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legend() in a multiple figure environment

10 messages · Simone Giannerini, Mathieu Ribatet, Martin Maechler +2 more

Original
Simone Giannerini
# 
Dear all,

there seems to be a problem with displayed legends when a multiple
figure environment is used, see the following example:

par(mfrow=c(1,2))
curve(dnorm,col=4,from=-4,to=4);
legend(-4,0.3,legend="curve",lty=1,col=4)
legend(-4,0.2,legend="curve",lty=1,col=4)


On my machines the first time the command legend() is issued the
legend box stretches over the curve. Subsequent calls to legend seems
to produce a correct box instead.

openSuse 11.0

platform       x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
arch           x86_64
os             linux-gnu
system         x86_64, linux-gnu
status         Patched
major          2
minor          8.1
year           2009
month          01
day            07
svn rev        47501
language       R
version.string R version 2.8.1 Patched (2009-01-07 r47501)

I see this on the same version of R on Windows VISTA 32 bit as well; I
do not see this behaviour on a machine with R 2.8.0.

Thank you,

Simone
--
______________________________________________________

Simone Giannerini
Dipartimento di Scienze Statistiche "Paolo Fortunati"
Universita' di Bologna
Via delle belle arti 41 - 40126  Bologna,  ITALY
Tel: +39 051 2098262  Fax: +39 051 232153
http://www2.stat.unibo.it/giannerini/
Mathieu Ribatet
# 
Dear Simone,

Did mean that the legend (text and/or box) overlap with the Normal 
density? If so then I think there's no problem as the legend is placed 
where you told R to do. And R won't check (for you) if it will overlap 
or not with pre-existing graphical elements.

On my computer, I got the expected results - if I understood correctly 
your issue though. For information:

    R version 2.8.1 (2008-12-22)
    Linux mathieu-laptop 2.6.27-11-generic #1 SMP Fri Dec 19 16:29:52
    UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux (Ubuntu Intrepid)

Cheers,
Mathieu

Simone Giannerini a ?crit :

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Simone Giannerini
    

    

      
      #
    

  


  

      
Dear Mathieu,

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Mathieu Ribatet

        
<mathieu.ribatet at epfl.ch> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
no, I mean that the two legend() commands, which are identical in all
but the y-coordinates, produce different results, namely boxes with
different widths.

Ciao

Simone

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Martin Maechler
    

    

      
      #
    

  


  

          

      
      
      
    

        
SG> Dear Mathieu, On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Mathieu

        
SG> Ribatet <mathieu.ribatet at epfl.ch> wrote:

        
>> Dear Simone,
    >> 
    >> Did mean that the legend (text and/or box) overlap with
    >> the Normal density?

    SG> no, I mean that the two legend() commands, which are
    SG> identical in all but the y-coordinates, produce
    SG> different results, namely boxes with different widths.

I don't see that behavior at all, rather the two boxes have
identical dimensions for me.

What does  dev.cur() say?  if anything with "X11..." (as you are
on Linux),  what does

 str(X11.options())

give?


    SG> Ciao

    SG> Simone

    >> If so then I think there's no problem as the legend is
    >> placed where you told R to do. And R won't check (for
    >> you) if it will overlap or not with pre-existing
    >> graphical elements.
    >> 
    >> On my computer, I got the expected results - if I
    >> understood correctly your issue though. For information:
    >> 
    >> R version 2.8.1 (2008-12-22) Linux mathieu-laptop
    >> 2.6.27-11-generic #1 SMP Fri Dec 19 16:29:52 UTC 2008
    >> i686 GNU/Linux (Ubuntu Intrepid)
    >> 
    >> Cheers, Mathieu
    >> 
    >> Simone Giannerini a ?crit :
    >>> 
    >>> Dear all,
    >>> 
    >>> there seems to be a problem with displayed legends when
    >>> a multiple figure environment is used, see the following
    >>> example:
    >>> 
    >>> par(mfrow=c(1,2)) curve(dnorm,col=4,from=-4,to=4);
    >>> legend(-4,0.3,legend="curve",lty=1,col=4)
    >>> legend(-4,0.2,legend="curve",lty=1,col=4)
    >>> 
    >>> 
    >>> On my machines the first time the command legend() is
    >>> issued the legend box stretches over the
    >>> curve. Subsequent calls to legend seems to produce a
    >>> correct box instead.
    >>> 
    >>> openSuse 11.0
    >>> 
    >>> platform x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu arch x86_64 os
    >>> linux-gnu system x86_64, linux-gnu status Patched major
    >>> 2 minor 8.1 year 2009 month 01 day 07 svn rev 47501
    >>> language R version.string R version 2.8.1 Patched
    >>> (2009-01-07 r47501)
    >>> 
    >>> I see this on the same version of R on Windows VISTA 32
    >>> bit as well; I do not see this behaviour on a machine
    >>> with R 2.8.0.
    >>> 
    >>> Thank you,
    >>> 
    >>> Simone
    >>> --
    >>> ______________________________________________________
    >>> 
    >>> Simone Giannerini Dipartimento di Scienze Statistiche
    >>> "Paolo Fortunati" Universita' di Bologna Via delle belle
    >>> arti 41 - 40126 Bologna, ITALY Tel: +39 051 2098262 Fax:
    >>> +39 051 232153 http://www2.stat.unibo.it/giannerini/
    >>> 
    >>> ______________________________________________
    >>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
    >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
    >>> 
    >>

            

      
      
      
    

        
>> Lausanne STAT-IMA-FSB-EPFL, Station 8 CH-1015 Lausanne
    >> Switzerland http://stat.epfl.ch/ Tel: + 41 (0)21 693 7907
    >> 
    >> 
    >>

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Simone Giannerini
    

    

      
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On linux, I get

            

      
      
      
    

        
null device
          1

            

      
      
      
    

        
List of 15
 $ display    : chr ""
 $ width      : num NA
 $ height     : num NA
 $ pointsize  : num 12
 $ bg         : chr "transparent"
 $ canvas     : chr "white"
 $ gamma      : num 1
 $ colortype  : chr "true"
 $ maxcubesize: num 256
 $ fonts      : chr [1:2]
"-adobe-helvetica-%s-%s-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
"-adobe-symbol-medium-r-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
 $ xpos       : int NA
 $ ypos       : int NA
 $ title      : chr ""
 $ type       : chr "cairo"
 $ antialias  : num 1

thanks,

Simone

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Martin Maechler

        
<maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Simone Giannerini
    

    

      
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Now I got how to reproduce it, it has nothing to do with multiple
figure environment but rather with figure resizing. Here it is:

 curve(dnorm,col=4,from=-4,to=4);
 legend(-4,0.3,legend="curve",lty=1,col=4)

# Now expand the figure to full screen

legend(-4,0.2,legend="curve",lty=1,col=4)

Simone

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Martin Maechler

        
<maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        
--
______________________________________________________

Simone Giannerini
Dipartimento di Scienze Statistiche "Paolo Fortunati"
Universita' di Bologna
Via delle belle arti 41 - 40126  Bologna,  ITALY
Tel: +39 051 2098262  Fax: +39 051 232153
http://www2.stat.unibo.it/giannerini/

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Simone Giannerini
    

    

      
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You can find the resulting graph here (produced under win Vista)

http://www2.stat.unibo.it/giannerini/R/try.eps

(produced under win Vista)

platform       i386-pc-mingw32
arch           i386
os             mingw32
system         i386, mingw32
status
major          2
minor          8.1
year           2008
month          12
day            22
svn rev        47281
language       R
version.string R version 2.8.1 (2008-12-22)

        
On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 3:29 PM, Simone Giannerini <sgiannerini at gmail.com> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Duncan Murdoch
    

    

      
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On 1/8/2009 9:29 AM, Simone Giannerini wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
I think the only advice here is "don't do that".  The problem is that 
the box is sized appropriately to surround the text when it is first 
drawn, then you scale everything up except the text, so the box becomes 
too big.  The new box is appropriate to the text at the new size.

Then you scale everything again when you save to a file, and the boxes 
end up different again.

So the advice is:   draw legends with the plot at its final size if you 
want the sizing to work properly.  R doesn't save the fact that the size 
is supposed to be relative to the text, rather than relative to the plot 
region.

Duncan Murdoch

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Brian Ripley
    

    

      
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On Thu, 8 Jan 2009, Simone Giannerini wrote:

        

            

      
      
      
    

        
When you resize graphics, text stays the same size (on most devices) and 
vector graphics does not. You can't expect the figure to be recomputed 
when you resize (and if you expect so, your expectations will be 
unfufilled).  All that happens is that a low-level description is 
replayed.

The windows() device does give you more options on resize.

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Simone Giannerini
    

    

      
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Thanks for your clarifications,
I use legends only when the plot is at its final size and also had a
look at windows() before posting but at first I could not relate the
legends' behaviour to the resizing effect.

Kind regards,

Simone

        
On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 4:02 PM, Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote: