README.md

In vreederene-90/autoreload.fix: Provides two solutions to refresh a Shiny App

Documentation (autoreload.fix)

Objective

The options(shiny.autoreload = TRUE) automatically refreshes a Shiny app, however it comes with an issue.

When working with multiple files (outside of app.R) the UI isn’t refreshed properly. For instance, when working with modules or a golem you have to reboot the app in order to see UI changes.

This package provides two workarounds by updating the file.mtime of app.R when a file in R/ folder is updated or added (e.g., the latest file.mtime of this folder changes)

The package offers 2 update options:

• Refresh : Updates the content of your page by pressing a keyboard key that you can preset (e.g. F5)
• Auto-refresh : Automatically updates the content on the page when changes are saved in RStudio

Practical trick

For the ease of simplicity, in your golem project, go to the dev/ folder of your app and rename the run_dev.R file to app.R

This will allow you to run the Shiny app via the Run App button in RStudio, which is quite convenient.

Install and config

Install the autoreload.fix package by running in your R console:

devtools::install_github("https://github.com/vreederene-90/autoreload.fix")

Go to app.R (the previously named run_dev.R file) and add the below option:

options(shiny.autoreload = TRUE)

Option 1 - Refresh

This allows the app to update by pressing a keyboard key.

After you installed the autoreload.fix package, in RStudio go to Keyboard Shortcuts and search for Refresh Shiny.

I have set the refresh shiny option to my F5 key. You can choose to bind it to any key you want.

Go to the app.R (previously run_dev.R) and click on the small arrow next to the Run App button. This will display the following dropdown menu:

Select Run External and In Background Job. This step is mandatory to make the package work.

Press Run App, to run your Shiny application as Background job (you should see it loading in the Jobs tab in RStudio)

Edit a file in the R/ folder of your Shiny project (e.g., make a visual change in the UI)

Put the focus back to RStudio (i.e. click on your RStudio IDE window)

Press the F5 key (or the key you bound the refresh too)

Your app should refresh and display the changes you made.

Option 2 : Auto-refresh

This option allows to refresh each time a change is detected in the /R folder.

Go to the Terminal tab in RStudio (between Console and Jobs) or open a terminal window outside RStudio and run the following command:

R -e "autoreload.fix::autorefresh()"

Example in my Terminal in RStudio:

This will open an empty tab in your browser, and it will listen to a port on localhost. Do not close this tab.

Go to the app.R (previously run_dev.R) and click on the small arrow next to the Run App button. This will display the following dropdown menu:

Select Run External and In Background Job. This step is mandatory to make the package work.

Press Run App, to run your Shiny application as Background job (you should see it loading in the Jobs tab in RStudio)

Edit a file in the R/ folder of your Shiny project (e.g., make a visual change in the UI)

Press cmd+s / ctrl+s to save the change.

If you go to the terminal where you initially run the command R -e "autoreload.fix::autorefresh()", you should see the date and time of your last change with the text “Update executed”.

Your app should refresh and display the changes you made.

vreederene-90/autoreload.fix documentation built on June 28, 2022, 6:25 p.m.