shinychecklist - Create checklists with shiny

shinychecklist allows you to create a shiny server that hosts a checklist online. The data from the checklist can be stored in the google sheets and can also be downloaded as a pdf file.

Fork information

This package has been originally forked from dan attali's github repository called shinyforms, distributes with MIT license.

How do I use this?

First, install this package from GitHub

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("vivekbhr/shinychecklist")

Then create your list of questions. Each question is a list with an id, type, title, and mandatory (mandatory is FALSE by default)

library(shiny)
library(shinychecklist)

questions <- list(
  list(id = "name", type = "text", title = "Name", mandatory = TRUE),
  list(id = "age", type = "numeric", title = "Age"),
  list(id = "favourite_pkg", type = "text", title = "Favourite R package"),
  list(id = "terms", type = "checkbox", title = "I agree to the terms")
)

Then create your form information, which has an id, the list of questions, and the storage type (where responses get saved).

formInfo <- list(
  id = "basicinfo",
  questions = questions,
  storage = list(
    # Right now, only flat file storage is supported
    type = STORAGE_TYPES$FLATFILE,
    # The path where responses are stored
    path = "responses"
  )
)

That's all the information we need. Now we can add the form to a Shiny app by simply calling formUI() and formServer() from our Shiny apps' UI and server:

ui <- fluidPage(
  formUI(formInfo)
)

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

shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server)

Of course you could put more stuff in the app, but this is the beauty of it, the form is a "module" that you can just plug into any Shiny app anywhere you want. Every time you submit a response, it will be saved as a file in the responses directory. This example is the most basic usage.

Current features

• Responses are saved to local files
• Support for mandatory vs optional fields (all questions with mandatory = TRUE have to be filled out before the submit button can be clicked)
• Can create a form with only one line in the UI and one line in the server
• Can include multiple different forms in the same app
• Clean and user-friendly way to catch and report errors
• Questions and form data are in the format of R lists
• Supported question types: text, numeric, checkbox
• Ability to submit multiple responses for the same form (use multiple = FALSE in the form info list to disallow multiple submissions)
• Admin mode support: if you add ?admin=1 to the URL, you will see buttons for viewing all submitted responses below each form. If you want to see all responses, you'll have to enter a password to verify you're an admin (since anybody can just modify the URL). The password is provided by the password in the form info list.
• Support for more complex input validation that gives nice error messages when a field does not meet certain conditions (use the validations option in the form info)
• Can have an optional "Reset" button that resets the fields in the form (use the reset = TRUE parameter in the form info)
• Questions can have hint text, which is text just below the question title that gives a longer description (use the hint parameter of a question)

Another example

This example is similar to the previous one, but illustrates a few more features. It shows how to have two forms in one app, and how to use the admin viewing ability.

library(shiny)
library(shinychecklist)

# Define the first form: basic information
basicInfoForm <- list(
  id = "basicinfo",
  questions = list(
    list(id = "name", type = "text", title = "Name", mandatory = TRUE,
         hint = "Your name exactly as it is shown on your passport"),
    list(id = "age", type = "numeric", title = "Age", mandatory = FALSE),
    list(id = "favourite_pkg", type = "text", title = "Favourite R package"),
    list(id = "terms", type = "checkbox", title = "I agree to the terms")
  ),
  storage = list(
    type = STORAGE_TYPES$FLATFILE,
    path = "responses"
  ),
  name = "Personal info",
  password = "shinyforms",
  reset = TRUE,
  validations = list(
    list(condition = "nchar(input$name) >= 3",
         message = "Name must be at least 3 characters"),
    list(condition = "input$terms == TRUE",
         message = "You must agree to the terms")
  )
)

# Define the second form: soccer
soccerFormInfo <- list(
  id = "soccerform",
  questions = list(
    list(id = "team", type = "text", title = "Favourite soccer team"),
    list(id = "player", type = "text", title = "Favourite player")
  ),
  storage = list(
    type = STORAGE_TYPES$FLATFILE,
    path = "soccer"
  ),
  multiple = FALSE
)

ui <- fluidPage(
  h1("shinyforms example"),
  tabsetPanel(
    tabPanel(
      "Basic info",
      formUI(basicInfoForm)
    ),
    tabPanel(
      "Soccer",
      formUI(soccerFormInfo)
    )
  )
)

server <- function(input, output, session) {
  formServer(basicInfoForm)
  formServer(soccerFormInfo)
}

shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server)

Notice how easy this is? After defining the forms with R lists, it's literally two function calls for each form to get it set up. A couple things to note: first, the soccer form uses the multiple = FALSE option, which means a user can only submit once (if you restart the Shiny app, the same user is able to submit the form again). Secondly, the first form uses the password option, which means that the admin table will be available IF you add ?admin=1 to the URL. To see the responses from the admin table, click on "Show responses" and type in the password "shinyforms". This app also uses several other features.