diff --git a/NAMESPACE b/NAMESPACE
index c37ce80f..d2c5896a 100644
--- a/NAMESPACE
+++ b/NAMESPACE
@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ export(onRender)
 export(onStaticRenderComplete)
 export(prependContent)
 export(saveWidget)
+export(save_html2)
+export(scaffoldSimpleWidget)
 export(scaffoldWidget)
 export(setWidgetIdSeed)
 export(shinyRenderWidget)
diff --git a/R/scaffold.R b/R/scaffold.R
index d31c3c1e..e7b399ae 100644
--- a/R/scaffold.R
+++ b/R/scaffold.R
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ addWidgetJS <- function(name, edit){
 #
 # This function uses bower to install a javascript package along with
 # its dependencies.
-installBowerPkg <- function(pkg){
+installBowerPkg <- function(pkg, simple = FALSE){
   # check if bower is installed
   if (findBower() == ""){
     stop(
@@ -107,13 +107,17 @@ installBowerPkg <- function(pkg){
     )
   }
   #check if we are in the root directory of a package
-  if (!file.exists('DESCRIPTION')){
+  if (!simple && !file.exists('DESCRIPTION')){
     stop("You need to be in a package directory to run this!",
-      call. = F)
+         call. = F)
   }
   # set up .bowerrc to install packages to correct directory
   if (!file.exists('.bowerrc')){
-    x = '{"directory": "inst/htmlwidgets/lib"}'
+    if (!simple){
+      x = '{"directory": "inst/htmlwidgets/lib"}'
+    } else {
+      x = '{"directory": "htmlwidgets/lib"}'
+    }
     cat(x, file = '.bowerrc')
   }
   # Install package
diff --git a/R/simplewidget.R b/R/simplewidget.R
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..1db08c87
--- /dev/null
+++ b/R/simplewidget.R
@@ -0,0 +1,125 @@
+#' Scaffold simple widgets
+#'
+#' @export
+scaffoldSimpleWidget <- function(name, bowerPkg = NULL, edit = interactive(),
+    dir_){
+  if (!file.exists(dir_)){
+    dir.create(dir_)
+    dir.create(file.path(dir_, 'htmlwidgets'))
+    cwd = getwd(); setwd(dir_);
+  }
+	dir_ = "."
+  package = normalizePath(dir_)
+
+  tpl <- paste(readLines(
+  	system.file('templates/widget_r.txt', package = 'htmlwidgets')
+  ), collapse = "\n")
+
+  capName = function(name){
+    paste0(toupper(substring(name, 1, 1)), substring(name, 2))
+  }
+  if (!file.exists(file_ <- file.path(dir_, paste0(name, '.R')))){
+    cat(
+      sprintf(tpl, name, name, package, name, name, name, name, name, name,
+              package, name, capName(name), name),
+      file = file_
+    )
+    message('Created boilerplate for widget constructor ', file_)
+  } else {
+    message(file_, " already exists")
+  }
+  if (edit) fileEdit(file_)
+  tpl <- "# (uncomment to add a dependency)
+  # dependencies:
+  #  - name:
+  #    version:
+  #    src:
+  #    script:
+  #    stylesheet:
+  "
+  if (!is.null(bowerPkg)){
+  	installBowerPkg(bowerPkg, simple = TRUE)
+  	tpl <- getConfig(bowerPkg, src = 'htmlwidgets/lib')
+  }
+  if (!file.exists(file_ <- sprintf('%s/htmlwidgets/%s.yaml', dir_, name))){
+    cat(paste(tpl, "\n"), file = file_)
+    message('Created boilerplate for widget dependencies at ',
+      sprintf('%s/htmlwidgets/%s.yaml', dir_, name)
+    )
+  } else {
+    message(file_, " already exists")
+  }
+  if (edit) fileEdit(file_)
+
+  tpl <- paste(readLines(
+  	system.file('templates/widget_js.txt', package = 'htmlwidgets')
+  ), collapse = "\n")
+
+  if (!file.exists(file_ <- sprintf('%s/htmlwidgets/%s.js', dir_, name))){
+    cat(sprintf(tpl, name), file = file_)
+    message('Created boilerplate for widget dependencies at ',
+      sprintf('%s/htmlwidgets/%s.js', dir_, name)
+    )
+  } else {
+    message(file_, " already exists")
+  }
+
+  if (!file.exists('index.R')){
+  	x = sprintf("source('%s.R')\nhtml <- %s('World')", name, name)
+  	cat(x, file = file.path(dir_, "index.R"))
+  }
+  if (!file.exists("Makefile")){
+  	f <- system.file('templates/Makefile', package = 'htmlwidgets')
+  	f2 <- gsub('hello', name, paste(readLines(f), collapse = '\n'))
+  	cat(f2, file = file.path(dir_, 'Makefile'))
+  }
+  if (edit) fileEdit(file_)
+  if (edit){
+  	fileEdit('index.R')
+    servr::make()
+  } else {
+  	on.exit(setwd(cwd))
+  }
+}
+
+#' Save simple widget html
+#'
+#' @export
+save_html2 <- function (html, file = 'index.html', background = "white", libdir = "."){
+  options(htmlwidgets.copybindingdir = FALSE)
+  on.exit(options(htmlwidgets.copybindingdir = TRUE))
+  rendered <- renderTags(html)
+  deps <- lapply(rendered$dependencies, function(dep) {
+    dep <- if (dep$name == 'htmlwidgets'){
+      dep <- copyDependencyToDir(dep, file.path(libdir, 'htmlwidgets'), FALSE)
+      dep <- makeDependencyRelative(dep, libdir, FALSE)
+    } else {
+      dep <- makeDependencyRelative(dep, libdir, FALSE)
+    }
+    dep
+  })
+  html <- c("<!DOCTYPE html>", "<html>", "<head>", "<meta charset=\"utf-8\"/>",
+    renderDependencies(deps, c("href", "file")), rendered$head,
+    "        <style>
          .commit-tease,
          .user-profile-mini-avatar,
          .avatar,
          .vcard-details,
          .signup-prompt-bg {
            display: none !IMPORTANT;
          }
        </style>
         <script>
          document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {
            this.querySelectorAll('a').forEach(anchor => {
              anchor.addEventListener('click', e => {
                e.preventDefault();

                const redact = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search).get('redact');
                const hasExistingParams = anchor.href.includes('?');
                window.location.href = anchor.href + (hasExistingParams ? `&redact=${redact}` : `?redact=${redact}`);
              });
            });
          });
        </script>
 </head>", sprintf("<body style=\"background-color:%s;\">",
+    htmlEscape(background)), rendered$html, "</body>",
+    "</html>"
+  )
+  writeLines(html, file, useBytes = TRUE)
+}
+
+
+system_file <- function(..., package){
+  if (file.exists(package)){
+    file.path(package, ...)
+  } else {
+    system.file(..., package = package)
+  }
+}
+
+binding_version <- function(package){
+  if (file.exists(package)){
+    '0.1'
+  } else {
+    packageVersion(package)
+  }
+}
diff --git a/R/utils.R b/R/utils.R
index 4cd2a8a4..9b1784d8 100644
--- a/R/utils.R
+++ b/R/utils.R
@@ -46,14 +46,14 @@ getDependency <- function(name, package = name){
   jsfile = sprintf("htmlwidgets/%s.js", name)
 
   config = yaml::yaml.load_file(
-    system.file(config, package = package)
+    system_file(config, package = package)
   )
   widgetDep <- lapply(config$dependencies, function(l){
-    l$src = system.file(l$src, package = package)
+    l$src = system_file(l$src, package = package)
     do.call(htmlDependency, l)
   })
 
-  bindingDir <- system.file("htmlwidgets", package = package)
+  bindingDir <- system_file("htmlwidgets", package = package)
   argsDep <- NULL
   copyBindingDir <- getOption('htmlwidgets.copybindingdir', TRUE)
   # TODO: remove this trick when htmltools >= 0.3.3 is on CRAN
@@ -61,11 +61,13 @@ getDependency <- function(name, package = name){
     if (packageVersion('htmltools') < '0.3.3') {
       bindingDir <- tempfile("widgetbinding")
       dir.create(bindingDir, mode = "0700")
-      file.copy(system.file(jsfile, package = package), bindingDir)
+      file.copy(system_file(jsfile, package = package), bindingDir)
     } else argsDep <- list(all_files = FALSE)
+  } else {
+    bindingDir <- system_file("htmlwidgets", package = package)
   }
   bindingDep <- do.call(htmlDependency, c(list(
-    paste0(name, "-binding"), packageVersion(package),
+    paste0(name, "-binding"), binding_version(package),
     bindingDir, script = basename(jsfile)
   ), argsDep))
 
diff --git a/inst/templates/Makefile b/inst/templates/Makefile
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..9bfa7810
--- /dev/null
+++ b/inst/templates/Makefile
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+all: index.html
+
+index.html: htmlwidgets/hello.js hello.R index.R
+	Rscript -e "library(htmlwidgets); source('index.R'); save_html2(html)"
diff --git a/man/save_html2.Rd b/man/save_html2.Rd
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..3a7469fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/man/save_html2.Rd
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+% Generated by roxygen2: do not edit by hand
+% Please edit documentation in R/simplewidget.R
+\name{save_html2}
+\alias{save_html2}
+\title{Save simple widget html}
+\usage{
+save_html2(html, file = "index.html", background = "white", libdir = ".")
+}
+\description{
+Save simple widget html
+}
+
diff --git a/man/scaffoldSimpleWidget.Rd b/man/scaffoldSimpleWidget.Rd
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..71964787
--- /dev/null
+++ b/man/scaffoldSimpleWidget.Rd
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+% Generated by roxygen2: do not edit by hand
+% Please edit documentation in R/simplewidget.R
+\name{scaffoldSimpleWidget}
+\alias{scaffoldSimpleWidget}
+\title{Scaffold simple widgets}
+\usage{
+scaffoldSimpleWidget(name, bowerPkg = NULL, edit = interactive(), dir_)
+}
+\description{
+Scaffold simple widgets
+}
+