Custom Questions

If you have an html widget that isn’t yet directly supported by surveydown, you can still use it by defining it in the server and using the sd_question_custom() function to store the value in the resulting survey data.

Basic Syntax

Use the sd_question_custom() function to create custom questions. The function requires the following arguments:

  • id: A unique identifier for the question, which will be used as the variable name in the resulting survey data (just like the id in sd_question()).
  • label: The label that will be displayed on the question in the survey.
  • output: The output widget. This needs to be an output function designed for shiny, e.g. leafletOutput(), plotOutput(), etc.
  • value: The value to be returned by the question. This must be a reactive value that updates based on user interaction with the output widget (e.g. selecting a state on a leaflet map).
  • height (optional): The height of the widget in pixels, defaults to 400.

Below is the basic syntax for creating a custom question:

sd_question_custom(
  id     = "some_id",
  label  = "Some Label",
  output = "some_output_widget",
  value  = "some_reactive_value"
)

To make sd_question_custom() work, you need to define the UI and functionality you want in the server() function in the app.R file. We have two examples that show how to set this up: an interactive map using leaflet, and an interactive plot using plotly.

Leaflet Map Example

To reproduce this example, proceed to the Custom Leaflet Map template. This template has a leaflet map that looks like the map below. When a user clicks on the map, it turns orange and stores the selected state in the resulting survey response data:

Which state do you live in?

Plotly Chart Example

To reproduce this example, proceed to the Custom Plotly Chart template. This template has a plotly scatterplot map that looks like the chart below. When a user clicks on one of the points, it displays the point value and stores the point in the resulting survey response data:

Click on a point to select it:

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