Run Same R Script from Multiple Computers Simultaneously - r

Question

I have an R script, a Shiny app to be specific that lives on a network drive. There are multiple computers that need to be able to run this app, and therefore multiple people who may need to run it at the same time.
For the moment, I have gotten around the problem simply by housing multiple duplicate Shiny apps, and giving each computer access to a unique copy. However, as the number of users expands, it is becoming more and more difficult to keep up with.
Is there a way to have multiple computers access the same R script at the same time, and hold open a session for however long they need?

Answer 1

If you go with the R package route, and:
you want you're user's to know when their package is out of date
your package code is in a git repo (always a good idea)
your users install the package using devtools::install_git("path/to/package/git/repo")
then you can add these lines to your package's .onload() method (documented here and here: ?.onLoad):
# Check if the package is up to date
pd <- packageDescription(pkgname)
out_of_date_message_template <-
'Your copy of package %s is not up to date.\nUse devtools::install_git("%s") to update this package\n'
if(identical(pd$RemoteType,"git")){
try({
# get the hash of the remote repo
out_file <- tempfile()
on.exit(unlink(out_file))
failed <- system2("git",sprintf('ls-remote "%s"',pd$RemoteUrl),stdout = out_file)
if(failed)
return() # failed to get the git repo hash
remotes <- readLines(out_file)
if(!identical(pd$RemoteSha,gsub("\t.*","",remotes[1])))
packageStartupMessage(
sprintf(out_of_date_message_template,
pkgname,
gsub("\\\\","\\\\\\\\",pd$RemoteUrl)))
})
}
then when you push an update to your network git repo, users with out of date code will get this message when they call library(my_app)
Your copy of package my_app is not up to date.
Use devtools::install_git("path\\to\\package\\git\\repo") to update this package

Answer 2

Once you have git installed on your local computer, initialize the repo on the network drive like this:
cd my/network/shiny-app
git init
git add .
git commit -m "initial commit"
Then on each computer,
cd some/place/nice
git clone my/network/shiny-app
cd shiny-app
ls # hey look- all my files are now in this directory!
There are plenty of good git tutorials on the internets for when you decide to update your code and need to pull it to each computer.