plotly / plotly/plotly.R

Long x labels in subplot() get cut off from plot

Open
#1,760 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

plotly.js
Dominant language
R
Stars
2.7k
Forks
641
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

I've created a shiny app that uses plotly::subplot(), and one of the interactive aspects of this app is that the size of the label can vary depending on user selection.

I've noticed that if there is a label that is really long (in my app the "magic number" is 55 characters, in the following reprex it is higher), that label length is ignored for sizing the plots, even with automargin = TRUE.

library(shiny)
library(plotly)
library(dplyr)
library(purrr)

#Creating dataset with 3 different sample groups, each one with 2 levels
group1 <- c("G1", "G2")
group2 <- c("Longer labels make the plot area smaller", "That's nice!")
group3 <- c("Really long labels get cut off the plot, I don't know why, that's weird", "Another label")

groups <- c("Group1", "Group2", "Group3")

df <-  as.data.frame(do.call(paste0, replicate(50, sample(LETTERS, 10, TRUE), FALSE)))

df <- df %>%
  mutate(Group1 = sample(group1, nrow(.), replace = TRUE),
         Group2 = sample(group2, nrow(.), replace = TRUE),
         Group3 = sample(group3, nrow(.), replace = TRUE),
         value = rnorm(nrow(.), 0,10))

#App
ui <- fluidPage(
  titlePanel("Testing large labels"),
  
  sidebarLayout(
    sidebarPanel(
      checkboxGroupInput("groups", "Select Groups", choices = groups, selected = groups[1])
      ),
    
    mainPanel(plotlyOutput("plots", height = "700px"))
  )
)

server <- function(input, output) {

  list_of_plots <- reactive({
    
    purrr::map(input$groups, .f = function(group){

    plot_ly(
      df,
      x = df[[group]],
      y = df$value,
      type = 'violin',
      hoverinfo = 'text',
      showlegend = FALSE,
      box = list(
        visible = TRUE
      ),
      meanline = list(
        visible = TRUE
      ))%>%
      layout(
        autosize = TRUE,
        xaxis = list(automargin = TRUE,
                     tickangle = 80)
      )
  })
})

  output$plots <- renderPlotly(

    plotly::subplot(list_of_plots(), shareX = TRUE, shareY = TRUE)
  )
}


shinyApp(ui, server)

In the app, we have the following behavior, based on the selected groups:

  • Group1 + Group2: plot size is adjusted to the longer label in Group2. (the expected behavior)
  • Group1 + Group2 + Group3: long label in group 3 gets cut off
  • Group1 + Group3: only the labels in Group1 are used to define the plot size.

In my app, I was able to change the long label to a shorter version, but I was wondering if there is any workaround around this problem.

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 running the supplied R/Shiny reprex and inspect plotly::subplot() together with the xaxis automargin and tickangle settings. Done means the longest x-axis labels remain visible when Group1, Group2, and Group3 are selected, including the Group1 + Group3 case.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
r
Domain
data-visualization
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.