ZHAW Shiny dashboard template

This repository provides a structured template for building institutional Shiny dashboards with consistent layout, branding, and legal footer.

UI stands for User Interface. A Shiny application usually consists of two main components: a ui object and a server function.

• The UI defines what the user sees (layout, inputs, outputs).
• The server defines how the application behaves (reactivity, data processing, rendering).

If you are new to Shiny, see the official Shiny getting started tutorial to learn the basics.

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Quickstart

1. Clone or copy this repository.
2. Open config.yml and set your title, brand, and legal notice.
3. Open dashboard_ui.R and add your UI elements inside dashboard_ui().
4. Open dashboard_server.R and add your server logic inside dashboard_server().
5. Run the app:

shiny::runApp()

That's it. You do not need to touch any other file.

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File structure

app.R                       # Application entry point (do not modify)
template/
  layout.R               # Layout helpers (do not modify)

dashboard_ui.R              # Edit this – dashboard UI content
dashboard_server.R          # Edit this – dashboard server logic

config.yml                  # Branding and legal configuration
write_manifest.R            # Run once before deploying to Posit Connect
www/
  style.css                 # Styling
  logo-standard.png
  logo-black.png

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What you should edit

Dashboard UI

Edit dashboard_ui.R and define:

dashboard_ui <- function() {
  tagList(
    # your UI components here
  )
}

Dashboard server logic

Edit dashboard_server.R and define:

dashboard_server <- function(input, output, session) {
  # your server logic here
}

Data

Load static datasets at the top of dashboard_server.R, above the dashboard_server() function. Use reactive() only if data must update during runtime.

Branding and legal notice

Edit config.yml:

title: "Dashboard title"
brand: "standard"   # or "black"

legal_notice:
  - "Institution"
  - "Department"
  - "Contact"

• brand controls the logo and footer color.
• legal_notice items are displayed in the footer separated by dots.
• partner_logos should be prepared in 1500 x 850 px (about 1.76:1), and the template scales them into a consistent display frame.

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Multilingual support (optional)

The template ships with English/German support via shiny.i18n. You don't need to use it — if you only need one language, just write plain strings.

To make a string translatable:

1. Add a row to www/i18n/translation.json:

{"en": "My label", "de": "Meine Beschriftung"}

2. Wrap the string with tr() in dashboard_ui.R:

p(tr("My label"))

tr() is available inside dashboard_ui() — it translates when a language is selected and falls back to the raw string otherwise.

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Do not edit

• app.R
• template/layout.R

These files define the structural template and should remain unchanged.

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Run the app

In R:

shiny::runApp()

Or open app.R in RStudio and click Run App.