Dear R-developers,
A student asked me today of how to specify the limits of the x-axis. I
knew that he should use xlim, but I tried to encourage him to have a try
himself with the various help functions. I do not judge if he used the
correct search strategy or right key words, but anyway here is what he
tried: he looked at ?plot. There xlim is not mentioned. He checked ?par.
There you find xlim mentioned under the xaxs argument, but not how to
specify xlim itself. He also failed with help.search("x-axis limits")
and help.search("x-axis range") and dito apropos(). Neither did
Rsitesearch() for these terms leed him reasonably straight to the xlim.
Finally, he checked under See Also: plot.default, and there xlim is
mentioned as argument, but it does not appear in the examples.
I think it is fair enough that xlim does not appear under ?plot or ?par,
but would it be possible to add an explicit xlim example under
plot.default and perhaps to make xlim more likely to be hit by
'xlim-related' searches?
Best regards,
Henrik
> sessionInfo()
R version 2.7.0 (2008-04-22)
i386-pc-mingw32
locale:
LC_COLLATE=English_United Kingdom.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
Kingdom.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
Kingdom.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United Kingdom.1252
WinXP
--
Henrik P?rn
Centre for Conservation Biology
Department of Biology
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
NO-7491 Trondheim
Norway
Office: +47 73596285
Fax: +47 73596100
Mobile: +47 90989255
E-mail: henrik.parn at bio.ntnu.no
Note that first hit of
RSiteSearch("xlim")
gives an example.
On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Henrik Parn <henrik.parn at bio.ntnu.no>
wrote:> Dear R-developers,
>
> A student asked me today of how to specify the limits of the x-axis. I knew
> that he should use xlim, but I tried to encourage him to have a try himself
> with the various help functions. I do not judge if he used the correct
> search strategy or right key words, but anyway here is what he tried: he
> looked at ?plot. There xlim is not mentioned. He checked ?par. There you
> find xlim mentioned under the xaxs argument, but not how to specify xlim
> itself. He also failed with help.search("x-axis limits") and
> help.search("x-axis range") and dito apropos(). Neither did
Rsitesearch()
> for these terms leed him reasonably straight to the xlim. Finally, he
> checked under See Also: plot.default, and there xlim is mentioned as
> argument, but it does not appear in the examples.
>
> I think it is fair enough that xlim does not appear under ?plot or ?par,
but
> would it be possible to add an explicit xlim example under plot.default and
> perhaps to make xlim more likely to be hit by 'xlim-related'
searches?
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Henrik
>
>
> > sessionInfo()
> R version 2.7.0 (2008-04-22)
> i386-pc-mingw32
>
> locale:
> LC_COLLATE=English_United Kingdom.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
> Kingdom.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
> Kingdom.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United Kingdom.1252
>
> WinXP
>
> --
> Henrik P?rn
> Centre for Conservation Biology
> Department of Biology
> Norwegian University of Science and Technology
> NO-7491 Trondheim
> Norway
>
> Office: +47 73596285
> Fax: +47 73596100
> Mobile: +47 90989255
>
> E-mail: henrik.parn at bio.ntnu.no
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
I think you're right, xlim is harder to discover than it should be. If we added the right "concept" marker to the page, then help.search() would find it. But a lot of things are mentioned on the plot.default page; how many others there are just as hard as xlim to find? I'd rather not fix xlim today, and then something else tomorrow, etc: I'd prefer it if someone looked carefully at what the concepts are on that page and whether it is the best place to find descriptions of them. Any volunteers? Duncan Murdoch Henrik Parn wrote:> Dear R-developers, > > A student asked me today of how to specify the limits of the x-axis. I > knew that he should use xlim, but I tried to encourage him to have a try > himself with the various help functions. I do not judge if he used the > correct search strategy or right key words, but anyway here is what he > tried: he looked at ?plot. There xlim is not mentioned. He checked ?par. > There you find xlim mentioned under the xaxs argument, but not how to > specify xlim itself. He also failed with help.search("x-axis limits") > and help.search("x-axis range") and dito apropos(). Neither did > Rsitesearch() for these terms leed him reasonably straight to the xlim. > Finally, he checked under See Also: plot.default, and there xlim is > mentioned as argument, but it does not appear in the examples. > > I think it is fair enough that xlim does not appear under ?plot or ?par, > but would it be possible to add an explicit xlim example under > plot.default and perhaps to make xlim more likely to be hit by > 'xlim-related' searches? > > > Best regards, > > Henrik > > > > sessionInfo() > R version 2.7.0 (2008-04-22) > i386-pc-mingw32 > > locale: > LC_COLLATE=English_United Kingdom.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United > Kingdom.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United > Kingdom.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United Kingdom.1252 > > WinXP > >