Photon is an R package that contains an RStudio add-in miniUI that builds a Photon application. Photon builds standalone Shiny app by leveraging the Electron framework in Mac OS and Windows operating systems. This package clones the Columbus Collaboratory electron-quick-start repository which is forked to the electron-quick-start git repository plus Mac and Windows R portables. Photon will be extended to Linux in the near future. This work is still under development.

1. git
2. Node.js -- this comes with npm

remotes::install_github("ColumbusCollaboratory/photon")
library(photon)

Invocation of the miniUI display can be done in two ways:

1. Use the function photon::photon_rstudioaddin() in R.
2. In RStudio -- click Tools > Addins > Browse Addins. Look for "photon" and select it. Click "Execute".

The Mac and Windows R Portables currently come many pre-loaded packages that were selected by popularity. If additional packages (currently only CRAN and Bioconductor packages work; GitHub coming soon) are required, users can enter in a comma-separated string containing the package names of interest in the miniUI. These packages will install the packages to the relative version of R portable that will be subsequently packaged in to an Electron standalone application.

If no packages are needed to install, type NULL as the entry for those specific repositories.

Please submit a pull request for issues related to this package.

2019 slides and presentation https://www.user2019.fr/static/pres/lt257916.pdf https://youtu.be/Dn9VRUBFvyc?t=1167

Older 2018 version https://github.com/ksasso/useR_electron_meet_shiny/blob/master/electron_slides.Rmd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARrbbviGvjc https://www.youtube.com/embed/O56WR-yQFC0 https://www.youtube.com/embed/hZXlgdNOqwA https://www.youtube.com/embed/HDokkYmJKCk

For photon questions contact [email protected]
For questions about the implementation of Electron, Chromium or node.js contact [email protected]
For questions about the R portable contact [email protected]