I have a function from a package that runs a series of other functions within it. I would love to show each of those functions as a separate Progressbar as they are run. Is this possible?
I have used withProgress but this only shows the 'outer' function and doesn't show me the progress of the functions that run within it.
Welcome to SO, next time try to provide a minimal example. I'm using the 'Progress indicator' article provided by Rstudio as a base to answer you.
If I understood correctly, you are having trouble using withProgress with nested functions. You can use withProgress inside these functions:
library(shiny) fun2 <- function(i,n,dat) { dat <- rbind(dat, data.frame(x = rnorm(1), y = rnorm(1))) incProgress(1/n, detail = paste("Doing part", i)) Sys.sleep(0.1) return(dat) } fun1 <- function(n) { dat <- data.frame(x = numeric(0), y = numeric(0)) for (i in 1:n) { dat <- fun2(i,n,dat) } return(dat) } server <- function(input, output) { output$plot <- renderPlot({ input$goPlot # Re-run when button is clicked withProgress(message = 'Making plot', value = 0, { n <- 10 dat <- fun1(n) }) plot(dat$x, dat$y) }) } ui <- shinyUI(basicPage( plotOutput('plot', width = "300px", height = "300px"), actionButton('goPlot', 'Go plot') )) shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server) Another solution would be using global variables (just remember to be careful when using global variables).
library(shiny) nprogress <- 10 iprogress <- 0 fun2 <- function(dat) { dat <- rbind(dat, data.frame(x = rnorm(1), y = rnorm(1))) incProgress(1/nprogress, detail = paste("Doing part", iprogress)) Sys.sleep(0.1) return(dat) } fun1 <- function(n) { dat <- data.frame(x = numeric(0), y = numeric(0)) for (i in 1:n) { iprogress <<- i dat <- fun2(dat) } return(dat) } server <- function(input, output) { output$plot <- renderPlot({ input$goPlot # Re-run when button is clicked withProgress(message = 'Making plot', value = 0, { n <- 10 nprogress <<- n dat <- fun1(n) }) plot(dat$x, dat$y) }) } ui <- shinyUI(basicPage( plotOutput('plot', width = "300px", height = "300px"), actionButton('goPlot', 'Go plot') )) shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server) 
reactiveValues. They may be a better solution than global variables.