameworks/lib/R/bin/R 
app:
    quitOnClose: false # On macOS it's common to re-create a window in the app when the
                       # dock icon is clicked and there are no other windows open.

Compile/Run

Then you can compile or run the app

Run the app

npm start

Build the Executable/App for Windows

cd electron-quick-start
npm run package-win

Build the Executable/App for Linux

cd electron-quick-start
npm run package-linux

Build the Executable/App for macOS

cd electron-quick-start
npm run package-mac

Notes

• To see the console that Electron prints out you can simply run the app from the command line.
• If you're using Linux Bash for Windows, see this guide or use node from the command prompt.
• macOS support is experamental and may need some modification

Forked from

• COVAIL/electron-quick-start - The older version that is not beeing updated

Resources for Learning Electron

• electron/electron-quick-start - a very basic starter Electron app
• electron/simple-samples - small applications with ideas for taking them further
• electron/electron-api-demos - an Electron app that teaches you how to use Electron
• hokein/electron-sample-apps - small demo apps for the various Electron APIs

License

CC0 1.0 (Public Domain)