diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index f51a8ebb3..cf5061a29 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -90,8 +90,9 @@ Suggests:
 URL: http://shiny.rstudio.com
 BugReports: https://github.com/rstudio/shiny/issues
 Remotes:
+    tidyverse/ggplot2,
     rstudio/httpuv
-Collate: 
+Collate:
     'app.R'
     'bookmark-state-local.R'
     'stack.R'
diff --git a/R/input-select.R b/R/input-select.R
index 28117f3df..c0f457e4e 100644
--- a/R/input-select.R
+++ b/R/input-select.R
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
 #' @return A select list control that can be added to a UI definition.
 #'
 #' @family input elements
-#' @seealso \code{\link{updateSelectInput}}
+#' @seealso \code{\link{updateSelectInput}} \code{\link{varSelectInput}}
 #'
 #' @examples
 #' ## Only run examples in interactive R sessions
@@ -212,3 +212,121 @@ selectizeIt <- function(inputId, select, options, nonempty = FALSE) {
 
   attachDependencies(select, selectizeDep)
 }
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+#' Create a select list input control from a data.frame
+#'
+#' Create a select list that can be used to choose a single or multiple items
+#' from the column names of a data frame.
+#'
+#' The resulting output value will be returned as a symbol or a list of symbols
+#' given the \code{multiple} is \code{FALSE} or \code{TRUE} respectively. With
+#' \code{multiple} set to \code{FALSE}, the corresponding output should be used with \code{!!} within tidy evaluation.  With
+#' \code{multiple} set to \code{TRUE}, the corresponding output should be used with \code{!!!} within tidy evaluation.
+#'
+#' By default, \code{varSelectInput()} and \code{selectizeInput()} use the
+#' JavaScript library \pkg{selectize.js}
+#' (\url{https://github.com/selectize/selectize.js}) to instead of the basic
+#' select input element. To use the standard HTML select input element, use
+#' \code{selectInput()} with \code{selectize=FALSE}.
+#'
+#' @inheritParams selectInput
+#' @param data A data frame. Used to retrieve the column names as choices for a \code{\link{selectInput}}
+#' @return A variable select list control that can be added to a UI definition.
+#'
+#' @family input elements
+#' @seealso \code{\link{updateSelectInput}}
+#' @examples
+#'
+#' ## Only run examples in interactive R sessions
+#' if (interactive()) {
+#'
+#' # single selection
+#' shinyApp(
+#'   ui = fluidPage(
+#'     varSelectInput("variable", "Variable:", mtcars),
+#'     plotOutput("data")
+#'   ),
+#'   server = function(input, output) {
+#'     output$data <- renderPlot({
+#'       ggplot2::qplot(!!input$variable, data = mtcars)
+#'     })
+#'   }
+#' )
+#'
+#'
+#' # multiple selections
+#' \dontrun{
+#' shinyApp(
+#'  ui = fluidPage(
+#'    varSelectInput("variable", "Variable:", mtcars, multiple = TRUE),
+#'    tableOutput("data")
+#'  ),
+#'  server = function(input, output) {
+#'    output$data <- renderTable({
+#'       if (length(input$variable) == 0) return(mtcars)
+#'       mtcars %>% dplyr::select(!!!input$variable)
+#'    }, rownames = TRUE)
+#'  }
+#' )}
+#'
+#' }
+#' @export
+varSelectInput <- function(
+  inputId, label, data, selected = NULL,
+  multiple = FALSE, selectize = TRUE, width = NULL,
+  size = NULL
+) {
+  # no place holders
+  choices <- colnames(data)
+
+  selectInputVal <- selectInput(
+    inputId = inputId,
+    label = label,
+    choices = choices,
+    selected = selected,
+    multiple = multiple,
+    selectize = selectize,
+    width = width,
+    size = size
+  )
+
+  # set the select tag class to be "symbol"
+  selectAttribs <- selectInputVal$children[[2]]$children[[1]]$attribs
+  selectInputVal$children[[2]]$children[[1]]$attribs$class <- "symbol"
+
+  selectInputVal
+}
+
+
+
+#' @rdname varSelectInput
+#' @param ... Arguments passed to \code{varSelectInput()}.
+#' @param options A list of options. See the documentation of \pkg{selectize.js}
+#'   for possible options (character option values inside \code{\link[base]{I}()} will
+#'   be treated as literal JavaScript code; see \code{\link{renderDataTable}()}
+#'   for details).
+#' @param width The width of the input, e.g. \code{'400px'}, or \code{'100\%'};
+#'   see \code{\link{validateCssUnit}}.
+#' @note The variable selectize input created from \code{varSelectizeInput()} allows
+#'   deletion of the selected option even in a single select input, which will
+#'   return an empty string as its value. This is the default behavior of
+#'   \pkg{selectize.js}. However, the selectize input created from
+#'   \code{selectInput(..., selectize = TRUE)} will ignore the empty string
+#'   value when it is a single choice input and the empty string is not in the
+#'   \code{choices} argument. This is to keep compatibility with
+#'   \code{selectInput(..., selectize = FALSE)}.
+#' @export
+varSelectizeInput <- function(inputId, ..., options = NULL, width = NULL) {
+  selectizeIt(
+    inputId,
+    varSelectInput(inputId, ..., selectize = FALSE, width = width),
+    options
+  )
+}
diff --git a/R/server-input-handlers.R b/R/server-input-handlers.R
index cc602e5b2..e1fab4431 100644
--- a/R/server-input-handlers.R
+++ b/R/server-input-handlers.R
@@ -142,6 +142,7 @@ registerInputHandler("shiny.matrix", function(data, ...) {
   return(m)
 })
 
+
 registerInputHandler("shiny.number", function(val, ...){
   ifelse(is.null(val), NA, val)
 })
@@ -220,3 +221,21 @@ registerInputHandler("shiny.file", function(val, shinysession, name) {
 
   val
 })
+
+
+# to be used with !!!answer
+registerInputHandler("shiny.symbolList", function(val, ...) {
+  if (is.null(val)) {
+    list()
+  } else {
+    lapply(val, as.symbol)
+  }
+})
+# to be used with !!answer
+registerInputHandler("shiny.symbol", function(val, ...) {
+  if (is.null(val) || identical(val, "")) {
+    NULL
+  } else {
+    as.symbol(val)
+  }
+})
diff --git a/R/update-input.R b/R/update-input.R
index 5c13fe41d..ed987051d 100644
--- a/R/update-input.R
+++ b/R/update-input.R
@@ -576,7 +576,7 @@ updateRadioButtons <- function(session, inputId, label = NULL, choices = NULL,
 #' @template update-input
 #' @inheritParams selectInput
 #'
-#' @seealso \code{\link{selectInput}}
+#' @seealso \code{\link{selectInput}} \code{\link{varSelectInput}}
 #'
 #' @examples
 #' ## Only run examples in interactive R sessions
@@ -673,6 +673,43 @@ updateSelectizeInput <- function(session, inputId, label = NULL, choices = NULL,
   ))
   session$sendInputMessage(inputId, message)
 }
+#' @rdname updateSelectInput
+#' @inheritParams varSelectInput
+#' @export
+updateVarSelectInput <- function(session, inputId, label = NULL, data = NULL, selected = NULL) {
+  if (is.null(data)) {
+    choices <- NULL
+  } else {
+    choices <- colnames(data)
+  }
+  updateSelectInput(
+    session = session,
+    inputId = inputId,
+    label = label,
+    choices = choices,
+    selected = selected
+  )
+}
+#' @rdname updateSelectInput
+#' @export
+updateVarSelectizeInput <- function(session, inputId, label = NULL, data = NULL, selected = NULL, options = list(), server = FALSE) {
+  if (is.null(data)) {
+    choices <- NULL
+  } else {
+    choices <- colnames(data)
+  }
+  updateSelectizeInput(
+    session = session,
+    inputId = inputId,
+    label = label,
+    choices = choices,
+    selected = selected,
+    options = options,
+    server = server
+  )
+}
+
+
 
 selectizeJSON <- function(data, req) {
   query <- parseQueryString(req$QUERY_STRING)
diff --git a/srcjs/input_binding_select.js b/srcjs/input_binding_select.js
index 497f94de5..81cbe979a 100644
--- a/srcjs/input_binding_select.js
+++ b/srcjs/input_binding_select.js
@@ -3,6 +3,18 @@ $.extend(selectInputBinding, {
   find: function(scope) {
     return $(scope).find('select');
   },
+  getType: function(el) {
+    var $el = $(el);
+    if (!$el.hasClass("symbol")) {
+      // default character type
+      return null;
+    }
+    if ($el.attr("multiple") === "multiple") {
+      return 'shiny.symbolList';
+    } else {
+      return 'shiny.symbol';
+    }
+  },
   getId: function(el) {
     return InputBinding.prototype.getId.call(this, el) || el.name;
   },