Publisher Guide

Complete reference for building and distributing Shiny app deployments with ShareBridge

This guide covers every feature of the ShareBridge Publisher in depth. For a quick walkthrough, see Getting Started.

Launching the Publisher

Method When to use
PublishApp.hta Default — opens hidden, no console window
publish.bat Fallback if .hta files are blocked by Group Policy

Both open the same Shiny-based Publisher UI in your default browser.

Important

Always launch from inside the ShareBridge framework root — not from inside a deployed app folder.

Source app

Supported layouts

ShareBridge supports two standard Shiny structures:

Single-file:

my_app/
└── app.R

Split:

my_app/
├── ui.R
└── server.R

Supporting folders are copied automatically: www/, R/, modules/, data/, config/, and any other files or subdirectories in the source.

Validation badge

When you select a source folder, ShareBridge immediately validates it and shows a badge:

  • 🟢 app.R found or ui.R + server.R found — valid, build can proceed
  • 🔴 Error message — folder is missing required entry points, build is blocked

Package detection

How it works

ShareBridge scans all .R, .Rmd, and .qmd files in the source folder for:

  • library(pkg) and require(pkg)
  • pkg::function() and pkg:::function()

Primary scanner: renv::dependencies() when renv is installed Fallback: built-in regex parser

shiny is always included regardless of what the scanner finds.

What the scanner misses

Pattern Example
Dynamic loading lapply(pkgs, library, character.only = TRUE)
String-constructed names library(paste0("data", ".table"))
Scripts sourced from outside the app folder source("../shared/helpers.R")

Add these manually in the Additional packages box (one per line).

Output options

Output folder

The output folder is where the complete deployable folder is written. It is auto-filled as <parent_of_framework>/<app_name>_deploy but you can set it anywhere.

Warning

The output folder is completely reset on every build. Do not point it at a folder containing other important files.

Create zip file

When enabled, ShareBridge zips the output folder after building. The zip file appears at <output_dir>.zip and is available for download directly from the Publisher UI.

Build offline repo

When enabled, ShareBridge downloads a copy of all bundled packages into a repo/ folder inside the deployment. At runtime, run.R installs from this local repo first, falling back to CRAN only if the local repo is missing.

Use this when your end users have no internet access.

Advanced app features

Enable write-capable app mode

Ensures selected app subdirectories exist inside the deployed app/ folder. Useful for apps that write to data/, uploads/, cache/, or tmp/.

When you enable this option, ShareBridge scans the source folder for subdirectories and presents them as checkboxes. Select the ones that need to exist (and be writable) in the deployment.

Note

This only creates the directories — it does not modify your app code. Your app must still reference and write to those folders.

Include Pandoc runtime

Creates a pandoc/ stub folder in the deployment and adds R Markdown support packages (rmarkdown, knitr, etc.) to req.txt.

At runtime, if pandoc/pandoc.exe is present, ShareBridge sets RSTUDIO_PANDOC automatically so rmarkdown finds it.

Important: ShareBridge does not copy Pandoc automatically. After building, place a Pandoc installation into the pandoc/ folder manually. Download from pandoc.org.

External data directory (DATA_DIR)

For apps that write data which should not live inside the synced SharePoint folder (e.g. frequently written outputs, user uploads), set a DATA_DIR path here.

  • Accepts UNC paths (\\server\share\AppData) or local paths
  • Written to app_meta.cfg as DATA_DIR=
  • Available to your app at runtime as the environment variable SHAREBRIDGE_DATA_DIR

Example in your app code:

data_dir <- Sys.getenv("SHAREBRIDGE_DATA_DIR", unset = "data")

Build summary panel

Before you click Build deployment, a summary panel shows a snapshot of what will be built:

Field Description
App name Display name used in launchers
App ID Sanitized ID used for port derivation and URLs
Packages Total count (detected + extras)
Portable R Whether R-portable-master/ is found in the framework
Zip output Whether a zip will be created
Offline repo Whether a local CRAN mirror will be built
Pandoc stub Whether the pandoc folder will be created
DATA_DIR External data path if set

Build progress

The overlay tracks each build phase with a live percentage, step label, and elapsed time:

  • Binary installs show the current package being downloaded
  • Source compilation shows the C/C++ compile percentage and triggers a shimmer animation on the progress bar — this is normal and expected for packages that don’t have a Windows binary
  • Elapsed time helps set expectations on first builds
Tip

Source compilation only happens on the first build or after an R version upgrade. Subsequent builds install binaries from the cache.

Health check

After every successful build, ShareBridge runs an automatic health check:

Check Critical
Required files present (LaunchApp.hta, run.bat, run.R, req.txt, app_meta.cfg, VERSION) Yes
app/ directory exists Yes
packages/ directory exists Yes
All packages in req.txt are present in packages/ Yes
Portable R bundled (R/) No (warning only)
pandoc.exe present when pandoc/ folder exists No (warning only)

Critical failures (red) mean the deployment will not work. Warnings (amber) mean reduced functionality.

Test launch

The Test launch button in the success bar opens LaunchApp.hta from the output folder directly — identical to what an end user does. Use it to verify the app starts cleanly before copying to SharePoint.

Saved profiles

Build settings can be saved as named JSON profiles stored in <framework_root>/profiles/.

Action Description
Save Saves all current form fields under the given name
Load selected Restores all fields from the selected profile
Delete selected Removes the profile JSON file
Note

Profiles store absolute paths for source_dir and output_dir. These will need updating if the profile is used on a different machine.

Publisher logs

All build output is written to <framework_root>/logs/publisher/ as timestamped .log files. Logs older than 30 days are cleaned automatically.

From the Publisher logs panel you can:

  • Browse all saved log files
  • Preview the last 250 lines of any log
  • Delete individual or all logs

Logs contain the full build subprocess output — useful for diagnosing failed installs, missing packages, or robocopy errors.

Portable R setup

Why portable R?

Without bundled portable R, end users must have R installed. Portable R eliminates that requirement entirely.

Folder structure

Folder Purpose
R-portable-master/ Cold source copy — used during publishing
R-portable/ Live runtime copy — used for local launch and testing

The split avoids Windows DLL locking: when you publish, robocopy reads from the cold R-portable-master/ while R-portable/ may be in use.

What gets stripped

To keep deployments a manageable size, strip_r.R removes:

  • HTML help files and vignettes
  • Translations and locale files
  • C headers and development files
  • Test suites
  • Tcl/Tk runtime (optional — keep with Keep Tcl/Tk checkbox)
  • Package-level documentation (optional — control with Strip package docs checkbox)

All runtime code, DLLs, NAMESPACE, and DESCRIPTION files are preserved.

Creating portable R

  1. Install a full R on the publisher machine
  2. Open the Framework setup panel in the Publisher UI
  3. Browse to the full R installation folder
  4. Click Create portable R
  5. Wait for the green success bar

You only need to do this once per R version.