R plotly: How to keep width parameter of ggplot2 geom_bar() when using ggplotly()

Question

For some reason, when converting in R a ggplot2 bar chart ( geom_bar ) into an interactive plot using plotly 's ggplotly function, ggplotly "forces" the bars to stick together, even if the width parameter is specified:

library(plotly)
library(ggplot2)

DF <- read.table(text="Rank F1     F2     F3
1    500    250    50
2    400    100    30
3    300    155    100
4    200    90     10", header=TRUE)

library(reshape2)
DF1 <- melt(DF, id.var="Rank")

p <- ggplot(DF1, aes(x = Rank, y = value, fill = variable)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity")

ggplotly(p)

p <- ggplot(DF1, aes(x = Rank, y = value, fill = variable)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", width = 0.4)

ggplotly(p)

It also reverses ggplot2 s default colors order for some reason (although keeping the order in the legend...), but I can handle this.

Any idea hot to tell ggplotly to not stick my bars together, like the default ggplot2 behavior?

Answer 1

Any idea hot to tell ggplotly to not stick my bars together, like the default ggplot2 behavior?

ggplotly sets bargap to 0 , you could set to your desired value via layout

ggplotly(p) %>% layout(bargap=0.15)

---

It also reverses ggplot2s default colors order for some reason (although keeping the order in the legend...), but I can handle this.

Let's get that fixed as well. You can change the order afterwards by flipping the bars and reversing the legend.

gp <- ggplotly(p) %>% layout(bargap = 0.15, legend = list(traceorder = 'reversed'))

traces <- length(gp[['x']][[1]])
for (i in 1:floor(traces / 2)) {
  temp <- gp[['x']][[1]][[i]]
  gp[['x']][[1]][[i]] <- gp[['x']][[1]][[traces + 1 - i]]
  gp[['x']][[1]][[traces + 1 - i]] <- temp
}