My shiny app has a sliderInput, but want to replace values as character labels. How could I implement it? Thanks for any suggestions.

This is my example code:

library(shiny)
values <- as.factor(c('Label 1', 'Label 3', 'Label 3'))
ui <- shinyUI(bootstrapPage(
    headerPanel("test"),
    sliderInput("foo", "Animation duration", 
                min = 1,
                max = length(values), 
                value = values)
))

server <- shinyServer(function(input, output, session) {
})

shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server)

My shiny app has a sliderInput, but want to replace values as character labels. How could I implement it? Thanks for any suggestions.

This is my example code:

library(shiny)
values <- as.factor(c('Label 1', 'Label 3', 'Label 3'))
ui <- shinyUI(bootstrapPage(
    headerPanel("test"),
    sliderInput("foo", "Animation duration", 
                min = 1,
                max = length(values), 
                value = values)
))

server <- shinyServer(function(input, output, session) {
})

shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server)

• javascript
• r
• slider
• shiny

• What is the second line doing? Converting character vectors to dates? That does not work. – Gopala Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 1:56
• @Gopala. Sorry I have fixed the wrong codes – Bangyou Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 1:57
• If you are really trying to use categorical inputs, you should use selectInput (drop down) or radio buttons. Slider input is really for numeric values, and trying to fit character labels is not the way it is designed to work. – Gopala Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 2:04
• I understand selectInput is another option, but prefer to use sliderInput in this case. IonRangeSlider, shiny used, can show character in slider. So I think we can do the same thing in shiny, but just not sure how to implement it (May need to write some js script). – Bangyou Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 2:08
• 2 See my answer here: stackoverflow./questions/30502870/… . Basically change the .update({'values':vals}) to the array of values you want. I just tried changing vals to ['one', 'two', 'three', 'four' ,'five'] and it worked. – DeanAttali Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 7:48

2 Answers 2

This can be easily done using sliderTextInput function in shiny. No need to add all this plex js function. Just a few lines of code will do the trick.Install the shinywidgets package which contains the sliderTextInput function. Do the following :

  sliderTextInput("foo","Animation Duration" , 
                  choices = c("Label 1", "Label 3", "Label 3"), 
                  selected = c("Label 1", "Label 3", "Label 3"), #incase you want all values by default 
                  animate = FALSE, grid = FALSE, 
                  hide_min_max = FALSE, from_fixed = FALSE,
                  to_fixed = FALSE, from_min = NULL, from_max = NULL, to_min = NULL,
                  to_max = NULL, force_edges = FALSE, width = NULL, pre = NULL,
                  post = NULL, dragRange = TRUE)

Thanks @daattli for pointing me the right direction and letting me know how to use js to change the shiny element.

I have implemented a solution to change labels of sliderInput and a selectInput to switch different values (and length). I think this feature should be implemented into shiny which uses ionRangeSlider.

Please improve my codes if you think there is a better way to implement it, as it is my first js script.

library(shiny)
values <- list(A = c('A1', 'A2', 'A3'),
               B = c('B1', 'B2', 'B3', 'B4'))

ui <- shinyUI(bootstrapPage(
    selectInput('selection', 'selection', c('A',  'B'), 'A'),
    uiOutput('selectUI'),
    sliderInput(inputId = "target", label = "Target",
                min = 0, max = length(values$A) - 1,
                step = 1,
                value = length(values$A) - 1),
    verbatimTextOutput('summary')
))

server <- shinyServer(function(input, output, session) {
    output$summary <- renderPrint({
        print(input$target)
        print(values[[input$selection]][input$target + 1])
    })
    output$selectUI <- renderUI({

        sel_values <- paste(paste0('"', values[[input$selection]], '"'), collapse = ',')
        print(sel_values)
        list(
            (HTML(
                sprintf('
                        <script type="text/javascript">
                        $(document).ready(function() {
                        var vals = [%s];
                        $(\'#target\').data(\'ionRangeSlider\').update(
                        {values:vals,
                        min: 0,
                        max: %s,
                        from:%s})
                        })
                        </script>
                        ', sel_values, 
                        length(values[[input$selection]]) - 1,
                        length(values[[input$selection]]) - 1)))
        )}
    )}
)

shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server)