sdlhRTools

Personal R package with ggplot2 themes, geoms, and color palettes for data visualization and analysis.

The R package sdlhRTools collects helper functions and ggplot2 extensions I use frequently. It started as a personal toolbox, but every function is documented and examples are included so others can pick up anything they find useful.

The package is under active development and its API is subject to change. Feedback, bug reports and suggestions are welcome via GitHub issues.

Overview

Category	Function	Description
Theme	theme_sdlh()	Compact minimal ggplot2 theme
Geom	geom_violinhist()	Half violin + histogram to show distributions
Palette	scale_color_sdlh_d(), scale_fill_sdlh_d()	Discrete color and fill scales (_c for continuous data)
Palette	sdlh_palettes	Palettes inspired by the Paimio Sanatorium and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek
Helper	sdlh_palette()	Get palette colors as hex codes

Installation

The development version is available to install from GitHub:

Installer	Command	Notes
pak (recommended)	pak::pak("sergiodlash/sdlhRTools")	Fast, resolves dependencies
remotes	remotes::install_github("sergiodlash/sdlhRTools", build_vignettes = TRUE)	Use this to also build the vignettes

Once the installation is complete, you can load the package in your R scripts by using:

library(ggplot2)
library(sdlhRTools)

Examples

Themes

theme_sdlh()

A compact minimal theme based on theme_minimal() with smaller text, tight margins and bottom right legend.

library(patchwork)

p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg, color = factor(cyl))) +
    geom_point(size = 2) +
    labs(
      x = "Weight (1000 lbs)",
      y = "Miles per gallon",
      color = "Cylinders"
    )

(p + ggtitle("ggplot2 default") + theme_grey()) |
(p + ggtitle("Custom Theme") + theme_sdlh())

Geoms

geom_violinhist()

The geom_violinhist() plots a half violin and a histogram together. This shows both the smoothed density and the binned counts of each group in a single layer.

ggplot(iris, aes(Species, Sepal.Width, fill = Species)) +
  geom_violinhist(show.legend = FALSE) +
  theme_sdlh()

Because it is a regular ggplot2 layer, it can be combined with other geoms. For example, adding a small nudge_value leaves a gap in the middle for a boxplot and the raw data points:

ggplot(iris, aes(x = Species, y = Sepal.Width, fill = Species)) +
  geom_violinhist(
    binwidth = 0.3,
    nudge_value = 0.05
  ) +
  geom_boxplot(
    width = 0.05,
    outlier.shape = NA
  ) +
  geom_jitter(
    height = 0,
    width = 0.025,
    alpha = 0.5
  ) +
  theme_sdlh()

See vignette("geom_violinhist", package = "sdlhRTools") (source) for more example and styling options.

Color palettes

Paimio Sanatorium

Color palette inspired in the Paimio Sanatorium by architect Alvar Aalto in Finland.

ggplot(iris, aes(x = Sepal.Length, y = Sepal.Width, color = Species)) +
  geom_point() +
  labs(
    title = "Scatter Plot of Sepal Length vs Sepal Width",
    x = "Sepal Length",
    y = "Sepal Width"
  ) +
  scale_color_sdlh_d("paimio_contrast", reverse = TRUE) +
  theme_sdlh()

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Color palette inspired in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.

ggplot(iris, aes(x = Species, y = Sepal.Width, fill = Species, color = Species)) +
  geom_violin(linewidth = 0) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", stackdir = "center", fill = "white", dotsize = 0.8, binwidth = 0.07) +
  labs(
    title = "Violin Plot of Sepal Width by Species",
    x = "Species",
    y = "Sepal Width"
  ) +
  scale_fill_sdlh_d("glyptotek") +
  scale_color_sdlh_d("glyptotek") +
  theme_sdlh()