Run a Shiny application from a URL

runUrl() downloads and launches a Shiny application that is hosted at a downloadable URL. The Shiny application must be saved in a .zip, .tar, or .tar.gz file. The Shiny application files must be contained in the root directory or a subdirectory in the archive. For example, the files might be myapp/server.r and myapp/ui.r. The functions runGitHub() and runGist() are based on runUrl(), using URL's from GitHub (https://github.com) and GitHub gists (https://gist.github.com), respectively.

runUrl(url, filetype = NULL, subdir = NULL, destdir = NULL, ...)

runGist(gist, destdir = NULL, ...)

runGitHub(
  repo,
  username = getOption("github.user"),
  ref = "HEAD",
  subdir = NULL,
  destdir = NULL,
  ...
)

Arguments

url: URL of the application.
filetype: The file type (".zip", ".tar", or ".tar.gz". Defaults to the file extension taken from the url.
subdir: A subdirectory in the repository that contains the app. By default, this function will run an app from the top level of the repo, but you can use a path such as "inst/shinyapp".
destdir: Directory to store the downloaded application files. If NULL (the default), the application files will be stored in a temporary directory and removed when the app exits
...: Other arguments to be passed to runApp(), such as port and launch.browser.
gist: The identifier of the gist. For example, if the gist is https://gist.github.com/jcheng5/3239667, then 3239667, '3239667', and 'https://gist.github.com/jcheng5/3239667' are all valid values.
repo: Name of the repository.
username: GitHub username. If repo is of the form "username/repo", username will be taken from repo.
ref: Desired git reference. Could be a commit, tag, or branch name. Defaults to "HEAD", which means the default branch on GitHub, typically "main" or "master".

Examples

## Only run this example in interactive R sessions
if (interactive()) {
  runUrl('https://github.com/rstudio/shiny_example/archive/main.tar.gz')

  # Can run an app from a subdirectory in the archive
  runUrl("https://github.com/rstudio/shiny_example/archive/main.zip",
    subdir = "inst/shinyapp/")
}
## Only run this example in interactive R sessions
if (interactive()) {
  runGist(3239667)
  runGist("https://gist.github.com/jcheng5/3239667")

  # Old URL format without username
  runGist("https://gist.github.com/3239667")
}

## Only run this example in interactive R sessions
if (interactive()) {
  runGitHub("shiny_example", "rstudio")
  # or runGitHub("rstudio/shiny_example")

  # Can run an app from a subdirectory in the repo
  runGitHub("shiny_example", "rstudio", subdir = "inst/shinyapp/")
}