{cranstars}: a first golem app & possibly, CRAN!

{cranstars} is a simple shiny app that given a package name, shows CRAN downloads & github star statistics.

The implementation is pretty simple.
The app downloads CRAN data using cranlogs::cran_downloads.
And github stars data is downloaded using gh::gh.
The app then shows some outputs based on the data.

It also shows the time, reminding us of our flaws.

The app is developed with the {golem} framework. The idea of developing shiny apps as packages is quite outstanding. Although it takes some time and effort to get used to, the effort is worth it.

Installation

You can play with {cranstars} on your machine by running the following:

# Install
devtools::install_github("shahreyar-abeer/cranstars")

# Run
cranstars::run_app()

There is also a deployed version of the app on shinyapps.io
Find the codes on github

Motivation

I was required to create something for the final assessment of Learning Shiny for Production. This is where it all started.
Thus the design resembles apps from the course. This was an awesome course by the way.

The main idea is taken from Miles McBaine’s tidycast repo.
I also had a peak at Hadley’s cran-downloads.
The codes from the github style plots have been taken from Matti Vuore’s blog post.