plotly / plotly/plotly.js

Grouped bar chart leaves gaps when some traces have no values for an x-axis tick

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feature P3
Dominant language
JavaScript
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

I’m trying to create a grouped bar chart with multiple traces (e.g., 5). For certain x-axis ticks, not all traces have values. When a trace has no value for a tick, Plotly currently leaves an empty space in the group, which creates unwanted gaps in the bars. Additionally, when the last trace is missing, the bars can look not centered, which makes the chart visually misleading.

Proposed behavior:
If only 4 traces out of 5 have data for a given x-axis tick, Plotly should render just 4 bars side by side without reserving space for the missing trace. This would make grouped bars more compact and visually accurate.

Note that this is the same problem as in this closed issue that was never resolved: https://github.com/plotly/plotly.js/issues/930

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First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
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Research direction

Reproduce a grouped bar chart with five traces where one or more traces lack values at selected x-axis ticks, and compare the result with the behavior described in closed issue #930. The change is complete when missing traces no longer reserve gaps and the remaining bars stay visually centered within each group.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript
Domain
data-visualization
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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