How to pass parameters from shiny ui object to a server render object

Question

I'm building a shiny dashboard and am making many plots from the same dataset. Instead of making separate server output$name objects for each series that I select, I would like to have one server object with a variable and then pass a variable to each ui object that indicates which series I want it to display.

ui <- dashboardPage(
    fluidRow(

      column(width = 6,
        box(title = "Net Income", width=NULL,
          dygraphOutput(outputId = "net_income", height = "300px"))
             ),

       column(width = 6,
         box(title = "Accounts Receivable", width=NULL,
            dygraphOutput(outputId = "accounts", height = "300px"))
              )  
) # end ui

Notice the multiple server objects that I'm creating that chooses the series to display from a single object, fcast_data. I'm displaying 10 charts from this dataset, so would have to produce 10 separate server render objects. I would like to create 1 server object with a variable 'series_name' that I could pass from the ui objects to indicate which series I want to display.

server <- function(input, output) { 
  output$net_income <- renderDygraph({ 
    dygraph(fcast_data %>% select(net_income), group = "my_dash")})

  output$accounts_receivable <- renderDygraph({ 
     dygraph(fcast_data %>% select(accounts_receivable), group = "my_dash")})

} # end server

Is there a way that I can make one server object (renderDygraph) that just takes parameters from my ui object (dygraphOutput) to choose different series to display? I know how to do this using selectInputs, but can't figure out how to hard-code variables in the ui object to pass to server.

Pass the column names in your select functions to a selectInput() function in your UI. Then pass the string to a single plot - you may need to convert to select_() given the quotations from the input string. — Ryan Morton
– Ryan Morton, Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 20:30
this might be of interest: shiny.rstudio.com/gallery/creating-a-ui-from-a-loop.html — Tonio Liebrand
– Tonio Liebrand, Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 20:32
@BigDataScientist Yes, this very much interests me :) I think this is likely exactly what I need. I'll play with this. Thanks! — Super_John
– Super_John, Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 20:38
@RyanMorton does the selectInput() object always display in the ui, though? I'll try this and see whether I can use selectInput() without display any kind of ui select element, as I don't want any user input available. — Super_John
– Super_John, Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 20:42
@BigDataScientist OMG, yes. This is totally what I needed. Many thanks!!!! — Super_John
– Super_John, Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 21:14

divibisan · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-03 00:17:58Z

1

For sake of completeness: like I mentioned in the comment, an example can be found here: https://shiny.rstudio.com/gallery/creating-a-ui-from-a-loop.html.

Without being able to test it with the given code, it would be something along the lines of this:

types <- c("net_income", "accounts_receivable")

# server
lapply(1:2, function(nr) {
  output[[paste0("dy_g", nr)]] <- renderDygraph({ 
    dygraph(fcast_data %>% select(get(types[nr])), group = "my_dash")
  })
}

# ui
lapply(1:2, function(nr) {
  column(width = 6,
         box(title = types[nr], width=NULL,
             dygraphOutput(outputId = paste0("dy_g", nr), height = "300px"))
  )
})

edited Aug 3, 2018 at 0:17

divibisan

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answered Aug 2, 2018 at 23:35

Tonio Liebrand

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1 Comment

Super_John Over a year ago

Nailed it. I implemented this yesterday. Solved all my problems. Thanks, again!

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