in RStudio shiny, wishing to customize a table

Question

In an RStudio shiny application with a table produced by renderTable(), I\'d like to add a leading column of radio-buttons (reactive, of course) and change the

Answer 1

Pursuing @MadScone 's excellent advice, I came up with the following code, which is the definitive solution to
Some additional features that make it work for me are: * the radio buttons are in column 1 (not row 1) * they belong to the same radio group * the table header row is properly formatted * the row selected by radio button receives special formatting, without needing jQuery.

values = reactiveValues(PopRow=1)   ### To receive and hold the selected row number.

f.objects_table_for_OneCT = function(){
    f.changeSelectedRow()        #### See definition below.
    df = createObjectsTable()    #### Any data frame goes here; code not provided here.
    selectedRow = values$PopRow
    header_html <- function(table_cell) paste0('', table_cell, '')
    cell_html <- function(table_cell) paste0('', table_cell, '')
    radio_html <- function(radio_name, radio_value, is_checked, radio_text) {
      paste0('', radio_text)
    }    
    row_html <- function(table_row_num) {
      table_row = df[table_row_num, ]
      cells <- sapply(table_row, cell_html)
      cells <- c(cell_html(radio_html(
                  "whichRow", table_row_num, table_row_num == selectedRow, "")),
               cells)
      collapse_cells <- paste0(cells, collapse='')
      selectedRowStyle = "style='color:red; font-weight:bold'"
      collapse_cells <- paste0('', collapse_cells, '')
      collapse_cells 
    }
    df_rows <- sapply(1:nrow(df), row_html) 
    df_header_row <- header_html(c("CHOICE", names(df)))
    collapse_cells <- paste0(c(df_header_row, df_rows), collapse='')    
    full_table <- paste0('', 
                         collapse_cells, '')
    return(full_table)
  }

  output$objects_table_for_OneCT = renderText({f.objects_table_for_OneCT()})

(Concerning the last line, I habitually wrap my expr arg in a function, so I can debug. So far it's worked fine.)

The function that responds to the radio buttons is as follows:

  f.changeSelectedRow = reactive({
    if(is.null(values$PopRow)) values$PopRow = 1
    if(!is.null(input$whichRow))   ### from the radio button set.
             if(input$whichRow != values$PopRow) values$PopRow = input$whichRow
  })