Label size in directlabels geom_dl()

Question

I have really enjoyed the package directlabels for dynamic positioning the lables of a plot. Although still not perfect, it helps reasonably to prevent overlaps between labels of a scatter plots with many points for example - specially for the draft version of the charts, not the final one.

However I can not find anyway to change the label size while using geom_dl() function. Is there anyway?

I have tried to pass size and cex as a normal or aes() argument to the function.

Gullett

reproducible example, please. – Olnek

Answer 1

Put cex inside a list. Other formatting features should also be placed in the list. See some of the examples in ?directlabels::geom_dl

library(ggplot2)
library(directlabels)

dat = data.frame(x = 1:10, y = 1:10, z = letters[1:10])

ggplot(dat, aes(x, y)) +
    geom_point() +
    geom_dl(aes(label = z), method = list(cex = 2, rot = -45, hjust = -.5))

EDIT

The method too is placed in the list:

ggplot(dat, aes(x, y)) +
    geom_point() +
    geom_dl(aes(label = z), method = list("smart.grid", cex = 2))

Vladi

Thanks, when I try to add geom_dl( aes(label = z), method="smart.grid", list(cex = 1, rot = -45, hjust = -.5)), It says: Error: ggplot2 doesn't know how to deal with data of class list. Would you please resolve it? – Gullett

@AliSharifi, "smart.grid" too goes into the list: geom_dl(aes(label = z), list("smart.grid", cex = 2)) – Vladi

Why does hjust work when passed directly to geom_dl, while cex doesn't? – Audsley