Simplified ggvis Shiny example with sample data, see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24554734/dynamic-ggvis-object-in-shiny

aalto_since2010.csv

global.R

library(shiny)
library(reshape2)
library(stringr)
library(ggvis)


# Few lines with double quotes inside fields terminated by quotes
# sed -i 's/""/%%/g' aalto_since2010.csv 

aalto_all_m <- read.table(file = "aalto_since2010.csv", 
                          header = TRUE, 
                          sep = ",",
                          col.names = c("DOI", "School", "Title", "Authors", "URL", 
                                        "Altmetric.com_URL", "Year", "Journal_short", "Journal_long",
                                        "WoS", "Altmetric", "Mendeley", "Connotea", "CiteULike",
                                        "Readers_count", "GooglePlus", "Facebook", "Any_type_of_posts", "Twitter", 
                                        "Accounts", "Blog_posts", "Videos", "Delicious_bookmarks", 
                                        "Reddit", "Forums",
                                        "StackExchange", "rh",                                     
                                        "Science_news_outlets"),
                          colClasses = c("character", "character", "character", "character", "character",
                                         "character", "character", "character", "character",
                                         "integer", "numeric", "integer", "integer", "integer",
                                         "integer", "integer", "integer", "integer", "integer", 
                                         "integer", "integer", "integer", "integer", 
                                         "integer", "integer", 
                                         "integer", "integer",
                                         "integer"),
                          stringsAsFactors = FALSE)


# Readers_count = Mendeley + CiteULike; rh = ?
aalto_all_m <- aalto_all_m[ ,c("DOI", "School", "Title", "Authors", "URL", 
                               "Altmetric.com_URL", "Year", "Journal_short", "Journal_long",
                               "WoS", "Altmetric", "Mendeley", "Connotea", "CiteULike",
                               "GooglePlus", "Facebook", "Twitter", 
                               "Accounts", "Blog_posts", "Videos", "Delicious_bookmarks", 
                               "Reddit", "Forums",
                               "StackExchange", "rh",                                     
                               "Science_news_outlets")]

names(aalto_all_m) <- c("DOI", "School", "Title", "Authors", "URL", 
                        "AltmetricURL", "Year", "Journal short", "Journal",
                        "WoS", "Altmetric", "Mendeley", "Connotea", "CiteULike",
                        "GooglePlus", "Facebook", "Twitter", 
                        "Accounts", "Blog posts", "Videos", "Delicious", 
                        "Reddit", "Forums","StackExchange", "rh", "NewsOutlets")

# Altmetric.com_score value to ceiling 
aalto_all_m$Altmetric <- as.integer(ceiling(aalto_all_m$Altmetric))

# In original data, we have duplicate DOIs if the article is co-authored by
# multiple Schools. Here, we deliberately delete that information, and
# the DOI is randomnly put under one of the Schools
aalto_all <- aalto_all_m[!duplicated(aalto_all_m$DOI),]

# Some Altmetric.com data is NA, some 0
aalto_all[is.na(aalto_all)] <- ""

# See remark on top
aalto_all$Title <- with(aalto_all, gsub("%%", "'", Title))

# For unknown reason, some columns need to be transformed twice to integer 
columns <- c(which(colnames(aalto_all) == "GooglePlus"):ncol(aalto_all))
aalto_all[ ,columns] <- apply(aalto_all[ ,columns], 2, function(x) as.integer(as.character(x)))

# See ?toupper
simpleCap <- function(x) {
  s <- strsplit(x, " ")[[1]]
  paste(toupper(substring(s, 1,1)), substring(s, 2),
        sep="", collapse=" ")
}

aalto_all$Journal <- sapply(aalto_all$Journal, tolower)
aalto_all$Journal <- sapply(aalto_all$Journal, function(x) simpleCap(x))

# Acronyms for plot labels and tooltips
aalto_all$Title5 <- with(aalto_all, paste(substring(Title,1,5), " (", Year, ")", sep=""))
aalto_all$Title20 <- with(aalto_all, paste(substring(Title,1,20), " (", Year, ")", sep=""))
#aalto_all$Authors5 <- with(aalto_all, paste(substring(Authors,1,5), " (", Year, ")", sep=""))
aalto_all$Journal5 <- with(aalto_all, paste(substring(Journal,1,5), " (", Year, ")", sep=""))

# Number of authors
aalto_all$NrOfAuthors <- with(aalto_all, as.integer(str_count(Authors, ";")+1))
# Keys for ggvis tooltips
aalto_all$keys <- seq(1, nrow(aalto_all))

metrics <- c("Altmetric", "WoS", "Mendeley", "Twitter", "Facebook", "GooglePlus", "CiteULike", 
             "Videos", "Reddit", "NewsOutlets", "NrOfAuthors")

dimensions <- c("Title", "Journal")

colsPlot <- c("Altmetric", "WoS", "Mendeley", "Twitter", "Facebook", "GooglePlus", "CiteULike", 
              "Videos", "Reddit", "NewsOutlets", "School", "Year", "Title5", "Journal5", "NrOfAuthors")

colsChart <- c("Altmetric", "WoS", "Mendeley", "Twitter", "Facebook", "GooglePlus", "CiteULike", 
               "Videos", "Reddit", "NewsOutlets", "id", "NrOfAuthors")

colsTable <- c("Journal", "Title", "AltmetricURL", "NrOfAuthors", "Altmetric",
               "Authors", "Year", "WoS", "Mendeley", "School",
               "Twitter", "Facebook", "GooglePlus", "CiteULike",
               "Videos", "Reddit", "NewsOutlets")

server.R

shinyServer(function(input, output, session) {
  
 
  output$items <- renderUI({
    
    selectizeInput(
      inputId = 'items', 
      label = 'Select max 4. Click to delete',
      multiple = TRUE,
      choices = aalto_all[ ,names(aalto_all) %in% input$dim],
      options = list(maxItems = 4, placeholder = 'Start typing')
    )
    
  })
  
  
  selected <- reactive({
  
    if (is.null(input$items)) {
      return(aalto_all)
    }
    df <- aalto_all[aalto_all[[input$dim]] %in% input$items, ]
    df$keys <-seq(1, nrow(df))
    df
    
  })
    
  
  selected %>% 
    ggvis(~WoS, ~NrOfAuthors, fill = ~School, key := ~keys) %>%
    layer_points() %>%
    add_tooltip(show_title) %>%
    bind_shiny("gv")

 
  show_title <- function(x=NULL) {
    if(is.null(x)) return(NULL)
    key <- x["keys"][[1]]
    selected()$Title20[key]
  }  
  

  
})

ui.R

shinyUI(fluidPage(
  
  titlePanel('Some (alt)metric data since 2010'),
  
  sidebarLayout(
    sidebarPanel(
      selectInput(
        inputId = "dim", 
        label = "Dimension", 
        choices = dimensions,
        selected = c("Title")),
      uiOutput("items")
      ),
    
    
    mainPanel(
      
      tabsetPanel(
        tabPanel("Plot with ggvis", ggvisOutput("gv"))
      )
    )
  )
))