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The bslib R package provides a modern UI toolkit for Shiny and R Markdown based on Bootstrap. It facilitates:

  • Creation of delightful and customizable Shiny dashboards.
    • The underlying UI components (e.g., cards, value boxes, sidebars, etc) are also designed to work in other contexts (e.g., in R Markdown).
  • Custom theming of Shiny apps and R Markdown documents.
    • Apps can even be themed interactively in real-time.
  • Use of modern versions of Bootstrap and Bootswatch
    • Shiny and R Markdown currently default to Bootstrap 3 and may continue to do so to maintain backwards compatibility.

Installation

Install the bslib package from CRAN as follows:

An example

The quickest way to see what bslib can do is to run bslib::bs_theme_preview() at the console. This launches a demo app containing both bslib and shiny UI components as well as an theming widget (bslib::bs_themer()) overlaid on the app. See real-time theming to learn more.

An animation showing bslib theming app. As the user changes the Bootswatch theme and Bootstrap settings, the app's appearance changes in real-time.

Get started

Since bslib covers a wide array of uses, it has numerous getting started articles, each focusing on a particular interest:

Getting help

There are two main places to get help with bslib:

  • The RStudio community is a friendly place to ask any questions (be sure to add a bslib tag when creating a topic).

  • Stack Overflow is a great source of answers to common bslib questions. It is also a great place to get help, once you have created a reproducible example that illustrates your problem. Use the tags [r][bslib] if you ask a question. Add the tag [bslib] if you are using a Shiny runtime.

Code of Conduct

Please note that the bslib project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.