esq.handsontable

A powerful, reusable Handsontable wrapper for R Shiny applications. This package provides interactive data tables with dropdowns, multi-select, validation, conditional cell disabling, and more.

Features

• Text columns - Standard text input
• Numeric columns - Number input with validation
• Checkbox columns - Boolean checkbox cells
• Dropdown columns - Single-select dropdown with validation
• Multi-select columns - Multi-select dropdown with optional sorting
• Conditional cell disabling - Disable cells based on other cell values
• Validation - Visual feedback when dropdown values are invalid
• Context menu - Right-click to add/remove rows
• Action buttons - Add/delete buttons in each row
• Column tooltips - Helpful descriptions on column headers

Installation

# Install from GitHub using pak (recommended)
pak::pak("esqLABS/esq.handsontable")

# Or using remotes
remotes::install_github("esqLABS/esq.handsontable")

Quick Start

library(shiny)
library(esq.handsontable)

ui <- fluidPage(
  esq_tableInput("myTable",
    data = data.frame(
      name = c("Item 1", "Item 2"),
      category = c("A", "B"),
      active = c(TRUE, FALSE)
    ),
    columns = list(
      list(name = "name", type = "text"),
      list(name = "category", type = "dropdown", source = c("A", "B", "C")),
      list(name = "active", type = "checkbox")
    )
  )
)

server <- function(input, output, session) {
  observeEvent(input$myTable_edited, {
    data <- jsonlite::fromJSON(input$myTable_edited)
    print(data)
  })
}

shinyApp(ui, server)

Column Configuration

Each column is configured as a list with the following options:

Option	Type	Description
name	string	Column name (required)
type	string	Column type: "text", "numeric", "checkbox", "dropdown", "multiselect"
source	vector	Options for dropdown/multiselect columns
sortable	boolean	Enable drag-and-drop sorting for multiselect (default: FALSE)
validate	boolean	Validate dropdown values (default: TRUE)
readOnly	boolean	Make column read-only (default: FALSE)
width	number	Column width in pixels

Example: Multi-select with Sorting

list(
  name = "tags",
  type = "multiselect",
  source = c("Tag1", "Tag2", "Tag3"),
  sortable = TRUE
)

Conditional Cell Properties

Use cell_conditions to dynamically change cell properties based on other cells:

esq_tableInput("myTable",
  data = myData,
  columns = list(
    list(name = "dataType", type = "dropdown", source = c("Simulated", "Observed")),
    list(name = "scenario", type = "dropdown", source = scenarios),
    list(name = "dataSet", type = "dropdown", source = datasets)
  ),
  cell_conditions = list(
    # Disable scenario when dataType is "Observed"
    list(
      column = "scenario",
      when_column = "dataType",
      when_value = "Observed",
      readOnly = TRUE
    ),
    # Disable dataSet when dataType is "Simulated"
    list(
      column = "dataSet",
      when_column = "dataType",
      when_value = "Simulated",
      readOnly = TRUE
    )
  )
)

Column Descriptions (Tooltips)

Add helpful tooltips to column headers:

esq_tableInput("myTable",
  data = myData,
  columns = columns,
  column_descriptions = list(
    name = "The item's display name",
    category = "Category for grouping items",
    active = "Whether the item is currently active"
  )
)

Updating Options Dynamically

Use updateEsqTable to update dropdown options at runtime:

server <- function(input, output, session) {
  observeEvent(input$refreshCategories, {
    updateEsqTable(session, "myTable",
      options = list(
        categories = c("New A", "New B", "New C")
      )
    )
  })
}

License

MIT License

Credits

Built with:

• Handsontable - Excel-like data grid
• React - UI library
• Material-UI - UI components
• reactR - React bindings for R