Transferring your R Shiny skills to Python

PJ Van Camp - LinkedIn

Intro and Objectives

This repository contains materials used in the 'Transferring your R Shiny skills to Python' workshop. The workshop aims to teach you how you can quickly start building Shiny apps in Python if you already know R Shiny and have basic Python coding skills.

This workshops has the following objectives:

• Describe the large conceptual overlap between R and Python Shiny
• Explain the differences between the Core and Express Python Shiny framework
• Demonstrate the power of Positron IDE for easily switching between R and Python Shiny
• Define decorators in Python and their use in the Shiny framework
• Convert core R Shiny functions (inputs, outputs, reactive environments) to Python syntax
• Build a few simple apps to showcase how easy the transition is
• Outline common R Shiny functionality that is not yet (fully) implemented in Python

Repository Organisation

Setup

Quick start: Use the shinylive links provided in the README for each exercise as this requires no setup.

If you want to learn more about shinylive or use a local development environment to do the exercises in your IDE of preference, please read this setup Instructions README.

Topics

• PART 1 - Creating Shiny UI
• PART 2 - Python Shiny reactivity syntax
• PART 3 - Shiny Express
• PART 4 - Interactive tables and plots

Each part comes with a dedicated folder in this repository (see above):

• A README file will provide background documentation and code examples
• One or more exercise folders will contain all code, data and instructions (again as a README) needed to complete the exercise
• Solutions to all exercises are available in the solutions folder. Try not to look at them when you get stuck, but look though the documentation instead as this will increase your learning

Workshop Format

The workshop is broken down into 4 parts

For each part there will be

• 10-15 minutes introduction with a tutorial
• 20 minutes hands-on exercises
  • Instructions for each exercise are in a dedicated README
  • You can mute the sound as there will be a timer on the screen indication when the next part starts
  • The main room will be used to answer questions or help with debugging
  • Solutions to all exercises are available in the solutions folder, but try to solve the problem without looking at them
• 5 minutes wrap-up before moving on to the next part

About this Repository

All materials were originally created for a workshop hosted at the 2025 Shiny Conference and is shared under the GPL-3 license. If you have any questions, you can reach out to PJ Van Camp [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn