[R] How to restore and edit saved graphics?

[Prof Brian Ripley]

The display list on a screen device is enabled unless you explicitly
disable it, and if you know how to do that you will understand the help
for recordPlot, which says that it saves the display list so there had
better be one.

I suspect only a handful of R users have ever used dev.control and I am 
not one of them.  I only added the ability to re-enable the display list 
for a single user's very specific problem.

On Sun, 16 May 2004, Shin, Daehyok wrote:

> Thanks for the interesting solution.

But it is not a solution.  You asked how to `restore and edit saved 
graphs'.  recordPlot saves graphs, and does not allow you to edit them.

> I am happy to find a way to save all graphic options into a file.
> There is a minor glitch.
> Is there is any way to replace title, not to overwrite it?
> And if I want to change the color of a line or the ranges of x or y axis,
> how can I do it with the restored plot?
> 
> Interestingly, there is no mention about  dev.control() in the help document
> of recordPlot(). I think it should be there.

See above.

> Thanks again.
> 
> Daehyok Shin (Peter)
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch
> > [mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch]On Behalf Of Gabor Grothendieck
> > Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 PM 11:59
> > To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> > Subject: Re: [R] How to restore and edit saved graphics?
> >
> >
> > Saving of the low level graphics that R displays can be
> > 1. turned on with dev.control(displaylist="enable") and
> > 2. turned off with dev.control(displaylist="inhibit").
> > recordPlot() can be used to save the display list in a variable.
> >
> > For example:
> >
> > # turn on display list, perform plot, turn off display list, add title
> > # do not need next line if graphics device already active
> > windows()  # or x11() on unix
> > dev.control(displaylist="enable")
> > plot(1:10)
> > myplot <- recordPlot()
> > dev.control(displaylist="inhibit")
> > title(main="My Title")
> >
> > # now redisplay plot as it was before title and reissue title
> > myplot
> > title(main="My Other Title")
> >
> > Shin <sdhyok <at> email.unc.edu> writes:
> >
> > :
> > : I am looking for a function to restore saved graphics for further
> > : editing, such as changing its title, labels, or legend.
> > : How can I do it in R? Thanks in advance.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595