Report Generator Enhancement 3

[donyunardi]

Continuation of #4

Higher-priority issues:

• Improve the Reproducibility Mechanisms and Code Display in Report Output teal.reporter#280
• Solve disk space consumption by bookmarks teal#1188
• [Feature Request]: Allow app dev to supply card function. teal.modules.general#736
• optional reporter in the independent teal modules teal#678 [Feature Request]: Find the way to skip reporter for a single module. teal#847
• [Feature Request]: Globally disable reporter feature teal#871
• [Feature Request]: User-defined templates for reports teal.reporter#271
• https://github.com/insightsengineering/coredev-tasks/issues/545
• Showcase functionality of editor for report previewer teal.reporter#306

Lower-priority issues:

• tm_missing_data reporting issues teal.modules.general#471
• Color scheme for disabled button teal.reporter#187
• Previewer: track order change of cards teal.reporter#35
• What to do about plot dpi? teal.reporter#41
• Reporter: table resizing issue teal.reporter#147
• Size of images in a pdf document teal.reporter#149
• Add test for rendering markdown in report previewer teal.reporter#156
• [Feature Request]: Add "rendering in progress" info teal.reporter#204

[gogonzo]

I wouldn't treat issues individually but rather summarize the requirements, redesign, split onto new issues and refactor. I strongly discourage adding further logic to these classes anymore.

How new reporter should look like:

1. TealReporterCard and TealReporterBlock classes should be deprecated? and replaced with a list containing "reportable" elements.

   Instead of this

   card <- teal::report_card_template(
     title = "Linear Regression Plot",
     label = label,
     with_filter = with_filter,
     filter_panel_api = filter_panel_api
   )
   card$append_text("Plot", "header3")
   card$append_plot(plot_r(), dim = pws$dim())
   card$append_text("Comment", "header3")
   card$append_text(comment)
   card$append_src(source_code_r())

   it should be possible to do this:

   card <- reporter_card() # list of class ReporterCard
   card <- c(
     card,
     "### Plot",
     plot_r(),
     "### Comment",
     comment,
     source_code_r()
   )

   ✔ Modifying above object will be straight forward (removing, appending, reordering). This simplification will be beneficial for app developer [Feature Request]: Allow app dev to supply card function. teal.modules.general#736
   ✔ Such object being a list will be much lighter and will solve Solve disk space consumption by bookmarks teal#1188

2. Rendering, previewing, saving to file of each card/block will be done through S3 methods.

3. Customization of the ui/srv components will be done through overwriting S3 methods -> addressing this [Feature Request]: User-defined templates for reports teal.reporter#271

4. It is a mistake that teal_modules have a reporter in their args and it is not possible to change disable reporter or modify the reporter. All teal_modules-server should return a reactive with report card and one can handle its outputs by wrapping around the module:

   mod <- tm_module(
     ...,
     server = function(id, data) {
       moduleServer(id, function(input, output, session) {
         ...
         reactive(default_report)
       })
     }
   
   )
   
   
   
   new_mod_server <- function(...) {
     moduleServer(id, function(input, output, session) {
       current_report <- mod$server(...)
       reactive({
         c(
             current_report(),
             "# This is a new section",
             "This is a new content"
           )
       }}
     })
   }

   Current	Future

Above way of handling reporter in teal will address insightsengineering/teal.modules.general#736 and insightsengineering/teal#847
5. To control the global options of the reporter I suggest to introduce a init(reporter = <defaultTealReporter>) argument. Thanks to this Reporter can start with some existing card (if app developer specifies) or can be disabled by setting init(reporter = NULL).