Set a Data Point Using the New Interactive Mode

[RoyiAvital]

Looking at the blog post How to achieve better interactivity with GR I can see the data point:

I was wondering if there could be a feature to set them.
Namely I want some points to be displayed constantly.

For instance, on MATLAB I can do the following (From Orthogonal Projection onto the Unit Simplex):

On MATALB I can hit Ctrl and make the one displayed permanent and move forward to a new one.

[jheinen]

The edit feature is still WIP.

[IngoMeyer441]

I think what we could implement next week is to show multiple data points at once. This should only require a few changes.

[RoyiAvital]

By the way, will those data point work on images as well?

[IngoMeyer441]

By the way, will those data point work on images as well?

Yes, they work on these GR plot types:

• line
• scatter
• stem
• step
• heatmap
• marginalheatmap
• contour
• contourf
• imshow
• pie
• hexbin
• shade
• quiver

On MATALB I can hit Ctrl and make the one displayed permanent and move forward to a new one.

Do you really use Ctrl? Regarding the MATLAB documentation, the Shift key can be used for this:

Click a plotted data point. To create multiple data tips, hold the Shift key as you select data points. To move a data tip to another data point, drag the point where the data tip is located.

[IngoMeyer441]

Starting with release v0.72.5, multiple tooltips can be shown when holding the Alt key (option key on macOS). Pressing the shift key shows all y values for the current x value in a combined tooltip.

[RoyiAvital]

Is it available using Plots.jl or only directly using GR.jl?

I think you fixed one of the most important issues in the plotting eco system.
I really missed this feature from MATLAB.

[IngoMeyer441]

This is only available in GR.jl with the plot display:

ENV["GRDISPLAY"] = "plot"
using GR

[RoyiAvital]

@IngoMeyer441 , I am trying the new plot display on Windows.
Yet nothing pops. It opens a new CMD window yet nothing happens.

[IngoMeyer441]

@RoyiAvital Could you describe, which steps you executed? Hopefully, I can reproduce your problem.

Yet nothing pops. It opens a new CMD window yet nothing happens.

So you don't get any plotting window or is this related to non-existing tooltips?

[RoyiAvital]

Nothing shows up at all.

[IngoMeyer441]

Ok, I get the same broken behavior on Windows 11 with Julia 1.9.2 and latest GR.jl 😞

[IngoMeyer441]

On a second try, I get a plot window:

When starting grplot for the first time, the Windows firewall blocked the internal TCP traffic and asked for permissions. This probably caused a timing problem. Did the Windows firewall dialog also show up for you @RoyiAvital?

[RoyiAvital]

@IngoMeyer441 ,

This is what I typed:

julia> ENV["GRDISPLAY"] = "plot"
"plot"

julia> using GR;

julia> plot(1:10)

julia> plot(randn(20,5), labels=("a", "b", "c", "d", "e"))

julia> plot(randn(20,5), labels=("a", "b", "c", "d", "e"))

julia> plot(randn(20,5), labels=("a", "b", "c", "d", "e"))

No figure or anything appeared.
Nothing about Windows' Firewall.

What's AppName to allow it in the Firewall?

[RoyiAvital]

OK,
Now I have something strange.

I closed Julia and started new session:

ENV["GRDISPLAY"] = "plot"
using GR;
plot(randn(20,5), labels=("a", "b", "c", "d", "e"))

A CMD window appeared.
After a second a plot window appeared.
I could see the new labels when walking on the data (With Shift I could see all data points at the given x).

I closed the plot window. The CMD closed as well.
I entered plot(randn(20,5), labels=("a", "b", "c", "d", "e")) again.
This time nothing happens. Also for trying again and again,

So the first plot in a session works.
But nothing after that.

[IngoMeyer441]

@jheinen AFAIK, it is intended behavior, that new plots after closing grplot do not open a new window, isn't it?

[RoyiAvital]

@IngoMeyer441 , Why?
Also, Does it mean only single figure can be seen at a time?

[IngoMeyer441]

Yes, currently, a new figure overwrites an older figure in the grplot window. Maybe, we should discuss, if this is a good default behavior or if it should at least be possible to change this behavior (for example with an environment variable).

[jheinen]

One could imagine leaving "frozen" versions of figures on the screen - but without interaction. With that you could at least compare figures.

To support multiple plots with full interaction would also require extensive changes in Plots.jl.

[RoyiAvital]

@jheinen , What about multiple plots with interaction with GRUtils.jl?

[jheinen]

We will discuss that in our group. If full interaction is desired, however, this would be a very extensive expansion that we cannot implement in the short term.