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Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

rewind (development version)

  • Password fields are never kept in the history. A passwordInput() sends a plain string, so rewind captured it like any text box: the password was kept in the history, put back in the field by an undo, and shown in plain text by rewind_diff(). The browser now reports which fields are passwords, including fields that renderUI() adds later, and rewind leaves them out, even when inputs names them. A value captured before the report arrives is removed from the history.
  • rewind_diff() shows an empty text box as "". A change from an empty box read -> hello, with nothing before the arrow.
  • The help page of rewind_enable() has a new section on text inputs: slow typing can give several steps, textInput(updateOn = "blur") gives one step for each edit, and Ctrl + Z inside a text box is the browser’s own undo, which rewind then records as a new step.
  • The fallback in rewind.js that waits for Shiny to connect used addEventListener(), which never receives the jQuery event that Shiny triggers. It now uses jQuery. The fallback is not used when Shiny loads first, which is the usual order.

rewind 0.3.0

CRAN release: 2026-09-25

This release goes to CRAN. Version 0.2.1 was released on GitHub only, so an update from 0.2.0 on CRAN brings the changes of 0.2.1 below as well.

  • New rewind_diff(). It shows what changed between two steps, and not only which names changed. [rewind_history()] gives a label such as "region, year"; rewind_diff() gives one row for each value, with the value before, the value after, and a short description such as "North -> South". The old and new columns are list columns, so a value of any type survives, including a date range, a multiple selection or a whole data frame. The result depends on the history, so it works inside render*() and observe().

    It is not an audit trail, and the documents say so. The history is in the memory of one session, it drops the oldest entries when it passes depth, and it drops the steps in front of the position after a change. Write a record for an inspection as each change occurs, and keep it elsewhere.

  • The history rail no longer scrolls the page or the sidebar that holds it. It kept the current step in view with scrollIntoView(), which scrolls every scrollable ancestor of the element and not only the nearest one. In a layout that puts rewind_ui() in a sidebar, every change to the history scrolled that sidebar, so the application appeared to scroll by itself. The rail now sets its own scrollTop, and moves nothing else.

  • Fixed: undo, redo and the rail did nothing when rewind_enable() was called inside a moduleServer(). The browser sends the global input ids rewind_undo, rewind_redo and rewind_jump, but inside a module rewind_enable() watched the namespaced ids. Capture still worked, so the rail filled up, but no button, shortcut or rail click reached the history. rewind_enable() now reads these inputs from the root session.

  • Fixed: the rail showed each time in UTC, and not in the viewer’s time zone. The server now sends the moment, and the browser formats it with its own clock. The format is still HH:MM:SS. The time column of rewind_history() is unchanged.

  • rewind_enable() and rewind_step() now refuse NA, NaN and Inf in coalesce_ms, restore_timeout and hold_ms, with a message that names the argument. NA gave “missing value where TRUE/FALSE needed”. Inf was accepted and then did harm with no message: in coalesce_ms it stopped the history from recording anything. hold_ms was not checked at all before.

  • rewind_diff() now refuses a position that is not a whole number, such as 2.7. It truncated it to 2 before.

rewind 0.2.1

  • rewind_enable() takes a restore_timeout argument, in seconds. It sets how long rewind waits for the browser to finish a restore. The value was fixed at 2 seconds before, which is enough on a fast connection but not always on a slow one. If the limit is too short, capture starts again while the browser is still applying the restore, and a partial state becomes a history entry that the user never made.
  • rewind no longer drops a data frame of the user that has the same four column names as the value of a fileInput(). It now examines the column types as well as the names. Such a value was dropped from the history before, with no message.
  • rewind_buttons() takes a button_class argument. It adds CSS classes to the two buttons. Use it for a Bootstrap variant such as "btn-primary" or "btn-outline-secondary", and for a size such as "btn-sm". The class argument continues to hold classes for the container element only, so there was no way to reach the buttons before.
  • The arrows on the buttons are now SVG. They were the HTML entities ↶ and ↷, which come from the font of the browser and thus have a different weight and size on each system. The SVG arrows use currentColor and a size in em. They thus follow the colour and the size of the button, including with btn-sm, btn-lg, an outline variant and a dark theme.
  • The redo button now says “Redo (Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y)” when the pointer rests on it. It said only “Redo (Ctrl+Shift+Z)” before. Ctrl + Y has always done a redo, but the button did not say so.
  • The description of the shortcuts argument of rewind_enable() now lists the three shortcuts, and says which one belongs to which system.
  • The demo application now names the redo shortcut in its hint.

rewind 0.2.0

CRAN release: 2026-08-21

  • rewind_disable() stops undo and redo for a session completely. It destroys each observer that rewind_enable() made. It also clears the buttons and the rail in the browser. Use rewind_pause() and rewind_resume() to stop capture for a short time. Use rewind_disable() to stop it for the rest of the session.
  • rewind no longer captures fileInput(). Its value points to a temporary file on the server. Shiny deletes that file at the next upload. An old snapshot would thus point to a file that does not exist.
  • Fixed: a call to rewind_pause() before the first reactive flush stopped capture for the rest of the session. A later rewind_resume() did not start it again. This occurred, for example, with a call to rewind_pause() immediately after rewind_enable(), before any input changed.
  • rewind_buttons(undo_label = NULL, redo_label = NULL) now sets aria-label on the buttons. A button with an icon and no text thus has a correct accessible name.
  • rewind_enable() inside a moduleServer() now has tests. The documents said “untested” before.

rewind 0.1.0

First release.

  • rewind_enable() captures the session inputs into an undo and redo history. It groups the changes by time. One movement of a slider is thus one step, and not forty steps.
  • rewind_track() adds the reactiveValues on the server to the history.
  • rewind_step() puts several changes into one entry with a label.
  • rewind_buttons() and rewind_ui() give ready-made undo and redo controls, and a scrubbable history rail.
  • Keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl/Cmd + Z, Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + Z, and Ctrl + Y. They do nothing while the user types in a text field.
  • A restore uses the Shiny binding of each input. It does not use a fixed update*Input() table. Inputs from other packages thus operate with no extra code.