sdstudio

sdstudio is a companion package for building, previewing, and managing surveys built using the surveydown survey platform through a Graphical User Interface (GUI). The studio runs as a local Shiny web app and makes it easier to create, preview, and manage surveys without extensive programming knowledge.

Intro Video

Installation

Installing sdstudio:

# Option 1: install from CRAN
install.packages("sdstudio")

# Option 2: install from GitHub
pak::pak("surveydown-dev/sdstudio", ask = FALSE)

Make sure to install surveydown as well:

# Option 1: install from CRAN
install.packages("surveydown")

# Option 2: install from GitHub
pak::pak("surveydown-dev/surveydown", ask = FALSE)

Launch

Simply call the launch() function to start the studio:

sdstudio::launch()

Features

🏗️ Build Tab - Visual Survey Creation

• Drag-and-drop interface for intuitive survey construction
• 16 survey templates covering basic to advanced use cases
• Dual-pane editor with visual builder and code editor
• Real-time synchronization between visual interface and underlying code
• Undo/redo functionality for all editing operations
• Local/DB mode switching for local testing and database connection workflows

👁️ Preview Tab - Live Survey Testing

• Real-time preview of your survey as you build
• Responsive preview modes: Desktop (widescreen) and Mobile (375px) views

📊 Responses Tab - Data Management & Analytics

• Real-time analytics dashboard showing summaries of responses and local interactive data table
• PostgreSQL database integration with connection pooling
• GSSAPI encryption support with automatic fallback options
• CSV export functionality for data analysis

Online Deployment 🌐

sdstudio now supports online deployment using Supabase Storage! Deploy your survey studio to the cloud and work from anywhere.

Key Features:

• ☁️ Cloud storage - Store surveys in Supabase Storage
• 🔄 Auto-sync - Changes automatically saved every 10 seconds
• ⬇️ Download - Export surveys as ZIP files
• ⬆️ Upload - Migrate local surveys to cloud
• 🔒 Secure - Private buckets with optional user authentication

Quick Start:

1. Create a free Supabase account
2. Set up a storage bucket (see DEPLOYMENT.md)
3. Configure environment variables
4. Deploy to shinyapps.io, Posit Connect, or Shiny Server

For detailed instructions, see the Online Deployment Guide.

Templates

We currently have 16 templates to choose from. The default template contains a minimum basic structure for a clean start. You might also try the question_type template for a showcase of all question types, or try some advanced features with conditional_display, conditional_navigation, etc. For a full list of templates, go to the surveydown-dev GitHub site and search for any repo starting with “template_”.

Database Configuration

The studio supports flexible database connection modes:

# Auto mode (recommended) - tries GSSAPI first, falls back if needed
launch()

# Prefer mode - uses GSSAPI if available, plain connection if not  
launch(gssencmode = "prefer")

# Disable mode - forces plain connection (useful for VPN environments)
launch(gssencmode = "disable")