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#Rstats #epitwitter

The main takeaways are:

1) Ggplot customization possibilities are pretty endless.
2) Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all!

🎄🎄🎄

That code shows other cool things too, like how we added in a new font ("Grand Hotel") for the ggplot title.

We used the {showtext} package for this: font_add_google() loads the font from Google Fonts, and showtext_auto() ensures R applies the font to the plot.

Repeatedly rerunning the code is quite fun

And how did we get Santa's coordinates?

Since he didn't share his location, we created a function (get_random_night_coords()) to randomly generate coordinates of a location with a current local time between 11pm and 3am, assuming those are his working hours!

Close enough!

Both of these figures are created with ggplot2, and use a saved PNG file of Santa.

geom_image() from {ggimage} places the image at specified coordinates, reading from the file path.

Here's the ggplot code for the second figure:

And if you want his current location:

🎄 Merry Christmas Eve, everyone! 🎄

To wrap up this advent calendar, here’s our final tip:

Did you know you can use your own images in ggplot?

Check out this festive example with a cartoon of Santa —on his (surprisingly inefficient?) route tonight! 🎅✨

#DataViz #RStats

coalesce() is from the {dplyr} package. It returns the first non-missing value from a set of columns, based on the order you specify.

It’s not just for dates, but for any use-case where you need to pick one value from across columns!

Today's post is for anyone with bdays this time of the year. We see you!

This includes our Exec Director, an expert in "combo Xmas/bday" presents! Happy birthday Neale! 🎂

On that note, ever work with multiple date columns but need to pick one? Use coalesce() to easily prioritize a value!

#Rstats

Can you recommend any other holiday or Christmas-related R packages? We'd love to know!

Here's the code if you like the "minimalist" aesthetic.

That said, it does show the versality of ggplot!

P.s. Before finding the {christmas} package I was ready to make this the main event for this post:

🎄Day 22: An R Christmas Tree 🎄

There's still time to write your Christmas cards!

And what better captures the yuletide spirit than...R...

Seriously though, check out the {christmas} package by Jose Barrera-Gomez.. Stunning!

Custom ggplot functions! Hi all! I’m pasting in some example code to create a custom ggplot function. This example creates different epicurves using the Ebola linelist from Applied Epi’s introcourse. It allows you to defin...

And finally, if you want the function code pasted above, you can get it from the Applied Epi Community: community.appliedepi.org/t/custom-ggp...

Enjoy!

#RStats #Dataviz

Tidy eval helpers — tidyeval This page lists the tidy eval tools reexported in this package from rlang. To learn about using tidy eval in scripts and packages at a high level, see the dplyr programming vignette and the ggplot2 in...

You can make the function more complex, but don't overdo it - too many arguments could become hard to understand and edit!

It's all about balance and the best solution for your problem🤓

Learn more here:
epirhandbook.com/en/new_pages...
ggplot2.tidyverse.org/reference/ti...

Want to further customize colours? 🎨

The example above uses the same colour palette for each plot, with scale_fill_brewer().

For custom colours, you can also define a palette inside scale_fill_manual() - or as a separate object that you refer to (as discussed yesterday).

Why the squiggly brackets {{x}}? 🤔 They're for tidy evaluation!

{{ }} allows ggplot() to recognize the inputs for "xvalue" and "fillvalue" as column names from your data.

Without them, your function won’t know how to evaluate these column names properly!

The code defines a function for an epicurve with geom_histogram(), taking three inputs:

1️⃣dataset object name ("data"),
2️⃣column name for the x axis ("xvalue"),
3️⃣column name for the fill colour ("fillvalue").

So you can easily make epicurves with different breakdowns or date types!

See how short and readable the code for producing three epicurves becomes 🤩.

The function approach allows you to control data-related formatting (e.g. in the scale_* functions) AND non-data formatting (in theme()).

🎄Day 21: Ggplot efficiency part 3🎄

Need many plots with the same style/formatting but slightly different inputs?

💡Create a custom ggplot function!

Define your plot upfront in the function, with all the long formatting code. Then run the function for each new plot with different inputs.

This means:
1️⃣ Plots are easier to interpret (e.g. specific values always the same colours)
2️⃣ The actual ggplot code is shorter
3️⃣ You only need to edit the palette(s) in one location.

*chef's kiss*

Part 3 tomorrow!

#Dataviz #Ggplot #Epi

🎄Day 20: Ggplot efficiency: part 2 🎄

Visualizing the same variables in different ways (e.g. sex by time/place)?

💡Tip: Easily standardize colour palettes by defining them once at the start of your code.

Then reuse the palettes within scale_fill_manual() or scale_color_manual() across plots.

Don't understand what this post is talking about but want to?

You can start here: epirhandbook.com/en/new_pages...

Happy plotting!

#RStudio #Dataviz