R-beta: plot annotation

I have a bunch of curves on a plot and I would like to label each curve.
Currently, if I place the text right on the curve it is hard to read
because the text and the curve overlap.  I would like to make a label
on an opaque white box just slightly larger than the label, and this sits
on top of the curve. (This is easy to do in drawing programs on the Mac)

If I have the label ||
and the line ----------------
I want the result to look like
----||-----
not like
----H------

I would have expected legend() to be able to do this, but it can't -- if
a box is not drawn the background is not shaded.  However you can do it
manually:

Suppose s<-"||" is your text, and lx,ly are the coordinates where you want
it.

hh<-strheight(s)/2
ww<-strwidth(s)/2
rect(lx-ww,ly-hh,lx+ww,ly+hh,border=par("bg"),col=par("bg"))
text(lx,ly,labels=s)

This draws a rectangle big enough for the text in the current background
color and then writes the text.  You can adjust how much space there is
by changing the 2 to something smaller


Thomas Lumley
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