Hi
Ray Brownrigg wrote:> This was reported to me by a colleague in China, so I may not be
> reproducing exactly what they are seeing (which I suspect is rw2011), but
> this is what I see:
>
>>version
>
> _
> platform i386--netbsdelf
> arch i386
> os netbsdelf
> system i386, netbsdelf
> status
> major 2
> minor 1.1
> year 2005
> month 06
> day 20
> language R
>
>>help(Hershey)
>
> :
> :
> If the 'vfont' argument to one of the text-drawing functions
> ('text', 'mtext', 'title', 'axis', and
'contour') is a character
> vector of length 2, Hershey vector fonts are used to render the
> text.
> :
> The other useful escape sequences all begin with '\\'.
These
> are described below. Remember that backslashes have to be
> doubled in R character strings, so they need to be entered
> with _four_ backslashes.
> :
> :
>
>>plot(runif(100)) # to get something on the screen
>>text(0, 1, '\\Re', vfont=c('serif', 'plain')) #
works
>>title(main = '\\Re', vfont=c('serif','plain')) #
doesn't work, and...
>
> Warning message:
> parameter "vfont" could not be set in high-level plot() function
>
>>mtext('\\Re', 2, vfont=c('serif','plain')) #
doesn't work, but...
>
> Warning message:
> Hershey fonts not yet implemented for mtext() in: mtext(text, side, line,
outer, at, adj, padj, cex, col, font,
>
>>axis(3, at=50, tick=F, labels='\\Re',
vfont=c('serif','plain')) # doesn't work
>
>
> Now at least mtext() 'redeems' itself with its Warning, but title()
> contradicts the help(Hershey), and axis() just gets it wrong by printing
> the characters "\Re" (or "\\Re" when the string is
specified as
> '\\\\Re' as alluded to in the Hershey documentation - but somewhat
> contradicted by the success of the text() call above).
>
> Now perhaps the problem is just with the Hershey documentation (or my
> reading of it), but I don't know what is supposed to work. Or is there
> some combination that I haven't tried?
The problem with title() has been reported before (PR#7031), but thanks
for pointing out the extension to axis() and mtext() as well.
The "good" news is that the 'vfont' argument has been
superseded. It
was a horrible way of incorporating Hershey fonts (I should know, I did
it) and a much better way now exists via par(family=). The following
modification of your example should work:
plot(runif(100)) # to get something on the screen
oldf <- par(family="HersheySerif")
text(0, 1, '\\Re')
title(main = '\\Re')
mtext('\\Re', 2)
axis(3, at=50, tick=F, labels='\\Re')
par(oldf)
The bad news is that, as you point out, the documentation is lacking. I
will make some updates so that this solution is easier to find in future.
Paul
--
Dr Paul Murrell
Department of Statistics
The University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland
New Zealand
64 9 3737599 x85392
paul at stat.auckland.ac.nz
http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~paul/