ShinyBS bsPopover and updateSelectInput

Question

I want to add tool tips to an dynamic user interface. When I initialize the UI the tool tips are working fine

selectInput(ns("Main2_1"),"Label","abc",  selectize = TRUE, multiple = TRUE),
bsPopover(ns("Main2_1"), "Label", "content", placement = "left", trigger = "focus"),

but once I use to update the choices of Main2_1 in my server script with

updateSelectInput(session, "Main2_1", choices=foo)

it deletes the tool tip too. Adding a new tool tip with addPopover on the server side does not eliminates the problem

Answer 1

I agree, this is some poor design right there. I can't even tell, why the addPopover won't work. Maybe because the observers don't execute the commands one by one...

However, there is a way to get to your thing. By rewriting the bsPopover, we can take changes of the corresponding element into account.

I created an updateResistantPopover function, that adds an additional eventListener (mutationListener) to the element, whos id is given, that re-installs the popover whenever some child of the element changes.

Example code below:

library(shiny)
library(shinyBS)

updateResistantPopover <- function(id, title, content, placement = "bottom", trigger = "hover", options = NULL){
  options = shinyBS:::buildTooltipOrPopoverOptionsList(title, placement, trigger, options, content)
  options = paste0("{'", paste(names(options), options, sep = "': '", collapse = "', '"), "'}") 
  bsTag <- shiny::tags$script(shiny::HTML(paste0("
    $(document).ready(function() {
      var target = document.querySelector('#", id, "');
      var observer = new MutationObserver(function(mutations) {
        setTimeout(function() {
          shinyBS.addTooltip('", id, "', 'popover', ", options, ");
        }, 200);
      });
      observer.observe(target, { childList: true });
    });
  ")))
  htmltools::attachDependencies(bsTag, shinyBS:::shinyBSDep)
}

ui <- shinyUI(fluidPage(
  selectInput("Main2_1","Label","abc",  selectize = TRUE, multiple = TRUE),
  updateResistantPopover("Main2_1", "Label", "content", placement = "right", trigger = "focus"),
  actionButton("destroy", "destroy!")    
))

server <- function(input, output, session){     
  observeEvent(input$destroy, {
    updateSelectInput(session, "Main2_1", choices="foo")
  })
}

shinyApp(ui, server)