plotly / plotly/plotly.R

Feature Request: Remove traces by name using plotlyProxy()

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R
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Description

I originally posted this as a long shot stack overflow question, but I'm suspecting the functionality I'm looking for might require some new code.

When using plotlyProxy(), adding new traces with a name attribute is very straightforward. However, removing a trace by name does not appear to be possible. Reviewing the plotly.Js function reference, it appears that the JavaScript methods exclusively use indices, so this might require an additional javascript method to match names to trace numbers.

The example shiny app below illustrates the functionality I'm looking for. In the screenshot, when the user clicked the "Remove Trace" button, trace xxx would be removed.

plotlyproxy

library(shiny)
library(plotly)

ui <- fluidPage(
  textInput("TraceName", "Trace Name"),
  actionButton("Add","Add Trace"),
  actionButton("Remove","Remove Trace"),
  plotlyOutput("MyPlot")
)

server <- function(input,output,session) {

  ## Creating the plot
  output$MyPlot <- renderPlotly({
    plot_ly() %>%
      layout(showlegend  = TRUE)
  })

  ## Adding traces is smooth sailing
  observeEvent(input$Add,{
    plotlyProxy("MyPlot", session) %>%
      plotlyProxyInvoke("addTraces", list(x = rnorm(10),y = rnorm(10),
                                          type = "scatter",mode = "markers",
                                          name = input$TraceName))
  })

  ## Ideal Solution (that does not work)
  observeEvent(input$Remove,{
    plotlyProxy("MyPlot", session) %>%
      plotlyProxyInvoke("deleteTraces", input$TraceName)
  })

}

JavaScript is not my strong suit, but it seems like one way to support this would be to add a new method in htmlwidgets/plotly.js, perhaps called traceNamesToIDs. Then, the steps might look something like the following.

DeleteTraceNames <- c("xxx")
MyPlotProxy <- plotlyProxy("MyPlot", session)
TraceNumberList <- plotlyProxyInvoke(MyPlotProxy, "traceNamesToIds", )) ## Returns c(0)
plotlyProxyInvoke(MyPlotProxy ,"deleteTraces", TraceNumberList )

I'm not quite sure, but as I read through htmlwidgets/plotly.js, it seems like there is already some very similar functionality in the codebase to support Cross Talk integration.

Alternatively, if the deleteTraces method could be modified to directly accept names as a character input, that seems like the most intuitive usage from a user standpoint. However, this might result in breaking changes for users who wrote code based on trace numbers depending on the details of implementation.

plotlyProxy("MyPlot", session) %>%
    plotlyProxyInvoke("deleteTraces", c("xxx"))

If some implementation of this functionality could be added in future versions, I think it could make a substantial difference in the ease of use!

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reading inst/htmlwidgets/plotly.js, especially plotlyProxyInvoke handling and the existing Cross Talk-related functionality mentioned in the issue. Reproduce the supplied Shiny app, then compare trace-name and trace-index behavior for deleteTraces. Done means the example can remove the selected trace by name without breaking existing index-based usage.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript, r
Domain
data-visualization
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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