R help - Oct 2021 - The "inset" argument in legend().

I cannot get the "inset" argument in legend() to produce the results
that I want.  It seems to me that when the legend position argument is
set to "bottom" then only the second (y-component) entry of
"inset"
has any effect, and when the position argument is "left" then only
the first (x-component)  entry of "inset" has any effect.

I have attached a file "legDemo.txt" which can be sourced to
demonstrate the behaviour that I am encountering.

I thought that maybe if one uses "inset" then one should not specify
the legend position, but that causes an error to be thrown.

I want to have a near the bottom of the plot and to adjust its
position, in the horizontal direction by means of "inset", but nothing
that I try has the desired effect.

Am I misunderstanding something?  Or is there perhaps a bug in
legend()?

cheers,

Rolf Turner

-- 
Honorary Research Fellow
Department of Statistics
University of Auckland
Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276

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On 29/10/2021 8:19 p.m., Rolf Turner wrote:
> 
> I cannot get the "inset" argument in legend() to produce the
results
> that I want.  It seems to me that when the legend position argument is
> set to "bottom" then only the second (y-component) entry of
"inset"
> has any effect, and when the position argument is "left" then
only
> the first (x-component)  entry of "inset" has any effect.
> 
> I have attached a file "legDemo.txt" which can be sourced to
> demonstrate the behaviour that I am encountering.
> 
> I thought that maybe if one uses "inset" then one should not
specify
> the legend position, but that causes an error to be thrown.
> 
> I want to have a near the bottom of the plot and to adjust its
> position, in the horizontal direction by means of "inset", but
nothing
> that I try has the desired effect.
> 
> Am I misunderstanding something?  Or is there perhaps a bug in
> legend()?
I think it is working as designed.  If you say "bottom", the y
distance
will be ignored:  it would only be considered for things that are placed 
relative to the vertical margins, i.e. bottomright, bottomleft, etc. 
The design doesn't say what an "inset" of the middle value would
be.

To move things slightly away from the middle, I think you've got to look 
at par("usr") and place it yourself, giving numerical values for x and
y.

Duncan Murdoch