This chapter is all about laying out your Shiny applications. In Chapter 4, Mastering Shiny's UI Functions, we already looked at doing it by hand, using HTML or CSS, and we already saw how to lay out applications using the Bootstrap grid system. Shiny (and its associated packages) includes loads of functions that allow you to lay out your applications beautifully and simply. This chapter takes the code and applications you have already seen and changes them from the very plain, vanilla-looking layout that the default styling returns to slick, customizable layouts, culminating in a full-featured dashboard.

In this chapter, we will do the following:

• Make a dashboard very easily using the flexdashboard template
• Add icons to applications
• Further explore Shiny using the Bootstrap grid system to lay out applications
• Build a dashboard to help your users access all the information they need from within the same intuitive interface