Deploying R shiny app as a standalone application

Question

I have developed a RShiny application which I would like to share internally with my colleagues (Hosting the app on a server, is not an option at this stage).

I was exploring various options, and I came across a technique for bundling your app as a standalone desktop application, with an installer file, which you can then share & distribute. (The approach is explained here & here) This is quite neat, because the users installing it need not have R (and any other required packages) to install and run the app (it has portable versions of R, chrome etc)

I was able to follow the approach and create a standalone desktop application, with an installer file, which I can now start sharing.

However, this is my concern: Ideally, I would not want my users to be able to access the source code. Is there a way to restrict such access? In the tutorial (the first link that I posted), this is what the author says:

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Lastly, keep in mind that your source code is easily accessible. If this is a concern for you (e.g. if you are distributing to a client that should not have access to the code) the best you can do is impede access by first compiling the sensitive source code into a binary package. That said, any user who knows R (and has sufficient intent) can simply dump the code to the console.

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Are there better, more fool-proof ways to impede access?

Thanks!

Answer 1

There is now a way to turn a Shiny app into a standalone Electron app (which is a desktop app, used for apps like Slack). To find out more, see this excellent presentation (YouTube) from useR 2018, which contains further links:

• GitHub ColumbusCollaboratory: electron-quick-start

• GitHub ColumbusCollaboratory: Photon. RStudio Add-in to build Shiny apps utilizing the Electron framework

• @TravisHinkelman's blog "Deploying a Shiny app as a desktop application with Electron"