Welcome back to PHW251B! Today we’re covering dashboards with
RMarkdown and flexdashboard. The layout of this module is a
bit different than what we’re normally used to, because this is a
ready-to-knit dashboard! I recommend working through each step of the
code to see what it does and then under Knit select “Knit to
flex_dashboard”.
This example is based on the assigned chapter from the Epidemiologist R Handbook, which can be found here: https://epirhandbook.com/en/dashboards-with-r-markdown.html
Note the different arguments in lines 1-8 at the top of this RMD, which specify that the output when you knit this document will be a flex_dashboard organized in columns. In a flexdashboard RMD, the hashes (#) we have previously used to create HTML headers now dictate different parts of the dashboard:
# Creates a new page
## Creates a column or a row (columns/rows are determined by line 6!) These can take an additional argument for width, as seen in this document.
### Creates a subsection within that column or row
The line above will create a subsection within the first column. Now we just need to decide what to put in it. In keeping with our recent weeks on GIS, let’s put a map!
This line above creates the first subsection within the second column. Let’s put a chart here:
Here is another subsection for the second column! We can add whatever content we desire for our dashboard: in this case, a table summarizing the number of cases by hospital.
| Hospital | Cases |
|---|---|
| Port Hospital | 1762 |
| Missing | 1469 |
| Military Hospital | 896 |
| Other | 885 |
| Central Hospital | 454 |
| St. Mark’s Maternity Hospital (SMMH) | 422 |
The line above adds a second page under a new tab! Let’s visualize the dataset as an interactive table for viewers to explore:
And that’s the end of this module – in essence, it’s just a new way to organize and use an RMD to output a different product. And there are many more customizations and additional arguments that can further enhance your dashboard product, so be sure to take a look at the assigned chapter to learn about the possibilities! The final step is to click “Knit to flex_dashboard”. This will give you an HTML document that you can share with others.