Justin Landis 07/20/2022

The R package ggside expands on the ggplot2 package. This package allows the user to add graphical information about one of the main panel’s axis. This is particularly useful for metadata for discrete axis, or summary graphics on a continuous axis such as a boxplot or a density distribution.

Please install from CRAN for the latest stable version of ggside. You can also install from the Github as seen below.

#CRAN
utils::install.packages("ggside")
#Github
devtools::install_github("jtlandis/ggside")

Using this package is similar to adding any additional layer to a ggplot. All geometries supported by ggside follow a pattern like geom_xside* or geom_yside* which will add that geometry to either the x side panel or the y side panel respectively. If you add geom_xsidedensity to a plot, then this places a density geometry in its own panel that is positioned by default above the main panel. This panel will share the same x axis of the main panel but will have an independent y axis. Take the following example from the ggplot2 readme.

library(ggplot2)
library(ggside)
#> Registered S3 method overwritten by 'ggside':
#>   method from   
#>   +.gg   ggplot2

ggplot(mpg, aes(displ, hwy, colour = class)) + 
  geom_point(size = 2) +
  geom_xsidedensity(aes(y = after_stat(density)), position = "stack") +
  geom_ysidedensity(aes(x = after_stat(density)), position = "stack") +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = .5))

Mix discrete and continuous axis with scale_xsidey_*/scale_ysidex_*.

ggplot(mpg, aes(displ, hwy, colour = class)) + 
  geom_point(size = 2) +
  geom_xsideboxplot(aes(y =class), orientation = "y") +
  scale_xsidey_discrete() + #In order to use xsideboxplot with a main panel that uses
  #continuous data, force y axis in xside panel to be discrete
  geom_ysidedensity(aes(x = after_stat(density)), position = "stack") +
  scale_ysidex_continuous(guide = guide_axis(angle = 90), minor_breaks = NULL) +
  theme(ggside.panel.scale = .3)

With version 0.2.0, more theme elements allow for better control over how side panels are rendered.

ggplot(iris, aes(Sepal.Width, Sepal.Length, fill = Species)) +
  geom_point(aes(color = Species)) +
  geom_xsidedensity(alpha = .3, position = "stack") +
  geom_ysideboxplot(aes(x = Species), orientation = "x") +
  scale_ysidex_discrete(guide = guide_axis(angle = 45)) +
  theme_dark() +
  theme(ggside.panel.scale = .3,
        ggside.panel.border = element_rect(NA, "red", linewidth = 2),
        ggside.panel.grid = element_line("black", linewidth = .1, linetype = "dotted"),
        ggside.panel.background = element_blank()) +
  guides(color = "none", fill = "none")

For a more detailed guide please see vignette('ggside_basic_usage') for more information.

If you find any issues or want to suggest an enhancement, please make a post at jtlandis/ggside.

The following section will summarize issues that are present on the current CRAN release. These will either be fixed on the main branch of this git repository, or currently in development to be fixed on one of the development branches. The current CRAN version of ggside is v0.2.2.

• #40 Side scales cannot be reliably transformed. This is “fixed” under the dev version of ggside, but the overall new approach in the development branch is not in a place where I am comfortable to release just yet. This will be added in ggside 0.3.0.