gofigR

gofigR is the R client for https://gofigr.io, a zero-effort reproducibility engine. It works with any R library which outputs to R graphics devices.

Compatibility

gofigR integrates with R markdown, both in knitr and in interactive sessions in RStudio. GoFigr also works in scripts. We tested with R 4.3.2 but any reasonably recent version should work.

Installation

library(devtools)
devtools::install_github("gofigr/gofigR")

Configuration

On the R prompt, simply load the gofigR package and call gfconfig(). You only need to do this once.

If you don't have an account, you can register at https://app.gofigr.io/register.

> library(gofigR)
Attaching package: ‘gofigR’

> gfconfig()
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to GoFigr! This wizard will help you get up and running.

-------------------------------------------------------------------


Username: publicdemo
Testing connection...

  => Success

API key (leave blank to generate a new one): 
Key name (e.g. Alyssa's laptop): my API key
Fetching workspaces...

1. Scratchpad - e5249bed-40f0-4336-9bd3-fef30d3ed10d

Please select a default workspace (1-1): 1

Configuration saved to /Users/maciej/.gofigr. Happy analysis!

Usage

To enable GoFigr, simply call enable in your setup chunk. You can also optionally specify an analysis_name (it will be created automatically if it doesn't exist).

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
library(gofigR)
gofigR::enable()
```

Publishing plots

To publish plots, simply call publish:

hm1 <- Heatmap(matrix(rnorm(100), nrow=10, ncol=10))

publish(hm1, "Heatmaps are cool!")  # second argument is the figure name

# This works, too
hm1 %>% publish("Heatmaps are cool!")

Capturing base graphics

To capture output from base R plotting, call publish with a plotting expression:

gofigR::publish({
  base::plot(pressure, main="Pressure vs temperature")
  text(200, 50, "Note the non-linear relationship")
}, data=pressure, figure_name="Pressure vs temperature")

gofigR::publish({
  # The mtcars dataset:
  data <- as.matrix(mtcars)

  coul <- colorRampPalette(brewer.pal(8, "PiYG"))(25)
  heatmap(data, scale="column", col = coul, main="Visualizing mtcars")
}, data=mtcars, figure_name="Cars")

Note the optional data argument following the expression. It specifies the data which you want to associate with the figure -- it will show up under "files" (as .RDS) once published.

Shiny

You can replace plotOutput + renderPlot with gfPlot + gfPlotServer and give your users the ability to publish interactive plots to GoFigr. For example:

library(shiny)
library(gofigR)

gofigR::enable()

# Define UI for application that draws a histogram
ui <- fluidPage(
  # Application title
  titlePanel("Old Faithful Geyser Data"),

  # Sidebar with a slider input for number of bins
  sidebarLayout(
    sidebarPanel(
      sliderInput("bins",
                  "Number of bins:",
                  min = 1,
                  max = 50,
                  value = 30)
    ),

    # Show a plot of the generated distribution
    mainPanel(
      gfPlot("distPlot"),
    )
  )
)

# Define server logic required to draw a histogram
server <- function(input, output) {

  gfPlotServer("distPlot", {
    # generate bins based on input$bins from ui.R
    x    <- faithful[, 2]
    bins <- seq(min(x), max(x), length.out = input$bins + 1)

    # draw the histogram with the specified number of bins
    hist(x, breaks = bins, col = 'darkgray', border = 'white',
         xlab = 'Waiting time to next eruption (in mins)',
         main = 'Histogram of waiting times')
  }, input, figure_name="Old faithful waiting times")
}

# Run the application
shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server)

Note that we pass input to gfPlotServer. This will capture your current Shiny inputs – they will become available under the "Metadata" tab in GoFigr.

Interactive use

We support knitr as well as interactive sessions in RStudio.

Common issues

Heatmap functions that draw and return an object (e.g. pheatmap)

Some plotting functions in R both draw to the active graphics device and return an object. A common example is pheatmap::pheatmap(), which immediately draws the heatmap and also returns a "pheatmap" object.

If you use this pattern in an R Markdown document:

pheatmap::pheatmap(mat) %>% publish("My heatmap")

the heatmap is first drawn by pheatmap() (captured by knitr as a regular, non‑GoFigr figure) and then drawn again by publish() (captured with the GoFigr watermark/QR code). This can make the same heatmap appear twice in your output.

To avoid duplication with pheatmap, ask it to return the plot object without drawing, and then pass that object to publish():

hm <- pheatmap::pheatmap(mat, silent = TRUE)  # returns a pheatmap object without drawing
publish(hm, "My heatmap")

This way, only the GoFigr-rendered, watermarked version of the heatmap is shown.