Census Mapping App

This project contains an R Shiny application and a GitHub Pages wrapper site.

It replicates the material developed by Dani Arribas-Bel (@darribas) and Mark Green (@markalangreen).

Important: GitHub Pages and Shiny

GitHub Pages is static hosting and cannot run an R Shiny server directly.

Deployment pattern used here:

1. Deploy the Shiny app to a Shiny-capable host (e.g. shinyapps.io, Posit Connect, or your own Shiny Server).
2. Use GitHub Pages (docs/) as a static front-end that embeds that deployed app URL.

Run locally

install.packages(c("shiny", "sf", "dplyr", "readr", "leaflet", "scales", "htmltools"))
shiny::runApp(".")

Data bootstrap

The repo does not keep large GeoPackage binaries in Git history.

Required file:

• data/inputs/oac21.gpkg

If missing, app startup and helper script can download it using env var:

• CENSUS_MAPPING_OAC21_GPKG_URL

Example:

export CENSUS_MAPPING_OAC21_GPKG_URL="https://<your-hosted-file>/oac21.gpkg"
Rscript scripts/get_data.R

Dropbox note:

• Use a shared link for oac21.gpkg; the bootstrap script auto-converts Dropbox preview links (dl=0) to direct download (dl=1).
• Example:

export CENSUS_MAPPING_OAC21_GPKG_URL="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/<id>/oac21.gpkg?dl=0"
Rscript scripts/get_data.R

GitHub Pages setup

1. Deploy your Shiny app and copy its public URL.
2. Edit docs/config.js and set:

window.CENSUS_MAPPING_CONFIG = {
  SHINY_APP_URL: "https://<your-shiny-hosted-app-url>",
  TITLE: "Census Mapping"
};

3. Push to GitHub.
4. In GitHub repo settings: Pages -> Source: Deploy from a branch -> Branch: main / Folder: /docs.
5. Your Pages URL will serve the wrapper site and embed the live Shiny app.

Key files

• app.R: Shiny app
• scripts/data_bootstrap.R: runtime data checks/download helper
• scripts/get_data.R: manual data bootstrap helper
• docs/index.html: GitHub Pages static wrapper
• docs/config.js: wrapper configuration (set embedded Shiny URL)
• www/styles.css: app styling