Get started

Open it in the browser, or install R and run it on your own computer

There are two ways to use MetaVidence, and both do exactly the same maths. Start with the browser, which asks you to install nothing. If you are going to use it often, the R route is worth it: it opens much faster and works without an internet connection.

In the browser

1. Open the site

Go to metavidence.com. No account to create, nothing to install, no file sent to any server.

2. Wait for the first load

On the first visit you get a screen with the word Loading and a bar. The browser is downloading R and the statistical packages compiled to run inside it. That takes a few minutes on an ordinary connection.

While you wait, you can use the two links on that screen. They open in another tab and do not interrupt the loading.

From the second visit on, the browser already has the files stored and starts much faster.

3. Follow the flow

With the app open, follow the three-step flow: it shows how to pick the module, load the data, set the parameters and export the results.

In R, on your own computer

Worth it if you are going to use it a lot: it opens in seconds instead of minutes, runs offline once installed, and handles larger datasets more comfortably.

You will install three things, in this order: R, RStudio and the metavidence package.

1. Install R

R is the language that does the maths. RStudio on its own does nothing without it, which is why R comes first.

  1. Go to cran.r-project.org.
  2. Click the link for your system: Download R for Windows, Download R for macOS or Download R for Linux.
  3. On Windows, click base and then Download R for Windows. On macOS, pick the .pkg file that matches your processor: the arm64 one for Macs with an Apple chip (M1 onwards) and the other one for Intel Macs.
  4. Open the downloaded file and follow the installer, accepting the defaults.

MetaVidence needs R 4.1 or newer. Any version downloaded from CRAN today qualifies.

2. Install RStudio

RStudio is the window through which you use R. You can live without it, but it makes everything simpler.

  1. Go to posit.co/download/rstudio-desktop.
  2. Download the free version, RStudio Desktop, for your system.
  3. Open the file and follow the installer.

3. Open RStudio and find the Console

Open RStudio. The window is split into panes; the one that matters now is the Console, usually at the bottom left, with a blinking >.

That is where you paste the commands in the next steps. Paste the line and press Enter.

4. Install the package

MetaVidence has been submitted to CRAN. Until it is accepted, install it from the source repository. Paste these two lines into the Console, one at a time, pressing Enter after each:

install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("ValbertOCF/MetaVidence", subdir = "pkg")

The first line installs the helper that can install from GitHub. The second downloads MetaVidence and the packages it depends on, among them meta, metafor, netmeta, mada and shiny. That is a lot of files, so the first installation takes a few minutes. Let it run until the > comes back on its own in the Console.

Once MetaVidence is on CRAN, this becomes a single line, install.packages("metavidence"), and this page will say so.

If R asks something like “Do you want to install from sources the package which needs compilation?”, answer no and press Enter. The prebuilt version is enough and installs far faster.

5. Run MetaVidence

Once the installation finishes, paste:

metavidence::run_app()

MetaVidence opens in an RStudio window or in your browser, looking exactly like the online version. From here on it is the same three-step flow.

The Console stays busy while the app runs

That is normal: R is serving the application. To get the Console back, close the MetaVidence window or click the stop symbol (the red square) in the corner of the Console.

6. Next times

You install only once. After that, open RStudio and run just:

metavidence::run_app()

To update when a new version comes out, repeat the command from step 4.

If something goes wrong

The install command returns an error saying the package is not available. Check that the line was pasted whole, including the quotes. If it is correct, your R may be too old: run R.version.string in the Console and confirm it is 4.1 or higher.

The installation stops partway, on one of the packages MetaVidence depends on. Run install.packages("package_name") for that package alone, read its error message, then repeat the command from step 4.

run_app() says it could not find the application directory. Install again with the command from step 4.

Nothing opens when you run run_app(). Force the browser with:

metavidence::run_app(launch.browser = TRUE)