R help - Nov 2005 - help combining mtext and strwrap?

Hi all,

I've got some image plots on which I'd like to include some gene
information
(in the margins using mtext).  Unfortunately, the description is rather long 
and will need to be wrapped to fit on several lines.  From what I know about 
mtext, it's really only meant for single-line labels, not paragraphs.

Here's some sample code of the idea I'm trying to accomplish:

notes=c("Repressible alkaline phosphatase, a glycoprotein localized to the 
vacuole; regulated by levels of inorganic phosphate and by a system 
consisting of Pho4p, Pho9p, Pho80p, Pho81p and Pho85p; dephosphorylates 
phosphotyrosyl peptides")

par(mar=c(10,3,10,3))

image(as.matrix(c(1,2,3,4,5)))

mtext(strwrap(notes, width=60), line=5, side=3)


..as you can see, the long text plots over itself and doesn't wrap.  Does 
anyone know how to include a paragraph in the margins?

Thanks in advance!

--Jake

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005, Jake Michaelson wrote:
> I've got some image plots on which I'd like to include some gene
information
> (in the margins using mtext).  Unfortunately, the description is rather
long
> and will need to be wrapped to fit on several lines.  From what I know
about
> mtext, it's really only meant for single-line labels, not paragraphs.
>
> Here's some sample code of the idea I'm trying to accomplish:
>
> notes=c("Repressible alkaline phosphatase, a glycoprotein localized to
the
> vacuole; regulated by levels of inorganic phosphate and by a system
> consisting of Pho4p, Pho9p, Pho80p, Pho81p and Pho85p; dephosphorylates
> phosphotyrosyl peptides")
>
> par(mar=c(10,3,10,3))
>
> image(as.matrix(c(1,2,3,4,5)))
>
> mtext(strwrap(notes, width=60), line=5, side=3)
>
> ..as you can see, the long text plots over itself and doesn't wrap. 
Does
> anyone know how to include a paragraph in the margins?
The clue is 'line = 5'.  You asked for this to be plotted on one line.
You can strsplit the result and plot the lines of text separately. E.g.

par(mar=c(10,3,10,3))
image(as.matrix(c(1,2,3,4,5)))
res <- strsplit( strwrap(notes, width=60), "\n")
for(i in seq(along=res)) mtext(res[[i]], line = 10-i, side=3)

Or just use title(), which seems to be what you are trying to emulate.

title(strwrap(notes, width=60), cex.main=1, font.main=1, line=5)


-- 
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