fix: move required Shiny app packages from Suggests to Imports

[Gero1999]

Issue

Closes #1207

Description

run_app() fails on a clean install because several packages required by the Shiny app are listed in Suggests instead of Imports. Users must manually install logger, reactable.extras, shinyjqui, and others before the app can start.

This PR reclassifies packages based on a full audit of usage across R/ and inst/shiny/:

Moved from Suggests → Imports (required at app startup, no fallback possible):

• bslib, htmltools, htmlwidgets, logger
• reactable, reactable.extras
• shiny, shinycssloaders, shinyjs, shinyjqui, shinyWidgets
• zip

Removed entirely:

• stringi — only used for random string generation (2 calls). Replaced with base R paste0(sample(c(letters, 0:9), 5, replace = TRUE), collapse = "").

Kept in Suggests (properly guarded with requireNamespace() or dev/test-only):

• File readers: arrow, haven, readxl — guarded in R/readers.R
• Export formats: officer, flextable — guarded in inst/shiny/functions/zip-utils.R
• TLG: rlistings, ggh4x — guarded at point-of-use
• Reporting: quarto — guarded in R/quarto-utils.R
• Dev/test: covr, DT, jsonlite, knitr, lintr, markdown, mockery, nestcolor, pak, rmarkdown, sass, scales, shinytest2, testthat, vdiffr, withr

Other changes:

• check_app_dependencies() now reads the Imports field from DESCRIPTION automatically instead of maintaining a hardcoded list.
• Removed require(stringi) from inst/shiny/app.R.
• Added R/imports-shiny.R with @importFrom directives for packages only used in inst/shiny/ (required by R CMD check).
• Added tryCatch guard to sessionInfo() rendering in the About tab.
• Added data-raw/test_suggests_hidden.R for manual dependency testing.
• Added dependency test step to the PR checklist template.

Definition of Done

• install.packages("aNCA") installs all packages needed for run_app() to work without additional steps.
• Optional features (SAS import, PowerPoint export, etc.) degrade gracefully with informative messages when their packages are missing.

How to test

Use the manual test script in a fresh R session:

source("data-raw/test_suggests_hidden.R")

This hides all Suggests packages, loads the package, and launches run_app(). Verify:

1. The app starts without errors.
2. Core workflow works: upload data → map variables → run NCA → export ZIP.
3. Optional features (SAS import, PowerPoint export, listings) show graceful messages instead of crashing.

After stopping the app, restore packages:

restore_packages()

Contributor checklist

• Code passes lintr checks
• Code passes all unit tests
• New logic covered by unit tests
• New logic is documented
• App or package changes are reflected in NEWS
• Package version is incremented
• R script works with the new implementation (if applicable)
• Settings upload works with the new implementation (if applicable)
• If any .scss change was done, run data-raw/compile_css.R
• If a package dependency was added/changed, run data-raw/test_suggests_hidden.R

Notes to reviewer

This is a dependency classification fix, not a behavior change. The app should function identically — the only difference is that install.packages("aNCA") now pulls in everything needed for run_app().

The stringi replacement uses base R's sample() which is sufficient for generating unique module IDs.

Version bump and NEWS entry still needed before merge.

[js3110]

Hey, looks good. I am getting two additional warning messages when I run with the hidden pacakges:

Warning in FUN(X[[i]], ...) :
  DESCRIPTION file of package 'shinytest2' is missing or broken

Warning message:
In read.dcf(file.path(p, "DESCRIPTION"), c("Package", "Version")) :
  cannot open compressed file '/AppData/Local/R/win-library/4.4/knitr/DESCRIPTION', probable reason 'No such file or directory'

[Gero1999]

Hey, looks good. I am getting two additional warning messages when I run with the hidden pacakges:

Warning in FUN(X[[i]], ...) :
  DESCRIPTION file of package 'shinytest2' is missing or broken

This type of messages are for now expected, should not be a problem in the future

Warning message:
In read.dcf(file.path(p, "DESCRIPTION"), c("Package", "Version")) :
cannot open compressed file '/AppData/Local/R/win-library/4.4/knitr/DESCRIPTION', probable reason 'No such file or directory'

@js3110 This one on the other hand I am not completely clear why it happens to you

[js3110]

ok @Gero1999 , idk either but everyting still works anyway, so I guess the warning messages can be ignored

[js3110]

LGTM :)

[Gero1999]

@billdenney feel free to check this PR if you have time

[Shaakon35]

@Gero1999 It does not work for me, I followed the how to test instructions and downloaded the zip file with all, but it didn't work:

This bug of of downloading a htm file is annoying, we should fix this globally by a try catch...

[Gero1999]

@Shaakon35 Some exportable objects (PPT, session_info) are indeed coming from Suggested packages so they have to be addressed within the ZIP. Hopefully now is fixed

the session_info.txt will still appear for the user, but it will have the error message that indicates that could not be done. I don't want to change it per ce because other branches are already modifying the way it behaves (as it might stop using the logger package)

[bachapman]

Works well for me!