Animated Glass-Style Tabs and Multi-Select Filter for 'Shiny'.

glasstabs

Animated glass-morphism tab navigation and multi-select filter widgets for R Shiny

Overview

glasstabs provides animated Shiny widgets built around a glass-morphism aesthetic:

• glassTabsUI() — an animated tab bar with a sliding glass halo that follows the active tab
• glassMultiSelect() — a multi-select dropdown with three selection styles, live search, tag-pill syncing, and server-side update support
• glassSelect() — an animated single-select dropdown with optional search, clear support, theming, selection styles, and server-side update support

All widgets are self-contained, fully themeable, and work in plain fluidPage(), bs4DashPage(), or any other Shiny page wrapper.

Full documentation:https://prigasg.github.io/glasstabs/

Installation

# From CRAN
install.packages("glasstabs")

# From GitHub (development version)
pak::pak("prigasG/glasstabs")
# or
devtools::install_github("prigasG/glasstabs")

Quick start

library(shiny)
library(glasstabs)

ui <- fluidPage(
  useGlassTabs(),
  glassTabsUI(
    "main",
    glassTabPanel(
      "t1", "Overview", selected = TRUE,
      h3("Overview"),
      p("Content here."),
      glassFilterTags("cat")
    ),
    glassTabPanel(
      "t2", "Details",
      h3("Details"),
      p("More content."),
      glassFilterTags("cat")
    ),
    extra_ui = glassMultiSelect(
      "cat",
      c(A = "a", B = "b", C = "c"),
      show_style_switcher = FALSE
    )
  ),
  verbatimTextOutput("info")
)

server <- function(input, output, session) {
  tabs <- glassTabsServer("main")
  filt <- glassMultiSelectValue(input, "cat")

  output$info <- renderPrint({
    list(
      active_tab = tabs(),
      selected = filt$selected(),
      style = filt$style()
    )
  })
}

if (interactive()) shinyApp(ui, server)

Note:useGlassTabs() must be called once somewhere in the UI before any glassTabsUI() or glassMultiSelect() call. It injects the shared CSS and JavaScript as a properly deduplicated htmltools dependency.

Function reference

Setup

Tab widget

Select widgets

Shiny inputs

conditionalPanel integration

Use glassTabCondition() to avoid constructing the input key manually:

# Instead of: condition = "input['main-active_tab'] === 'details'"
conditionalPanel(
  condition = glassTabCondition("main", "details"),
  p("Only visible on the Details tab.")
)

# Inside a module — pass the same id as glassTabsUI():
# glassTabsUI(ns("tabs"), ...)
# conditionalPanel(condition = glassTabCondition(ns("tabs"), "details"), ...)

Multi-select example

library(shiny)
library(glasstabs)

choices <- c(
  Apple  = "apple",
  Banana = "banana",
  Cherry = "cherry"
)

ui <- fluidPage(
  useGlassTabs(),
  glassMultiSelect("fruit", choices),
  glassFilterTags("fruit"),
  verbatimTextOutput("out")
)

server <- function(input, output, session) {
  output$out <- renderPrint(input$fruit)
}

if (interactive()) shinyApp(ui, server)

Note: By default, glassMultiSelect() starts with all choices selected.

Server-side updates

server <- function(input, output, session) {
  observeEvent(input$clear, {
    updateGlassMultiSelect(
      session,
      "fruit",
      selected = character(0)
    )
  })

  observeEvent(input$fill_style, {
    updateGlassMultiSelect(
      session,
      "fruit",
      check_style = "filled"
    )
  })
}

Single-select example

library(shiny)
library(glasstabs)

choices <- c(
  North = "north",
  South = "south",
  East  = "east",
  West  = "west"
)

ui <- fluidPage(
  useGlassTabs(),
  glassSelect(
    "region",
    choices,
    clearable = TRUE,
    check_style = "checkbox",
    theme = "light"
  ),
  verbatimTextOutput("out")
)

server <- function(input, output, session) {
  output$out <- renderPrint(input$region)
}

if (interactive()) shinyApp(ui, server)

Server-side updates

server <- function(input, output, session) {
  observeEvent(input$pick_south, {
    updateGlassSelect(
      session,
      "region",
      selected = "south"
    )
  })

  observeEvent(input$clear_region, {
    updateGlassSelect(
      session,
      "region",
      selected = character(0)
    )
  })
  
  observeEvent(input$fill_region, {
  updateGlassSelect(
    session,
    "region",
    check_style = "filled"
  )
})
}

Theming

All widgets default to "dark". You can switch to "light" or supply a custom theme object.

# Tab widget
glassTabsUI(
  "nav",
  glassTabPanel("a", "A", selected = TRUE, p("Content")),
  theme = glass_tab_theme(
    halo_bg = "rgba(251,191,36,0.15)",
    tab_active_text = "#fef3c7"
  )
)

# Multi-select
glassMultiSelect(
  "filter", choices,
  theme = glass_select_theme(
    mode = "dark",
    accent_color = "#f59e0b"
  )
)

# Single-select
glassSelect(
  "region", choices,
  theme = glass_select_theme(
    mode = "light",
    accent_color = "#2563eb"
  )
)

# Built-in light preset
glassTabsUI("nav", theme = "light", ...)
glassMultiSelect("f", choices, theme = "light", ...)
glassSelect("s", choices, theme = "light", ...)

glass_tab_theme() handles

glass_select_theme() handles

Checkbox styles

glassMultiSelect() and glassSelect() support three selection indicator styles:

glassMultiSelect(
  "f", choices,
  check_style = "filled",
  show_style_switcher = FALSE
)

glassSelect(
  "s", choices,
  check_style = "check-only"
)

Hues distribute automatically around the color wheel or can be set manually under multi-select:

glassMultiSelect("f", c(Apple = "apple", Banana = "banana", Cherry = "cherry"),
  check_style = "filled",
  hues = c(apple = 10L, banana = 50L, cherry = 340L)
)

bs4Dash compatibility

Pass wrap = FALSE when embedding inside a bs4Dash card.

bs4Card(
  glassTabsUI("dash",
    wrap     = FALSE,
    theme    = "light",
    extra_ui = glassMultiSelect("f", choices, theme = "light"),
    glassTabPanel("a", "Overview", selected = TRUE, p("Content")),
    glassTabPanel("b", "Details",  p("More"))
  )
)

Multiple instances

Multiple glassTabsUI() and glassMultiSelect() widgets on the same page work independently — each is scoped by its id, so CSS variables and JS event handlers never bleed across instances.

Articles

Full vignettes are available on the documentation site:

Server-side tab control

server <- function(input, output, session) {
  # Switch to a tab programmatically
  observeEvent(input$next_btn, {
    updateGlassTabsUI(session, "tabs", selected = "details")
  })

  # Show/hide tabs conditionally
  observeEvent(input$is_admin, {
    if (input$is_admin) showGlassTab(session, "tabs", "admin")
    else                hideGlassTab(session, "tabs", "admin")
  }, ignoreInit = FALSE)

  # Add and remove tabs dynamically
  observeEvent(input$add_tab, {
    appendGlassTab(session, "tabs",
      glassTabPanel("dynamic", "Dynamic", p("Added at runtime")),
      select = TRUE
    )
  })

  observeEvent(input$remove_tab, {
    removeGlassTab(session, "tabs", "dynamic")
  })
}

What's new in 0.3.0

• runGlassExample() — launch any built-in example from the console
• icon argument in glassTabPanel() — add shiny::icon() or any tag to a tab button
• disableGlassTab() / enableGlassTab() — gray out tabs without hiding them
• updateGlassTabBadge() — set live numeric count badges on tab buttons
• glassTabsServer(bookmark = TRUE) — active tab preserved in Shiny URL bookmarks
• glassTabsOutput() / renderGlassTabs() — fully server-driven reactive tab sets
• inst/cheatsheet/glasstabs-cheatsheet.tex — printable two-column LaTeX reference card

License

MIT (c) glasstabs authors.