How to create TextArea as input in a Shiny webapp in R?

Question

I am trying to create simple webapp where I want to take in multiline input from user using HTML textarea control. Is there any out of the box way of creating such an input

Answer 1

Here's a quick solution that preserves the shiny input feel, but allows custom number of columns:

textareaInput <- function(inputID, label, value="", rows=10, columns=80) {
  HTML(paste0('

    ', label,'
    ', value, '
'))
}

In your ui.R script, you can add:

textareaInput("shazam", "My text box")

---

Note: To get a Bootstrap feel to the textarea, you can use:

textareaInput <- function(inputID, label, value="", rows=10) {
  HTML(paste0('

              ', label,'
              ', value, '
'))
}