Branding, Theme Application and Navigation Utilities for 'bs4Dash' Dashboards

Provides branding, theme application, and navigation utilities for applications built with 'bs4Dash' and 'shiny'. Supports configurable sidebar brand display modes, hover-expand behavior, and theme customization using CSS variables. Includes complete navbar item helpers, navbar structure validation, reusable brand configuration, prototype top-navigation support, and helpers for common navigation bar and footer layouts.

bs4Dashkit

Structured theming and navigation utilities for {bs4Dash} applications.

bs4Dashkit provides:

• Unified brand and sidebar configuration
• Reusable brand option objects for shared app families
• Configurable collapsed / expanded sidebar modes
• Hover-expand sidebar behavior
• Prototype top-navigation mode for no-sidebar dashboards
• Subtle CSS-variable theming
• Complete standardized navbar components (status, refresh, help, user menu)
• Lightweight dependency model compatible with native {bs4Dash} layouts

Installation

# Development version
remotes::install_github("PrigasG/bs4Dashkit")

Quick Start

library(shiny)
library(bs4Dash)
library(bs4Dashkit)

ttl <- dash_titles(
  brand_text = "OLTCR Dashboards",
  icon = icon("cloud"),
  collapsed = "icon-only",
  expanded = "icon-text"
)

ui <- bs4DashPage(
  title = ttl$app_name,
  header = bs4DashNavbar(title = ttl$brand),
  sidebar = bs4DashSidebar(
    bs4SidebarMenu(
      bs4SidebarMenuItem("Dashboard", tabName = "dash")
    )
  ),
  body = bs4DashBody(
    use_bs4Dashkit_core(ttl),
    bs4TabItems(
      bs4TabItem(
        tabName = "dash",
        h2("Hello Dashboard")
      )
    )
  )
)

server <- function(input, output, session) {}
shinyApp(ui, server)

Key Features

Sidebar Modes

• "icon-only"
• "icon-text"
• "text-only"

Fully configurable for collapsed and expanded states.

brand_text is the primary label. It is used in the navbar and, by default, as the expanded sidebar label. The sidebar brand mirrors the navbar title you pass to bs4DashNavbar(title = ttl$brand). Use collapsed_text only when you want a very short label in the narrow collapsed sidebar. In practice, about 3 characters works best.

Theme System

CSS variable-driven theming:

use_dash_theme(accent = "#2f6f8f")
bs4dashkit_theme_presets()

Top Navigation Prototype

Use layout = "topnav" when you want a no-sidebar dashboard. Keep the normal bs4DashSidebar() and bs4SidebarMenu() in your app; bs4Dashkit hides the sidebar and mirrors its menu into the navbar so native tab switching still works.

body = bs4DashBody(
  use_bs4Dashkit_core(
    ttl,
    preset = "professional",
    layout = "topnav",
    topnav = dash_topnav_options(
      align = "left",
      gap = 6,
      mobile = "collapse",
      style = "compact",
      overflow = "more",
      more_after = 4,
      title = "auto",
      page_title = "tab"
    )
  ),
  bs4TabItems(...)
)

dash_topnav_options() keeps top-nav setup in one memorable object. The prefixed arguments such as topnav_align and topnav_gap remain available for small one-off overrides.

align can be "left", "center", or "right". If you also use a centered dash_nav_title(), left or right tab alignment usually leaves the title clearer; centered tabs are best when the navbar has no centered title or only a few tabs.

Top-nav mode also includes mobile hamburger behavior, an animated active underline, optional pill/compact tab styles, a More overflow mode, and a separate input$bs4dashkit_topnav click event for server-side logging or analytics. Use topnav_page_title = "tab" when you want a small content title synced from the selected tab.

For a runnable prototype:

shiny::runApp(system.file("examples", "topnav-prototype", package = "bs4Dashkit"))

New Ergonomics

Recent additions make the package easier to wire up in real apps:

brand <- dash_brand_options(
  name = "Atlas Forge",
  icon = icon("layer-group"),
  collapsed = "AF",
  expanded = "Atlas Forge"
)

ttl <- dash_titles_from(brand)

For a textless icon brand in both sidebar states:

ttl <- dash_titles(
  brand_text = NULL,
  app_name = "Icon Lab",
  icon = icon("cloud"),
  collapsed = "icon-only",
  expanded = "icon-only"
)

Navigation Utilities

Prebuilt components:

• dash_nav_status_item()
• dash_nav_refresh_item()
• dash_nav_help_item()
• dash_user_menu()
• validate_bs4dash_navbar()

rightUi <- tagList(
  dash_nav_status_item("Ready", status = "success", icon = icon("circle-check")),
  dash_nav_refresh_item("refresh"),
  dash_nav_help_item("help")
)

validate_bs4dash_navbar(rightUi)

The lower-level dash_nav_refresh_button() and dash_nav_help_button() remain available when you need to build a custom wrapper yourself.

Server-side wiring example:

observeEvent(input$refresh, session$reload())

Documentation

Full documentation and examples are available at:

https://prigasg.github.io/bs4Dashkit/

For a fuller interactive demo, run:

bs4dashkit_demo_app()

or open the packaged example app file:

shiny::runApp(system.file("examples", "real-shiny-app", package = "bs4Dashkit"))

For a heavier stress-test example that exercises the shipped features together:

shiny::runApp(system.file("examples", "test-all", package = "bs4Dashkit"))

That packaged example is now a standalone full app source file, not just a wrapper around bs4dashkit_demo_app().

License

MIT

Full Example App

A complete working example (brand, sidebar modes, hover expand, theme preset, navbar tools, footer) is included in the documentation site:

• Articles -> Complete Example App