perspective: Create a Perspective Interactive Viewer

In perspectiveR: Interactive Pivot Tables and Visualizations with 'Perspective'

Create a Perspective Interactive Viewer

Description

Creates an interactive pivot table and visualization widget powered by the FINOS Perspective library. The viewer provides a self-service UI where users can interactively change chart types, group/split/filter/sort data, create computed columns, and configure aggregations.

Usage

perspective(
  data,
  columns = NULL,
  group_by = NULL,
  split_by = NULL,
  sort = NULL,
  filter = NULL,
  filter_op = NULL,
  expressions = NULL,
  aggregates = NULL,
  plugin = NULL,
  plugin_config = NULL,
  theme = "Pro Light",
  settings = TRUE,
  title = NULL,
  editable = FALSE,
  index = NULL,
  limit = NULL,
  use_arrow = FALSE,
  width = NULL,
  height = NULL,
  elementId = NULL
)

Arguments

data	A data.frame or matrix to display.
columns	Character vector of column names to show. If NULL, all columns are shown.
group_by	Character vector of column names to group rows by (row pivots).
split_by	Character vector of column names to split columns by (column pivots).
sort	A list of two-element vectors, each containing a column name and a direction ("asc", "desc", "col asc", "col desc", "asc abs", "desc abs", "col asc abs", "col desc abs"). For example: list(c("mpg", "desc")).
filter	A list of three-element vectors, each containing a column name, an operator ("==", "!=", ">", "<", ">=", "<=", "begins with", "contains", "ends with", "in", "not in", "is null", "is not null"), and a value. For example: list(c("cyl", "==", "6")).
filter_op	Character string controlling how multiple filters are combined: "and" (default) or "or". If NULL, the Perspective default ("and") is used.
expressions	Character vector of Perspective expression strings for computed columns. For example: c('"Profit" / "Sales"').
aggregates	A named list mapping column names to aggregate functions. For example: list(mpg = "avg", hp = "sum").
plugin	Character string specifying the visualization plugin. Options include: "Datagrid", "Y Bar", "X Bar", "Y Line", "X/Y Line", "Y Area", "Y Scatter", "XY Scatter", "Treemap", "Sunburst", "Heatmap".
plugin_config	A list of plugin-specific configuration options.
theme	Character string specifying the CSS theme. Options: "Pro Light", "Pro Dark", "Monokai", "Solarized Light", "Solarized Dark", "Vaporwave", "Dracula", "Gruvbox", "Gruvbox Dark". Default is "Pro Light".
settings	Logical; whether to show the settings/configuration panel sidebar. Default TRUE. This is the interactive UI where users drag-and-drop columns, change chart types, add filters, etc.
title	Character string for the viewer title. If NULL, no title is shown.
editable	Logical; whether the data in the grid is user-editable. Default FALSE.
index	Character string naming a column to use as the table's primary key. When set, psp_update() performs upserts (matching rows are updated instead of appended) and psp_remove() can delete rows by key. Must be the name of a column present in data. Default NULL (no index).
limit	Single positive integer specifying the maximum number of rows the table will hold. When new rows are added beyond this limit, the oldest rows are removed (rolling window). Mutually exclusive with index. Default NULL (no limit).
use_arrow	Logical; if TRUE, serialize data using Arrow IPC format (base64-encoded) for better performance with large datasets. Requires the arrow package. Default FALSE.
width	Widget width (CSS string or numeric pixels).
height	Widget height (CSS string or numeric pixels).
elementId	Optional explicit element ID for the widget.

Details

When used in a Shiny app, the following reactive inputs are available (where outputId is the ID passed to perspectiveOutput):

input$<outputId>_config

Fires when the user changes the viewer configuration (columns, pivots, filters, etc.).

input$<outputId>_click

Fires when the user clicks a cell or data point.

input$<outputId>_select

Fires when the user selects rows or data points.

input$<outputId>_update

Fires on each table data change when subscribed via psp_on_update.

input$<outputId>_export

Contains exported data after calling psp_export.

input$<outputId>_state

Contains saved viewer state after calling psp_save.

input$<outputId>_schema

Contains the table schema after calling psp_schema.

input$<outputId>_size

Contains the table row count after calling psp_size.

input$<outputId>_columns

Contains the table column names after calling psp_columns.

input$<outputId>_validate_expressions

Contains expression validation results after calling psp_validate_expressions.

Value

An htmlwidgets object that can be printed, included in R Markdown, Quarto documents, or Shiny apps.

Examples

# Basic data grid
perspective(mtcars)

# Bar chart grouped by cylinder count
perspective(mtcars, group_by = "cyl", plugin = "Y Bar")

# Filtered and sorted view
perspective(iris,
  columns = c("Sepal.Length", "Sepal.Width", "Species"),
  filter = list(c("Species", "==", "setosa")),
  sort = list(c("Sepal.Length", "desc"))
)

perspectiveR documentation built on March 30, 2026, 9:06 a.m.