ShinyStan v2.0.0

For those of you not familiar with ShinyStan, it is a graphical user interface for exploring Stan models (and more generally MCMC output from any software). For context, here’s the post on this blog first introducing ShinyStan (formerly shinyStan) from earlier this year.

shinystan_images

ShinyStan v2.0.0 released

ShinyStan v2.0.0 is now available on CRAN. This is a major update with a new look and a lot of new features. It also has a new(ish) name: ShinyStan is the app/GUI and shinystan the R package (both had formerly been shinyStan for some reason apparently not important enough for me to remember). Like earlier versions, this version has enhanced functionality for Stan models but is compatible with MCMC output from other software packages too.

You can install the new version from CRAN like any other package:

install.packages("shinystan")

If you prefer a version with a few minor typos fixed you can install from Github using the devtools package:

devtools::install_github("stan-dev/shinystan", build_vignettes = TRUE)

(Note: after installing the new version and checking that it works we recommend removing the old one by running remove.packages(“shinyStan”).)

If you install the package and want to try it out without having to first fit a model you can launch the app using the preloaded demo model:

library(shinystan)
launch_shinystan_demo()

Notes

This update contains a lot of changes, both in terms of new features added, greater UI stability, and an entirely new look. Some release notes can be found on GitHub and there are also some instructions for getting started on the ShinyStan wiki page. Here are two highlights:

  • The new interactive diagnostic plots for Hamiltonian Monte Carlo. In particular, these are designed for models fit with Stan using NUTS (the No-U-Turn Sampler).

    Diagnostics screenshot Diagnostics screenshotshinystan_diagnostics3

  • The deploy_shinystan function, which lets you easily deploy ShinyStan apps for your models to RStudio’s ShinyApps hosting service. Each of your apps (i.e. each of your models) will have a unique URL. To use this feature please also install the shinyapps package: devtools::install_github("rstudio/shinyapps").

The plan is to release a minor update with bug fixes and other minor tweaks in a month or so. So if you find anything we should fix or change (or if you have any other suggestions) we’d appreciate the feedback.

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