2:02 p.m.
Dear all,
this is a proposal which I have had in mind for a long time. Before
starting, this thread is really just meant as a proposal, so please
don't take it personally at all! :-)
We all like gretl and gnuplot very much. But let's be honest, gnuplot's
default plotting settings are not fancy at all. When I introduce gretl
to potentially interested people, I instantly add "Not, this program is
not from the 1990s, and yes, you can make the graphs much more fancy by
your own".
I am totally aware of the possibility to customize plots in a flexible
manner using gretl but why not producing a "nice" graph per default for
the user. Just compare the two graphs I attached. Isn't the RHS one not
just more attractive? It only adds 3 additional lines of code and
selects nicer colors and replaces crosses by points (pt 7):
<extra-gnuplot-lines>
# replace the default settings
set linetype 1 lc rgb '#1B9E77' pt 7 # dark teal
set linetype 2 lc rgb '#D95F02' pt 7 # dark orange
set linetype 3 lc rgb '#7570B3' pt 7 # dark lilac
set linetype 4 lc rgb '#E7298A' pt 7 # dark magenta
set linetype 5 lc rgb '#66A61E' pt 7 # dark lime green
set linetype 6 lc rgb '#E6AB02' pt 7 # dark banana
set linetype 7 lc rgb '#A6761D' pt 7 # dark tan
set linetype 8 lc rgb '#666666' pt 7 # dark gray
# add Axes
set style line 11 lc rgb '#808080' lt 1
set border 3 back ls 11
set tics nomirror out scale 0.75
<extra-gnuplot-lines\>
I know that the meaning of "nice" is very subjective but I am sure we
could find a compromise with regard to this ;-)
Thus, I would like to propose to change the default plotting settings.
For instance, have a look at the seaborn package for Python. Those
graphs look really attractive per default.
Another gnuplot example is a graph as you can find it here, and which
uses a nice color scheme for lines and the borders.:
http://www.gnuplotting.org/ease-your-plotting-with-config-snippets/
I also found a nice collection of color paletes for gnuplot here:
https://github.com/Gnuplotting/gnuplot-palettes
https://github.com/aschn/gnuplot-colorbrewer
For scatter plots I also suggest to plot points instead of crosses per
default -- it just looks more fancy :-)
Please let me know what you think about this idea.
Best,
Artur
4:10 p.m.
Am 11.11.18 um 15:02 schrieb Artur T.:
Dear all,
this is a proposal which I have had in mind for a long time. Before
starting, this thread is really just meant as a proposal, so please
don't take it personally at all! :-)
We all like gretl and gnuplot very much. But let's be honest,
gnuplot's default plotting settings are not fancy at all. When I
introduce gretl to potentially interested people, I instantly add
"Not, this program is not from the 1990s, and yes, you can make the
graphs much more fancy by your own".
In principle I agree with Artur. I also remember that years ago (when I
was young and foolish) I suggested to move to something like matplotlib
to replace gnuplot. Of course Artur's initiative is much less radical.
OTOH the default time-series plot is relatively OK I think. But the "+"
symbol for scatterplots indeed looks very much 20th century.
I wonder if there is something like "themes" in gnuplot nowadays.
Because diving into the plotting details and tune every detail is going
to be a lot of work and also .... subjective.
cheers,
sven
12:33 a.m.
On Sun, 11 Nov 2018, Artur T. wrote:
Dear all,
this is a proposal which I have had in mind for a long time. Before
starting, this thread is really just meant as a proposal, so please don't
take it personally at all! :-)
We all like gretl and gnuplot very much. But let's be honest, gnuplot's
default plotting settings are not fancy at all. When I introduce gretl to
potentially interested people, I instantly add "Not, this program is not from
the 1990s, and yes, you can make the graphs much more fancy by your own".
[...]
Point taken; we can probably do something to make gretl's gnuplot
plots look better by default -- and maybe also set up a choice of
"themes".
One observation on your side-by-side scatterplot comparison. The one
on the right (with modifications relative to the gretl default)
looks more appealing and up-to-date, I agree. But the choice of
filled circles to plot all points results in significant information
loss. In the old-style one on the left you can tell when "CIT=0" and
"CIT=1" points coincide, but on the right the CIT=1 points overwrite
the CIT=0 ones, with no hint (or none I can detect) that there's
anything "underneath".
Allin
8:47 p.m.
Am 12.11.18 um 01:33 schrieb Allin Cottrell:
On Sun, 11 Nov 2018, Artur T. wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> this is a proposal which I have had in mind for a long time. Before
> starting, this thread is really just meant as a proposal, so please
> don't take it personally at all! :-)
>
> We all like gretl and gnuplot very much. But let's be honest,
> gnuplot's default plotting settings are not fancy at all. When I
> introduce gretl to potentially interested people, I instantly add
> "Not, this program is not from the 1990s, and yes, you can make the
> graphs much more fancy by your own".
[...]
I wonder if there is something like "themes" in gnuplot
nowadays.
Because diving into the plotting details and tune every detail is
going >to be a
lot of work and also .... subjective.
I couldn't find anything like a gnuplot built-in theme-selection option.
People define some ascii file including color definitions etc., and then
"load" it. There are several online for instance via gitlab.
Point taken; we can probably do something to make gretl's gnuplot
plots
look better by default -- and maybe also set up a choice of "themes".
Thanks for looking at it, Allin.
One observation on your side-by-side scatterplot comparison. The one on
the right (with modifications relative to the gretl default) looks more
appealing and up-to-date, I agree. But the choice of filled circles to
plot all points results in significant information loss. In the
old-style one on the left you can tell when "CIT=0" and "CIT=1"
points
coincide, but on the right the CIT=1 points overwrite the CIT=0 ones,
with no hint (or none I can detect) that there's anything "underneath".
I definitely agree with you that plotting only filled circles is less
informative -- especially when one point exactly covers another "class".
Please let me know if I can help somehow.
Best,
Artur
2257
days inactive
2258
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3 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
-
Allin Cottrell -
Artur T. -
Sven Schreiber