CrimeMap, LondonR and a Book Review

In preparation for my LondonR talk in March, I am polishing up my CrimeMap (see previous blog post here and here) in my spare time.

Thanks to Chris Beeley and Packt, I won a free e-copy of Chris Beeley’s book following his great talk about Shiny web app during the last LondonR meeting. I find this book really useful as I am trying to implement new functionality and ideas into my CrimeMap. It illustrates very well what you can do with Shiny using lots of practical examples. So here is a quick book review for those who are also interested in developing Shiny web apps.

The book begins with a short but essential introduction to some key R functions for handling data and graphics. Chapter 2 is a walk-through of key Shiny components nicely demonstrated by an example of Google Analytics API integration. It then discusses how Shiny can be further extended with the use of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery. I find chapter 4 most useful as it goes deep into the practical aspects of handling reactivity and taking full control of inputs and outputs. The book ends with some tips on code sharing and browser compatibility.

I hope you will find this short review useful. Reviews from others can be found here, here and here. 

BTW, LondonR is great (thank you very much Mango Solutions for sponsoring it since 2009)!!! You can find the presentations from previous meetings here.