[BioC] OT: question about plots, general R, really...

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "JimMcD" == James W MacDonald <jmacdon at med.umich.edu>
>>>>>     on Tue, 04 Jul 2006 14:53:06 -0400 writes:

    JimMcD> You might also consider using the 'xpd' argument to par().
    >> par(xpd = NA)
    >> plot(1:10)
    >> plot(1:10)
    >> plot(1:10)
    >> plot(1:10)
    >> plot(1:10)
    >> plot(1:10)
    >> text(-12,28,"A header string")

    JimMcD> The only problem with this solution is finding where to put things. An 
    JimMcD> alternative is to use

    >> text(locator(1), "A header string") and then place it where you want.


As a slightly better (most of the time) and more convenient
alternative I have written the function  mult.fig() more than 10
years ago {for S-plus at the time}. 
I still think it's nice and recommendable and even worth
installing the 'sfsmisc' package:

install.packages("sfsmisc")
library(sfsmisc)

mult.fig(6, main = "My title")
for(i in 1:6) plot(rnorm(50))

## or look at example(mult.fig)

Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich


    JimMcD> HTH,

    JimMcD> Jim


    JimMcD> Ana Conesa wrote:
    >> Hi Jose,
    >> 
    >> I came across this same problem some time ago and I figured out a quite 
    >> rudimentary solution, I guess. Probably there are more elgant ones (I would 
    >> love to know them!!!)
    >> Basically what I do is:
    >> - Split my device up into one more row, very narrow, at the upper part, to 
    >> host the general title, and then set my first figure to spand across this 
    >> first row. 
    >> - Then plot a "ghost" plot in which I have made everything not visible but 
    >> the Title. Normally you have to adjust the margins for this first "plot" in 
    >> advance.
    >> - Resest the margins
    >> - Plot the other plots  
    >> 
    >> For example, for a title, plus 4 figures you could use:
    >> 
    >>> layout(matrix(c(1,1,2,3,4,5),3,2, byrow=T),heights=c(1,6,6))
    >>> par(mar=c(0.1,0.1,2,0.1))
    >>> plot(0, main="Your Title", xaxt="n", yaxt="n", xlab="", 
    >> 
    >> ylab="",bty="n",col="white") 
    >> 
    >>> par(mar=c(c(4, 4, 4, 2)))
    >>> plot...what ever...
    >> 
    >> 
    >> You have to play a bit with the heights parameter of layout to get the 
    >> division you are happy with (the function layout.show() shows you the 
    >> position of each plot in your screen). And play also with the margins, maybe.
    >> 
    >> Hope this is of some use to you...
    >> 
    >> Ana
    >> 
    >> 
    >> On Tue, 04 Jul 2006 18:12:56 +0100, J.delasHeras wrote
    >> 
    >>> This is a bit off-topic, as it's purely R, I suppose...
    >>> 
    >>> I am making figures containing 6 plots (MA plots, in this case), using:
    >>> 
    >>> par(mfrow=c(2,3))
    >>> 
    >>> now, I would like to add a title, for instance, to the whole figure, 
    >>> not to the individual plots... how does one do that? I can only seem 
    >>> to add text, title etc to each plot...
    >>> 
    >>> thanks for any pointers!
    >>> 
    >>> Jose
    >>> 
    >>> -- 
    >>> Dr. Jose I. de las Heras                      Email: J.delasHeras at ed.ac.uk
    >>> The Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology    Phone: +44 (0)131 6513374
    >>> Institute for Cell & Molecular Biology        Fax:   +44 (0)131 6507360
    >>> Swann Building, Mayfield Road
    >>> University of Edinburgh
    >>> Edinburgh EH9 3JR
    >>> UK
    >>> 
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    >> 
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    >> 
    >> 
    >> --
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    JimMcD> -- 
    JimMcD> James W. MacDonald
    JimMcD> University of Michigan
    JimMcD> Affymetrix and cDNA Microarray Core
    JimMcD> 1500 E Medical Center Drive
    JimMcD> Ann Arbor MI 48109
    JimMcD> 734-647-5623



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