Shiny not displaying my ggplot as I'd expect

Question

What's keeping my little Shiny app from displaying my ggplot? When I replace the code in renderPlot() with an example using the base plot function it comes together. I'm using RStudio, R v3.0.1 on Windows Vista, outputting to a Chrome browser.

ui.r

library(ggplot2)

cities <- c("Anchorage","Fairbanks","Juenau","Wasilla","Homer")
years <- 2003:2013
Table <- "Capital Assets"
Account <- c("Land", "Art", "Buildings", "Equipment")
dat <- data.frame(City = sort(rep(cities, length(years))), Year = rep(years,length(cities)), Table)
sampleDat <- rbind(data.frame(dat,Acount = Account[1]), data.frame(dat, Acount = Account[2]), data.frame(dat, Acount = Account[3]), data.frame(dat, Acount = Account[4]))
finalDat <- data.frame(sampleDat, Value = runif(length(sampleDat[,1]), 1000,10000) )

shinyUI(pageWithSidebar(

  headerPanel("CAFR Explorer"),

  selectInput("city","City", as.list(levels(finalDat$City)), selected = NULL, multiple = FALSE),

  mainPanel(
    h3(textOutput("caption")),

    plotOutput("CAFRplot")
)))   

server.r

library(shiny)
library(ggplot2)

cities <- c("Anchorage","Fairbanks","Juenau","Wasilla","Homer")
years <- 2003:2013
Table <- "Capital Assets"
Account <- c("Land", "Art", "Buildings", "Equipment")
dat <- data.frame(City = sort(rep(cities, length(years))), Year = rep(years,length(cities)), Table)
sampleDat <- rbind(data.frame(dat,Acount = Account[1]), data.frame(dat, Acount = Account[2]), data.frame(dat, Acount = Account[3]), data.frame(dat, Acount = Account[4]))
finalDat <- data.frame(sampleDat, Value = runif(length(sampleDat[,1]), 1000,10000) )

shinyServer(function(input, output) {

  formulaText <- reactive({
    paste(input$city)
  })

  output$caption <- renderText({
    formulaText()
  })

  output$CAFRplot <- renderPlot({

    ## this one isn't working.
    ggplot(finalDat, aes(x = finalDat[which(finalDat$City == input$city),2], 
                         y = finalDat[which(finalDat$City == input$city),5])) +
    geom_point()

    ## this one is working
    #plot(finalDat[which(finalDat$City == input$city),2], y = finalDat[which(finalDat$City == input$city),5])


  })
})

Answer 1

There are two issues here.

First, you shouldn't subset in aes -- it expects column names. Instead, subset the data.frame that you provide to ggplot (thanks to @Roland from R chat)

Second, you must explicitly print your ggplot object in your shiny app.

Try this:

p <- ggplot(finalDat[finalDat$City == input$city,], aes(x = Year, y = Value))
p <- p + geom_point()
print(p)

Answer 2

Your code needed a couple of changes to get ggplot to render. As the comments above state, print(ggplot) was needed. But also, aes inside ggplot can't deal with subsetting.

So you subset your city of interest in a separate reactive, and call that from ggplot.

city.df <- reactive({
    subset(finalDat, City == input$city)
  })  

  output$CAFRplot <- renderPlot({
    city <- city.df()

    print(ggplot(city, aes(x = Year, y=Value)) + geom_point())

The full server.R (this works)

library(shiny)
library(ggplot2)

cities <- c("Anchorage","Fairbanks","Juenau","Wasilla","Homer")
years <- 2003:2013
Table <- "Capital Assets"
Account <- c("Land", "Art", "Buildings", "Equipment")
dat <- data.frame(City = sort(rep(cities, length(years))), Year = rep(years,length(cities)), Table)
sampleDat <- rbind(data.frame(dat,Acount = Account[1]), data.frame(dat, Acount = Account[2]), data.frame(dat, Acount = Account[3]), data.frame(dat, Acount = Account[4]))
finalDat <- data.frame(sampleDat, Value = runif(length(sampleDat[,1]), 1000,10000) )

shinyServer(function(input, output) {

  formulaText <- reactive({
    paste(input$city)
  })

  output$caption <- renderText({
    formulaText()
  })

  city.df <- reactive({
    subset(finalDat, City == input$city)
  })  

  output$CAFRplot <- renderPlot({
    city <- city.df()
    ## this one isn't working.
#    print(ggplot(finalDat, aes(x = finalDat[which(finalDat$City == input$city),2], 
#                         y = finalDat[which(finalDat$City == input$city),5])) +  geom_point())

    print(ggplot(city, aes(x = Year, y=Value)) + geom_point())

    ## this one is working
    #plot(finalDat[which(finalDat$City == input$city),2], y = finalDat[which(finalDat$City == input$city),5])


  })
})

Answer 3

In ggplot2 you can subset the overall data being passed to all layers (@GSee's answer) or, for indivdual layers you can use the subset argument to subset just for that layer. This may be useful if you are constructing more complex plots.

Using the plyr function . is useful here for constructing the arguments

# required in server.R (along with the other calls to library)
library(plyr)

 p <- ggplot(finalDat, aes(y =Year, x = Value)) + 
        geom_point(subset = .(City ==input$city))
 print(p)