Have you ever struggled to customize the colors of hatch bars in a ggplot2 chart? I know I have! Recently, I stumbled upon a Reddit post from a user who was trying to plot a bar chart with summary stats and custom hatch bars using ggplot2 and ggpattern. The goal was to have the first two bars solid, and the second two bars with hatching on white, with the hatching and border in the same color as the first two bars.
As I dug deeper, I realized that the solution wasn’t as straightforward as I thought. So, I decided to break it down step-by-step to help you (and myself!) master this customization.
## The Problem
The user’s code was almost there, but the hatching inside the bars continued to be black, despite multiple attempts to troubleshoot. The goal was to keep the color scheme consistent, without adding new colors to the chart.
## The Solution
To customize the hatch bars, we need to define custom aesthetics, set pattern and border colors manually, and then apply these settings to our ggplot chart. Here’s the step-by-step process:
### Define Custom Aesthetics
First, we need to define the fill colors and pattern types for our bars. We can use ifelse statements to assign the desired colors and patterns to each variable.
### Set Pattern and Border Colors
Next, we need to set the pattern and border colors manually. We can create vectors for pattern colors and border colors, and then use these vectors to assign the correct colors to each bar.
### Apply Customizations to ggplot
Finally, we can apply our customizations to the ggplot chart using geom_bar_pattern. We need to specify the fill, pattern, pattern_fill, and color arguments to get the desired hatch bars.
## The Code
Here’s the complete code to customize hatch bars with ggplot2 and ggpattern:
# aggregate data
agg_data <- data.frame(
category = c("A", "A", "B", "B"),
value = c(10, 20, 15, 30),
group = c("X", "X", "Y", "Y")
)
# Define custom aesthetics
bar_colors <- c("#E69F00", "#E69F00", "#009E73", "#009E73")
bar_patterns <- c("solid", "solid", "hatch", "hatch")
bar_borders <- c("black", "black", "black", "black")
# Set pattern and border colors manually
library(ggpattern)
# ggplot chart
library(ggplot2)
p <- ggplot(agg_data, aes(x = category, y = value, fill = category)) +
geom_bar_pattern(aes(pattern = bar_patterns, pattern_fill = bar_colors),
pattern_angle = 45, pattern_spacing = 0.01, pattern_key_scale_factor = 0.6) +
scale_fill_manual(values = bar_colors) +
theme_classic() +
theme(legend.position = "bottom")
p## Conclusion
Customizing hatch bars with ggplot2 and ggpattern requires a bit of creativity and patience. By following these steps, you can create visually appealing charts that effectively communicate your data insights. Remember to keep your color scheme consistent, and don't be afraid to experiment with different patterns and colors to find the perfect combination for your chart.
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*Further reading: [ggplot2 documentation](https://ggplot2.tidyverse.org/) and [ggpattern documentation](https://github.com/coolbutuseless/ggpattern)*