ViewR

ViewR is a single-function R package that opens a feature-rich, popup-based Shiny interface for interactively viewing, filtering, sorting, editing, and analysing any data frame -- with every operation reflected in real-time as copy-pasteable dplyr code.

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Features

• Data View -- searchable, paginated DT table with optional variable-label tooltips and per-column search filters
• Sidebar Filters -- unlimited filter conditions with 11 operators (==, !=, >, >=, <, <=, contains, starts with, ends with, is NA, is not NA); combine rows with AND / OR logic
• Multi-column Sort -- add multiple sort levels; choose ascending or descending per column
• Column Visibility -- show/hide columns with one click via checkboxes
• Excel-like Editor (edit = TRUE) -- powered by rhandsontable; supports in-cell editing, adding/deleting rows, and unlimited undo/redo
• Find & Replace -- search literal text or regex across one or all columns; case-sensitivity and exact-match options; preview before applying
• Variable Info tab -- data type, N, missing %, unique count, min/max, and sample values for every column
• R Code Generation -- the R Code tab always shows the complete, runnable dplyr pipeline for the current UI state; one click copies it to the clipboard

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Installation

# From CRAN (once published):
install.packages("ViewR")

# Development version from GitHub:
# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("itsmdivakaran/ViewR")

Install all optional dependencies at once:

ViewR::install_viewr_deps()

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Quick Start

library(ViewR)

# Basic viewer -- popup dialog
ViewR(mtcars)

# Edit mode: returns modified data frame when you click Done
new_iris <- ViewR(iris, edit = TRUE)

# Custom variable labels + dark theme
ViewR(mtcars,
      labels = c(mpg = "Miles per Gallon",
                 cyl = "Number of Cylinders",
                 hp  = "Gross Horsepower"),
      theme  = "darkly")

# Open in the system browser
ViewR(iris, viewer = "browser")

# Works with haven-imported SPSS/Stata files (labels read automatically)
# df <- haven::read_sav("my_survey.sav")
# ViewR(df)

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Function Signature

ViewR(
  data,
  edit          = FALSE,
  popup         = TRUE,
  labels        = NULL,
  title         = NULL,
  viewer        = c("dialog", "browser", "pane"),
  generate_code = TRUE,
  theme         = c("flatly", "cerulean", "cosmo", "darkly",
                    "lumen", "paper", "readable", "sandstone",
                    "simplex", "spacelab", "united", "yeti"),
  max_display   = 50000L,
  return_data   = TRUE
)

Argument	Default	Description
data	--	A data.frame or tibble
edit	FALSE	Enable Excel-like editing tab
popup	TRUE	Open as popup dialog
labels	NULL	Named vector of variable labels
title	auto	Window title
viewer	"dialog"	"dialog", "browser", or "pane"
generate_code	TRUE	Show the R Code tab
theme	"flatly"	Bootstrap/shinythemes theme
max_display	50000	Max rows rendered (performance cap)
return_data	TRUE	Return (edited) data on Done

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Generated Code Example

After applying filters and a sort in the UI, the R Code tab shows:

library(dplyr)

mtcars_result <- mtcars |>
  filter(
    `cyl` == "6" &
    `hp` >= 110
  ) |>
  arrange(`mpg`)

---

UI Overview

+-----------------------------------------------------+
| [=] ViewR -- mtcars         [rows/cols info] [Done] |
+------------------+----------------------------------+
| FILTERS  [+ add] | [Data] [Edit] [F&R] [Info] [Code]|
|                  |                                  |
| SORT     [+ add] |   Searchable, paginated DT table |
|                  |                                  |
| COLUMNS          |   (or Edit / Find-Replace /      |
|  [x] mpg         |    Variable Info / R Code tab)   |
|  [x] cyl         |                                  |
|  [ ] disp        |                                  |
|                  |                                  |
| DISPLAY          |                                  |
|  Rows per page   |                                  |
+------------------+----------------------------------+

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Dependencies

Required (installed automatically): shiny, miniUI, DT, rhandsontable, shinyjs, shinythemes, htmltools, jsonlite

Suggested (for specific features): haven (variable labels from .sav/.dta files), dplyr (generated code), tibble (tibble input)

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License

MIT (c) 2024 Mahesh Divakaran