tinyplot {tinyplot} | R Documentation |
Lightweight extension of the base R plotting function
Description
Enhances the base plot
function. Supported features
include automatic legends and facets for grouped data, additional plot types,
theme customization, and so on. Users can call either tinyplot()
, or its
shorthand alias plt()
.
Usage
tinyplot(x, ...)
## Default S3 method:
tinyplot(
x,
y = NULL,
by = NULL,
facet = NULL,
facet.args = NULL,
data = NULL,
type = "p",
xlim = NULL,
ylim = NULL,
log = "",
main = NULL,
sub = NULL,
xlab = NULL,
ylab = NULL,
ann = par("ann"),
axes = TRUE,
frame.plot = axes,
asp = NA,
grid = NULL,
palette = NULL,
legend = NULL,
pch = NULL,
lty = NULL,
lwd = NULL,
col = NULL,
bg = NULL,
fill = NULL,
alpha = NULL,
cex = 1,
restore.par = FALSE,
ymin = NULL,
ymax = NULL,
ribbon.alpha = NULL,
add = FALSE,
file = NULL,
width = NULL,
height = NULL,
...
)
## S3 method for class 'formula'
tinyplot(
x = NULL,
data = parent.frame(),
facet = NULL,
facet.args = NULL,
type = "p",
xlim = NULL,
ylim = NULL,
main = NULL,
sub = NULL,
xlab = NULL,
ylab = NULL,
ann = par("ann"),
axes = TRUE,
frame.plot = axes,
asp = NA,
grid = NULL,
pch = NULL,
col = NULL,
lty = NULL,
lwd = NULL,
restore.par = FALSE,
formula = NULL,
subset = NULL,
na.action = NULL,
drop.unused.levels = TRUE,
...
)
## S3 method for class 'density'
tinyplot(
x = NULL,
by = NULL,
facet = NULL,
facet.args = NULL,
type = c("l", "area"),
xlim = NULL,
ylim = NULL,
main = NULL,
sub = NULL,
xlab = NULL,
ylab = NULL,
ann = par("ann"),
axes = TRUE,
frame.plot = axes,
asp = NA,
grid = NULL,
pch = NULL,
col = NULL,
lty = NULL,
lwd = NULL,
bg = NULL,
fill = NULL,
restore.par = FALSE,
...
)
plt(x, ...)
Arguments
x , y |
the x and y arguments provide the x and y coordinates for the
plot. Any reasonable way of defining the coordinates is acceptable; most
likely the names of existing vectors or columns of data frames. See the
'Examples' section below, or the function
xy.coords for details. If supplied separately, x
and y must be of the same length.
|
... |
other graphical parameters. See par or
the "Details" section of plot .
|
by |
grouping variable(s). The default behaviour is for groups to be
represented in the form of distinct colours, which will also trigger an
automatic legend. (See legend below for customization options.) However,
groups can also be presented through other plot parameters (e.g., pch or
lty ) by passing an appropriate "by" keyword; see Examples. Note that
continuous (i.e., gradient) colour legends are also supported if the user
passes a numeric or integer to by .
|
facet |
the faceting variable(s) that you want arrange separate plot
windows by. Can be specified in various ways:
In "atomic" form, e.g. facet = fvar . To facet by multiple variables in
atomic form, simply interact them, e.g.
interaction(fvar1, fvar2) or factor(fvar1):factor(fvar2) .
As a one-sided formula, e.g. facet = ~fvar . Multiple variables can be
specified in the formula RHS, e.g. ~fvar1 + fvar2 or ~fvar1:fvar2 . Note
that these multi-variable cases are all treated equivalently and
converted to interaction(fvar1, fvar2, ...) internally. (No distinction
is made between different types of binary operators, for example, and so
f1+f2 is treated the same as f1:f2 , is treated the same as f1*f2 ,
etc.)
As a two-side formula, e.g. facet = fvar1 ~ fvar2 . In this case, the
facet windows are arranged in a fixed grid layout, with the formula LHS
defining the facet rows and the RHS defining the facet columns. At present
only single variables on each side of the formula are well supported. (We
don't recommend trying to use multiple variables on either the LHS or RHS
of the two-sided formula case.)
As a special "by" convenience keyword, in which case facets will match
the grouping variable(s) passed to by above.
|
facet.args |
an optional list of arguments for controlling faceting
behaviour. (Ignored if facet is NULL.) Supported arguments are as
follows:
-
nrow , ncol for overriding the default "square" facet window
arrangement. Only one of these should be specified, but nrow will take
precedence if both are specified together. Ignored if a two-sided formula
is passed to the main facet argument, since the layout is arranged in a
fixed grid.
-
fmar a vector of form c(b,l,t,r) for controlling the base margin
between facets in terms of lines. Defaults to the value of tpar("fmar") ,
which should be c(1,1,1,1) , i.e. a single line of padding around each
individual facet, assuming it hasn't been overridden by the user as part
their global tpar settings. Note some automatic
adjustments are made for certain layouts, and depending on whether the plot
is framed or not, to reduce excess whitespace. See
tpar for more details.
-
cex , font , col , bg , border for adjusting the facet title text
and background. Default values for these arguments are inherited from
tpar (where they take a "facet." prefix, e.g.
tpar("facet.cex") ). The latter function can also be used to set these
features globally for all tinyplot plots.
|
data |
a data.frame (or list) from which the variables in formula
should be taken. A matrix is converted to a data frame.
|
type |
character string giving the type of plot desired. Options are:
The same set of 1-character values supported by plot: "p" for points, "l"
for lines, "b" for both points and lines, "c" for empty points joined by
lines, "o" for overplotted points and lines, "s" and "S" for stair steps
and "h" for histogram-like vertical lines. "n" does not produce
any points or lines.
Additional tinyplot types: "density" for densities, "polygon" for
polygons, "pointrange" or "errorbar" for segment intervals, and "polygon",
"ribbon" or "area" for polygon intervals (where area plots are a special
case of ribbon plots with ymin set to 0 and ymax set to y ; see below).
|
xlim |
the x limits (x1, x2) of the plot. Note that x1 > x2 is allowed
and leads to a ‘reversed axis’. The default value, NULL, indicates that
the range of the finite values to be plotted should be used.
|
ylim |
the y limits of the plot.
|
log |
a character string which contains "x" if the x axis is to be
logarithmic, "y" if the y axis is to be logarithmic and "xy" or "yx" if
both axes are to be logarithmic.
|
main |
a main title for the plot, see also title .
|
sub |
a subtitle for the plot.
|
xlab |
a label for the x axis, defaults to a description of x.
|
ylab |
a label for the y axis, defaults to a description of y.
|
ann |
a logical value indicating whether the default annotation (title
and x and y axis labels) should appear on the plot.
|
axes |
a logical value indicating whether both axes should be drawn on
the plot. Use graphical parameter "xaxt" or "yaxt" to suppress just one of
the axes.
|
frame.plot |
a logical indicating whether a box should be drawn around
the plot. Can also use frame as an acceptable argument alias.
|
asp |
the y/xy/x aspect ratio, see plot.window .
|
grid |
argument for plotting a background panel grid, one of either:
a logical (i.e., TRUE to draw the grid), or
a panel grid plotting function like grid() .
Note that this argument replaces the panel.first and panel.last
arguments from base plot() and tries to make the process more seamless
with better default behaviour. The default behaviour is determined by (and
can be set globally through) the value of tpar("grid") .
|
palette |
one of the following options:
NULL (default), in which case the palette will be chosen according to
the class and cardinality of the "by" grouping variable. For non-ordered
factors or strings with a reasonable number of groups, this will inherit
directly from the user's default palette (e.g.,
"R4"). In other cases, including ordered factors and high cardinality, the
"Viridis" palette will be used instead. Note that a slightly restricted
version of the "Viridis" palette—where extreme color values have been
trimmed to improve visual perception—will be used for ordered factors
and continuous variables. In the latter case of a continuous grouping
variable, we also generate a gradient legend swatch.
A convenience string corresponding to one of the many palettes listed by
either palette.pals() or hcl.pals() . Note that the string can be
case-insensitive (e.g., "Okabe-Ito" and "okabe-ito" are both valid).
A palette-generating function. This can be "bare" (e.g.,
palette.colors ) or "closed" with a set of named arguments (e.g.,
palette.colors(palette = "Okabe-Ito", alpha = 0.5) ). Note that any
unnamed arguments will be ignored and the key n argument, denoting the
number of colours, will automatically be spliced in as the number of
groups.
|
legend |
one of the following options:
NULL (default), in which case the legend will be determined by the
grouping variable. If there is no group variable (i.e., by is NULL) then
no legend is drawn. If a grouping variable is detected, then an automatic
legend is drawn to the outer right of the plotting area. Note that the
legend title and categories will automatically be inferred from the by
argument and underlying data.
A convenience string indicating the legend position. The string should
correspond to one of the position keywords supported by the base legend
function, e.g. "right", "topleft", "bottom", etc. In addition, tinyplot
supports adding a trailing exclamation point to these keywords, e.g.
"right!", "topleft!", or "bottom!". This will place the legend outside
the plotting area and adjust the margins of the plot accordingly. Finally,
users can also turn off any legend printing by specifying "none".
Logical value, where TRUE corresponds to the default case above (same
effect as specifying NULL) and FALSE turns the legend off (same effect as
specifying "none").
A list or, equivalently, a dedicated legend() function with supported
legend arguments, e.g. "bty", "horiz", and so forth.
|
pch |
plotting "character", i.e., symbol to use. Character, integer, or
vector of length equal to the number of categories in the by variable.
See pch . In addition, users can supply a special pch = "by" convenience
argument, in which case the characters will automatically loop over the
number groups. This automatic looping will begin at the global character
value (i.e., par("pch") ) and recycle as necessary.
|
lty |
line type. Character, integer, or vector of length equal to the
number of categories in the by variable. See lty . In addition, users
can supply a special lty = "by" convenience argument, in which case the
line type will automatically loop over the number groups. This automatic
looping will begin at the global line type value (i.e., par("lty") ) and
recycle as necessary.
|
lwd |
line width. Numeric scalar or vector of length equal to the
number of categories in the by variable. See lwd . In addition, users
can supply a special lwd = "by" convenience argument, in which case the
line width will automatically loop over the number of groups. This
automatic looping will be centered at the global line width value (i.e.,
|
col |
plotting color. Character, integer, or vector of length equal to
the number of categories in the by variable. See col . Note that the
default behaviour in tinyplot is to vary group colors along any variables
declared in the by argument. Thus, specifying colors manually should not
be necessary unless users wish to override the automatic colors produced by
this grouping process. Typically, this would only be done if grouping
features are deferred to some other graphical parameter (i.e., passing the
"by" keyword to one of pch , lty , lwd , or bg ; see below.)
|
bg |
background fill color for the open plot symbols 21:25 (see
points.default ), as well as ribbon and area plot types. For the latter
group—including filled density plots—an automatic alpha transparency
adjustment will be applied (see the ribbon.alpha argument further below).
Users can also supply either one of two special convenience arguments that
will cause the background fill to inherit the automatic grouped coloring
behaviour of col :
-
bg = "by" will insert a background fill that inherits the main color
mappings from col .
-
by = <numeric[0,1]> (i.e., a numeric in the range [0,1] ) will insert
a background fill that inherits the main color mapping(s) from col , but
with added alpha-transparency.
For both of these convenience arguments, note that the (grouped) bg
mappings will persist even if the (grouped) col defaults are themselves
overridden. This can be useful if you want to preserve the grouped palette
mappings by background fill but not boundary color, e.g. filled points. See
examples.
|
fill |
alias for bg . If non-NULL values for both bg and fill are
provided, then the latter will be ignored in favour of the former.
|
alpha |
a numeric in the range [0,1] for adjusting the alpha channel
of the color palette, where 0 means transparent and 1 means opaque. Use
fractional values, e.g. 0.5 for semi-transparency.
|
cex |
character expansion. A numerical vector (can be a single value)
giving the amount by which plotting characters and symbols should be scaled
relative to the default. Note that NULL is equivalent to 1.0, while NA
renders the characters invisible.
|
restore.par |
a logical value indicating whether the
par settings prior to calling tinyplot should be
restored on exit. Defaults to FALSE, which makes it possible to add
elements to the plot after it has been drawn. However, note the the outer
margins of the graphics device may have been altered to make space for the
tinyplot legend. Users can opt out of this persistent behaviour by
setting to TRUE instead. See also get_saved_par for another option to
recover the original par settings, as well as
longer discussion about the trade-offs involved.
|
ymin , ymax |
minimum and maximum coordinates of interval plot types. Only
used when the type argument is one of "pointrange", "errorbar", or
"ribbon".
|
ribbon.alpha |
numeric factor modifying the opacity alpha of any ribbon
shading; typically in [0, 1] . Only used when type = "ribbon" , or when
the bg fill argument is specified in a density plot (since filled density
plots are converted to ribbon plots internally). If an an applicable plot
type is called but no explicit value is provided, then will default to
tpar("ribbon.alpha") (i.e., probably 0.2 unless this has been
overridden by the user in their global settings.)
|
add |
logical. If TRUE, then elements are added to the current plot rather
than drawing a new plot window. Note that the automatic legend for the
added elements will be turned off.
|
file |
character string giving the file path for writing a plot to disk.
If specified, the plot will not be displayed interactively, but rather sent
to the appropriate external graphics device (i.e.,
png , jpeg ,
pdf , or svg ). As a point
of convenience, note that any global parameters held in (t)par are
automatically carried over to the external device and don't need to be
reset (in contrast to the conventional base R approach that requires
manually opening and closing the device). The device type is determined by
the file extension at the end of the provided path, and must be one of
".png", ".jpg" (".jpeg"), ".pdf", or ".svg". (Other file types may be
supported in the future.) The file dimensions can be controlled by the
corresponding width and height arguments below, otherwise will fall
back to the "file.width" and "file.height" values held in
tpar (i.e., both defaulting to 7 inches, and where
the default resolution for bitmap files is also specified as 300
DPI).
|
width |
numeric giving the plot width in inches. Together with height ,
typically used in conjunction with the file argument above, overriding the
default values held in tpar("file.width", "file.height") . If either width
or height is specified, but a corresponding file argument is not
provided as well, then a new interactive graphics device dimensions will be
opened along the given dimensions. Note that this interactive resizing may
not work consistently from within an IDE like RStudio that has an integrated
graphics windows.
|
height |
numeric giving the plot height in inches. Same considerations as
width (above) apply, e.g. will default to tpar("file.height") if not
specified.
|
formula |
a formula that optionally includes grouping variable(s)
after a vertical bar, e.g. y ~ x | z . One-sided formulae are also
permitted, e.g. ~ y | z . Note that the formula and x arguments
should not be specified in the same call.
|
subset , na.action , drop.unused.levels |
arguments passed to model.frame
when extracting the data from formula and data .
|
Details
Disregarding the enhancements that it supports, tinyplot
tries as far as
possible to mimic the behaviour and syntax logic of the original base
plot
function. Users should therefore be able to swap
out existing plot
calls for tinyplot
(or its shorthand alias plt
),
without causing unexpected changes to the output.
Value
No return value, called for side effect of producing a plot.
Examples
#'
aq = transform(
airquality,
Month = factor(Month, labels = month.abb[unique(Month)])
)
# In most cases, `tinyplot` should be a drop-in replacement for regular
# `plot` calls. For example:
op = tpar(mfrow = c(1, 2))
plot(0:10, main = "plot")
tinyplot(0:10, main = "tinyplot")
tpar(op) # restore original layout
# Aside: `tinyplot::tpar()` is a (near) drop-in replacement for `par()`
# Unlike vanilla plot, however, tinyplot allows you to characterize groups
# using either the `by` argument or equivalent `|` formula syntax.
with(aq, tinyplot(Day, Temp, by = Month)) ## atomic method
tinyplot(Temp ~ Day | Month, data = aq) ## formula method
# (Notice that we also get an automatic legend.)
# You can also use the equivalent shorthand `plt()` alias if you'd like to
# save on a few keystrokes
plt(Temp ~ Day | Month, data = aq) ## shorthand alias
# Use standard base plotting arguments to adjust features of your plot.
# For example, change `pch` (plot character) to get filled points and `cex`
# (character expansion) to increase their size.
tinyplot(
Temp ~ Day | Month,
data = aq,
pch = 16,
cex = 2
)
# We can add alpha transparency for overlapping points
tinyplot(
Temp ~ Day | Month,
data = aq,
pch = 16,
cex = 2,
alpha = 0.3
)
# To get filled points with a common solid background color, use an
# appropriate plotting character (21:25) and combine with one of the special
# `bg` convenience arguments.
tinyplot(
Temp ~ Day | Month,
data = aq,
pch = 21, # use filled circles
cex = 2,
bg = 0.3, # numeric in [0,1] adds a grouped background fill with transparency
col = "black" # override default color mapping; give all points a black border
)
# Converting to a grouped line plot is a simple matter of adjusting the
# `type` argument.
tinyplot(
Temp ~ Day | Month,
data = aq,
type = "l"
)
# Similarly for other plot types, including some additional ones provided
# directly by tinyplot, e.g. density plots or internal plots (ribbons,
# pointranges, etc.)
tinyplot(
~ Temp | Month,
data = aq,
type = "density",
fill = "by"
)
# Facet plots are supported too. Facets can be drawn on their own...
tinyplot(
Temp ~ Day,
facet = ~ Month,
data = aq,
type = "area",
main = "Temperatures by month"
)
# ... or combined/contrasted with the by (colour) grouping.
aq = transform(aq, Summer = Month %in% c("Jun", "Jul", "Aug"))
tinyplot(
Temp ~ Day | Summer,
facet = ~ Month,
data = aq,
type = "area",
palette = "dark2",
main = "Temperatures by month and season"
)
# Users can override the default square window arrangement by passing `nrow`
# or `ncol` to the helper facet.args argument. Note that we can also reduce
# axis label repetition across facets by turning the plot frame off.
tinyplot(
Temp ~ Day | Summer,
facet = ~ Month, facet.args = list(nrow = 1),
data = aq,
type = "area",
palette = "dark2",
frame = FALSE,
main = "Temperatures by month and season"
)
# Use a two-sided formula to arrange the facet windows in a fixed grid.
# LHS -> facet rows; RHS -> facet columns
aq$hot = ifelse(aq$Temp>=75, "hot", "cold")
aq$windy = ifelse(aq$Wind>=15, "windy", "calm")
tinyplot(
Temp ~ Day,
facet = windy ~ hot,
data = aq
)
# The (automatic) legend position and look can be customized using
# appropriate arguments. Note the trailing "!" in the `legend` position
# argument below. This tells `tinyplot` to place the legend _outside_ the plot
# area.
tinyplot(
Temp ~ Day | Month,
data = aq,
type = "l",
legend = legend("bottom!", title = "Month of the year", bty = "o")
)
# The default group colours are inherited from either the "R4" or "Viridis"
# palettes, depending on the number of groups. However, all palettes listed
# by `palette.pals()` and `hcl.pals()` are supported as convenience strings,
# or users can supply a valid palette-generating function for finer control
tinyplot(
Temp ~ Day | Month,
data = aq,
type = "l",
palette = "tableau"
)
# It's possible to further customize the look of you plots using familiar
# arguments and base plotting theme settings (e.g., via `(t)par`).
tpar(family = "HersheySans", las = 1)
tinyplot(
Temp ~ Day | Month,
data = aq,
type = "b", pch = 16,
palette = "tableau", alpha = 0.5,
main = "Daily temperatures by month",
frame = FALSE, grid = TRUE
)
# Note: For more examples and a detailed walkthrough, please see the
# introductory tinyplot tutorial available online:
# https://grantmcdermott.com/tinyplot/vignettes/intro_tutorial.html
[Package
tinyplot version 0.1.0
Index]