rshiny

Outputting multiple lines of text with renderText() in R shiny


I want to output multiple lines of text using one renderText() command. However, this does not seem possible. For example, from the shiny tutorial we have truncated code in server.R:

shinyServer(
  function(input, output) {
    output$text1 <- renderText({paste("You have selected", input$var)
    output$text2 <- renderText({paste("You have chosen a range that goes from",
      input$range[1], "to", input$range[2])})
  }
)

and code in ui.R:

shinyUI(pageWithSidebar(

  mainPanel(textOutput("text1"),
            textOutput("text2"))
))

which essentially prints two lines:

You have selected example
You have chosen a range that goes from example range.

Is it possible to combine the two lines output$text1 and output$text2 into one block of code? My efforts so far have failed, e.g.

output$text = renderText({paste("You have selected ", input$var, "\n", "You have chosen a range that goes from", input$range[1], "to", input$range[2])})

Anyone have any ideas?


Solution

  • You can use renderUI and htmlOutput instead of renderText and textOutput.

    require(shiny)
    runApp(list(ui = pageWithSidebar(
      headerPanel("censusVis"),
      sidebarPanel(
        helpText("Create demographic maps with 
          information from the 2010 US Census."),
        selectInput("var", 
                    label = "Choose a variable to display",
                    choices = c("Percent White", "Percent Black",
                                "Percent Hispanic", "Percent Asian"),
                    selected = "Percent White"),
        sliderInput("range", 
                    label = "Range of interest:",
                    min = 0, max = 100, value = c(0, 100))
      ),
      mainPanel(textOutput("text1"),
                textOutput("text2"),
                htmlOutput("text")
      )
    ),
    server = function(input, output) {
      output$text1 <- renderText({paste("You have selected", input$var)})
      output$text2 <- renderText({paste("You have chosen a range that goes from",
                                        input$range[1], "to", input$range[2])})
      output$text <- renderUI({
        str1 <- paste("You have selected", input$var)
        str2 <- paste("You have chosen a range that goes from",
                      input$range[1], "to", input$range[2])
        HTML(paste(str1, str2, sep = '<br/>'))
    
      })
    }
    )
    )
    

    Note you need to use <br/> as a line break. Also the text you wish to display needs to be HTML escaped so use the HTML function.