Observers and Outputs

observeEvent() is used for:

• Saving a file to a shared network drive
• Sending data to a web API
• Updating a database
• Printing a debugging message to the console

The value returned by an observer is ignored because they are designed to work with functions called for their side-effects

In the other side, Outputs:

• Running output$text <- ... creates the observer.
• They can detect when they’re not visible so they don’t have to recompute