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RDesk: Native Desktop Application Framework

Build native desktop applications for Windows (with future support planned for macOS and Linux) using 'R' and embedded 'webviews'. Provides a robust 'R6'-based event loop, asynchronous background task management via 'mirai' and 'callr', and a native message bridge for seamless 'R'-to-user-interface communication without listening ports or network overhead. Allows 'R' developers to create professional, standalone desktop tools with modern web-based user interfaces while maintaining a pure 'R' backend.

Version: 1.0.7
Imports: R6, jsonlite, digest, processx, callr, mirai (≥ 1.0.0), base64enc, zip, stats, utils, parallel
Suggests: testthat (≥ 3.0.0), withr, knitr, rmarkdown, ggplot2, dplyr, broom, devtools, pkgbuild, rstudioapi, renv
OS_type: windows
Published: 2026-09-03
DOI: 10.32614/CRAN.package.RDesk
Author: Janakiraman G ORCID iD [aut, cre, cph], Serge Zaitsev [cph] (Author of webview library (src/webview/webview.h)), Steffen André Langnes [cph] (Contributor to webview library (src/webview/webview.h)), Björn Hoehrmann [cph] (Copyright holder credited in nlohmann/json), Florian Loitsch [cph] (Copyright holder credited in nlohmann/json), Niels Lohmann [cph] (Author of nlohmann/json (inst/include/nlohmann/json.hpp)), Evan Nemerson [cph] (Copyright holder credited in nlohmann/json), The Abseil Authors [cph] (Copyright holder credited in nlohmann/json), Microsoft Corporation [cph] (WebView2 SDK (src/webview2_sdk/))
Maintainer: Janakiraman G <janakiraman.bt at gmail.com>
BugReports: https://github.com/Janakiraman-311/RDesk/issues
License: MIT + file LICENSE
Copyright: see file COPYRIGHTS
URL: https://github.com/Janakiraman-311/RDesk, https://janakiraman-311.github.io/RDesk/
NeedsCompilation: yes
SystemRequirements: Windows 10 or later, Microsoft 'WebView2' Runtime (https://developer.microsoft.com/microsoft-edge/webview2/)
Language: en-US
Materials: README, NEWS
CRAN checks: RDesk results

Documentation:

Reference manual: RDesk.html , RDesk.pdf
Vignettes: AI Coding Assistant (source, R code)
Architecture (source, R code)
Async & Background Tasks in RDesk (source, R code)
Cookbook (source, R code)
Getting Started with RDesk (source, R code)
RDesk IPC Message Contract (source, R code)
High-Performance Asynchronous Processing with mirai (source, R code)
The Long Road to Native R Desktop Apps - and Why RDesk Changes Everything (source, R code)
Coming from Shiny (source, R code)

Downloads:

Package source: RDesk_1.0.7.tar.gz
Windows binaries: r-devel: RDesk_1.0.7.zip, r-release: RDesk_1.0.7.zip, r-oldrel: RDesk_1.0.7.zip
macOS binaries: r-release (arm64): not available, r-oldrel (arm64): not available, r-release (x86_64): not available, r-oldrel (x86_64): not available
Old sources: RDesk archive

Linking:

Please use the canonical form https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=RDesk to link to this page.

These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.