Knit flexdashboard to html

shiny
#1

I created a flexdashboard with runtime shiny and I want to knit the output to html to share out this document, i.e. to people that don't use or know what R is. When I try to knit using
rmarkdown::render(input = "mydashboard.Rmd", output_format = "html_document")
I get an error, it looks like it created the file but it's not where to be found.

output file: mydashboard.knit.md

Error: path for html_dependency not provided

Am I missing something?
RStudio Version: Version 1.1.383
platform x86_64-w64-mingw32
arch x86_64
os mingw32
system x86_64, mingw32
status
major 3
minor 3.3
year 2017
month 03
day 06
svn rev 72310
language R
version.string R version 3.3.3 (2017-03-06)
nickname Another Canoe

#2

Try rmarkdown::run() instead of rmarkdown::render() if you are doing this from a Shiny app.

#3

I’ve tried both, rmarkdown::run() just generates the file and opens it within rstudio. I want something I can save and share, i.e. normally I create my html file from my markdown and can email the file to other people to view. I’m starting to think you can’t do this. It seems like you can only create a flexdashboard as html if it’s not interactive ie utilizing shiny components.

Let me know if I misunderstood your suggestion, thanks!

#4

It sounds like you're embedding interactive, shiny-powered, elements in your dashboard. If you select the shiny runtime, you will need a shiny server (either local via rmarkdown::run()) or a central server (via deploying the Flexdashboard RMD file as detailed at https://shiny.rstudio.com/articles/interactive-docs.html) to run the app/dashboard. I gather you're looking to get a static HTML bundle that people could run without a shiny server? If so, you'll probably need to not use shiny and instead look at htmlwidgets or other ways of embedded client-side JS in your dashboard.

#5

Thank you! I'm going to check out the htmlWidgets, i think I can do what I want with that. Appreciate the help as I'm learning!!