Shiny in Production 2023: George Stagg - R Shiny without a server: webR and Shinylive

R Shiny without a server: webR and Shinylive by George Stagg at the Shiny in Production 2023 conference, hosted by Jumping Rivers!

Note from the speaker: Shinylive is now available on CRAN!
https://cran.r-project.org/web/packag...

Abstract
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WebAssembly (Wasm) is a technology that enables software that’s normally compiled for a specific computer system to instead run anywhere, including inside web browsers. WebR is a version of the R interpreter compiled for Wasm, bringing this technology to the R world.

Earlier this year, the initial version of webR was released and users have already begun building new interactive experiences with R on the web. The latest release, version 0.2.0, includes improvements to graphics, accessibility and internationalisation, developer API updates, and introduces a new webR REPL app. The release also includes expanded support for Wasm R packages, including the ability to run fully client‐side Shiny apps.

In this talk, I’ll introduce webR with some simple examples and discuss some details of how the system works. I’ll talk about how JavaScript APIs can be used to integrate webR into wider web applications and describe webR’s communication channel. Finally, I’ll give a description of how Shiny apps can be run using webR without an R server, ending with a demo of an in‐development “Shinylive for R”.

This event was sponsored by:
- Jumping Rivers
- National Innovation Centre for Data
- NU Solve
- Posit
- R Consortium
- Royal Statistical Society