How to align and draw borders on complex header for datatable in R shiny?

Question

I am using the container to create the header using the example from here. I am looking to center align the 'Overall' and 'In-patient' header. I tried adding the align = 'left' parameter in th function. It considers only two columns while center justifying. I am also trying to add the lines between the three header columns.

This is the code snippet

  # a custom table container
     sketch = htmltools::withTags(table(
      class = 'display',
      thead(
        tr(
          th(rowspan = 2, style = "text-align:center; border-right: solid 2px;", 'Condition'),
          th(align = 'center',
            th(colspan = 5, style = "text-align:center;",'Overall'),
            th(colspan = 5, style = "text-align:center;",'In-patient'),
            th(colspan = 5, style = "text-align:center;",'Out-patient')
          )
        ),
        tr(
          lapply(rep(c('US.pat.count','freq','cond.rate','exp.rate','odds.ratio'), 3), th)
        )
      )
    ))

datatable(df,rownames = FALSE,
      container = sketch,
      extensions = "Buttons",

      options = list(
        dom = "Blfrtip",
        scrollX = TRUE,
        buttons = c("excel"),
        pageLength = 10,
        lengthMenu = c(10,20,50)
      )
) %>% formatStyle(c(1,6,11,16), `border-right` = "solid 2px")
    

Here is the sample data I used

structure(list(concept_name = structure(c(8L, 4L, 9L, 10L, 6L, 
3L, 2L, 7L, 1L, 5L), .Label = c("Abnormal findings on diagnostic imaging of lung", 
"Anemia", "Disorder of bone", "Essential hypertension", "Fatigue", 
"Hyperlipidemia", "Low back pain", "Primary malignant neoplasm of prostate", 
"Raised prostate specific antigen", "Secondary malignant neoplasm of bone"
), class = "factor"), w_pop = c(220103, 172228, 120983, 132156, 
134501, 63495, 76318, 64025, 65184, 63564), freq = c("97.36%", 
"76.18%", "53.52%", "58.46%", "59.50%", "28.09%", "33.76%", "28.32%", 
"28.83%", "28.12%"), w_cond_rate = c(1, 0.81, 0.58, 0.62, 0.72, 
0.45, 0.48, 0.37, 0.39, 0.54), w_exp_rate = c(0.11, 0.74, 0.13, 
0.01, 0.7, 0.12, 0.21, 0.26, 0.15, 0.29), w_odds_ratio = c(2006.65, 
1.52, 8.99, 144.41, 1.15, 6.19, 3.55, 1.64, 3.6, 2.91), w_pop_in = c(77528, 
75272, 3560, 44813, 51407, 5062, 27250, 7084, 21970, 5312), freq_in = c("62.15%", 
"60.34%", "2.85%", "35.92%", "41.21%", "4.06%", "21.84%", "5.68%", 
"17.61%", "4.26%"), w_cond_rate_inp = c(0.6288, 0.6224, 0.0287, 
0.3755, 0.4539, 0.0782, 0.3305, 0.0701, 0.2193, 0.2548), w_exp_rate_inp = c(0.022457, 
0.33757, 0.000987, 0.007383, 0.259038, 0.015242, 0.104238, 0.018032, 
0.102137, 0.088998), w_odds_ratio_inp = c(73.75, 3.24, 29.96, 
80.87, 2.38, 5.49, 4.24, 4.11, 2.47, 3.5), w_pop_out = c(219908, 
169664, 115765, 130459, 128855, 57169, 71833, 59935, 56476, 54998
), freq_out = c("97.28%", "75.05%", "51.21%", "57.71%", "57.00%", 
"25.29%", "31.77%", "26.51%", "24.98%", "24.33%"), w_cond_rate_outp = c(0.9952, 
0.7906, 0.5568, 0.6119, 0.7001, 0.412, 0.4461, 0.3463, 0.3274, 
0.4791), w_exp_rate_outp = c(0.113117, 0.730356, 0.130933, 0.010632, 
0.684835, 0.104181, 0.192314, 0.255055, 0.115249, 0.261738), 
    w_odds_ratio_outp = c(1651.78, 1.39, 8.34, 146.8, 1.07, 6.03, 
    3.38, 1.55, 3.74, 2.6)), class = c("data.table", "data.frame"
), row.names = c(NA, -10L), .internal.selfref = <pointer: 0x55e2614c3650>)

Answer 1

I think you'll have to share your original data to get the best answer. DT will center the headers unless you tell it to do otherwise. However, the data will most likely be right-justified. Your image doesn't look like the headers are centered.

Here's an example. I used code from the link you provided using the Iris data.

It looks like "Sepal" and "Petal" are off-center. They are centered. However, "Length" and "Width" are not centered.

If I center everything, perception matches reality.

datatable(iris[1:20, c(5, 1:4)], 
          options = list(columnDefs = list(list(
            className = 'dt-center', targets = 0:4))),
          container = sketch, rownames = FALSE)

---

---

Update

I'm glad to see that you added your data. So the first thing I see is that the data in the data frame has more columns than you've accounted for, regarding headings. There is also two population fields in your table headings, but only one that makes sense for each section in the data frame.

Since the names you used and the names in your table aren't the same, I used the old "best guess" method to determine what order they should be in. You'll see exactly what order I used in the code.

names(df) # 16 names and they're not in the same order as the heading names?
#  [1] "concept_name"      "w_pop"             "freq"              "w_cond_rate"      
#  [5] "w_exp_rate"        "w_odds_ratio"      "w_pop_in"          "freq_in"          
#  [9] "w_cond_rate_inp"   "w_exp_rate_inp"    "w_odds_ratio_inp"  "w_pop_out"        
# [13] "freq_out"          "w_cond_rate_outp"  "w_exp_rate_outp"   "w_odds_ratio_outp" 

# the column order--- I think? There isn't a US vs not US pop?
# 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 2?? 12, =>
df1 <- df[, c(1, 2, 2:6, 2, 7:11)]

The next thing I noticed was the vertical borders. They didn't seem to land where the column spans changed. If you want a border after the first column and another after six more columns, then you would code this as after columns 1 and 7, not 1 and 6.

datatable(df1,
          rownames = FALSE,
          container = sketch,
          extensions = "Buttons",
          
          options = list(
            dom = "Blfrtip",
            scrollX = TRUE,
            buttons = c("excel"),
            pageLength = 10,
            lengthMenu = c(10,20,50)
          )
) %>% formatStyle(c(1,7), `border-right` = "solid 2px")

Those changes give me this output:

All headings are already centered. The data in the columns is right-justified (except the first column). To center the data in within each column (other than the first column), you can modify the call to datatable like this:

datatable(df1,
          rownames = FALSE,
          container = sketch,
          extensions = "Buttons",
          
          options = list(
            dom = "Blfrtip",
            scrollX = TRUE,
            buttons = c("excel"),
            pageLength = 10,
            lengthMenu = c(10,20,50),
            columnDefs = list(list(className = 'dt-center',
                                   targets = 1:12))
          )
) %>% formatStyle(c(1,7), `border-right` = "solid 2px")

If you would like it to be even more aesthetically even, you could set the rounding to a specific number of digits for each of the fields.

If this doesn't work, then something before or after the table is changing the styles. For example, if you're using this within a Shiny app or RMarkdown. If that's the case, you'll have to let me know. We'll figure it out.