R/shiny change tab and input on dynamically generated link clicked - r

Question

I am trying to add dynamically generated links to a datatable of variable length. Clicking the link should switch the focus to the details tab. At the same time, the select input should be updated to the car brand that was clicked, so that the information on the details tab is updated. I prepared a minimal example with actionLinks. However, I couldn't figure out how to make the links do what I want.
library(shiny)
library(htmlwidgets)
library(tibble)
library(DT)
ui <- fluidPage(
title = "Examples of DataTables",
sidebarLayout(
sidebarPanel(
selectInput("car", h3("Car"),choices = rownames(mtcars))
),
mainPanel(
tabsetPanel(id = "dataset",
tabPanel("Cars", DT::dataTableOutput("mytable1")),
tabPanel("Details", DT::dataTableOutput("mytable2"))))))
server <- function(input, output) {
shinyInput = function(FUN, len, id, labels, ...) {
inputs = NULL
for (i in seq_len(len)) {
inputs[i] = as.character(FUN(paste0(id, i), label = labels[i], ...))
}
return(inputs)
}
output$mytable1 <- DT::renderDataTable({
cars <- mtcars %>% rownames_to_column() %>% select(rowname, mpg, cyl)
cars$rowname <- shinyInput(actionLink, nrow(cars), "link_", labels = cars$rowname)
DT::datatable(cars, rownames = FALSE, escape = FALSE)
})
output$mytable2 <- DT::renderDataTable(DT::datatable(mtcars[input$car,]))
}
shinyApp(ui, server)
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

I found a solution using the onclick function of the button and JavaScript statements. To open the tab, simulate a click on it and to change the drop down menu use selectize.
shinyInput = function(FUN, len, id, labels, ...) {
inputs = NULL
for (i in seq_len(len)) {
inputs[i] = as.character(FUN(paste0(id, i), label = labels[i],
onclick = paste0('$("#dataset li a")[1].click();$("#car")[0].selectize.setValue("',labels[i],'")')))
}
return(inputs)
}