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Is there a generalized version of scale_fill_distiller and scale_colour_distiller?

February 1, 2022

I do different plots with ggplot2 and want them all to have the same colour. The thing is that I use different geoms that sometimes work with fill and sometimes with col. See here:

df <- data.frame(x= 1:10, y= 1:10, col= c(1:5, 5:1))
library(ggplot2)
gg1 <- ggplot(df, aes(x, group= x, fill= col)) +
  geom_bar()
gg2 <- ggplot(df, aes(x, y, col= col)) +
  geom_point()

If I want both ggplot2 objects to have the same colour palette, say Spectral, I would need to do gg1 + scale_fill_distiller(palette = "Spectral") and gg2 + scale_colour_distiller(palette = "Spectral"). Pay attention to the difference "scale_fill_distiller" and "scale_colour_distiller". If we mix this up, the plot changes.

I have many plots and do not instantly know whether a col or fill was used, i.e. I have to manually print the plot before I can actually add the palette. So the question is whether there is a generalized function which adds a colour palette to any col, fill, whatever easthetic. So the function is suppost for gg1 and gg2 like this: gg1 + scale_generalized_distiller(palette = "Spectral") and gg2 + scale_generalized_distiller(palette = "Spectral")

What I do so far:

I simpy add all whats possible. Like this:

gg1  +
  scale_colour_distiller(palette = "Spectral") +
  scale_fill_distiller(palette = "Spectral")
gg2 +
  scale_colour_distiller(palette = "Spectral") +
  scale_fill_distiller(palette = "Spectral")

I hope there is a more elegant way.

>Solution :

You can use the aesthetics parameter, either with scale_color_distiller or scale_fill_distiller:

gg1  +
  scale_color_distiller(palette = "Spectral", aesthetics = c("colour", "fill"))

gg2 +
  scale_color_distiller(palette = "Spectral", aesthetics = c("colour", "fill"))

Checks

ggFill1 <- gg1  +
  scale_fill_distiller(palette = "Spectral", aesthetics = c("colour", "fill"))
ggColor1 <- gg1 +
  scale_color_distiller(palette = "Spectral", aesthetics = c("colour", "fill"))
all.equal(ggFill1,ggColor1)
# [1] TRUE

ggFill2 <- gg2  +
  scale_fill_distiller(palette = "Spectral", aesthetics = c("colour", "fill"))
ggColor2 <- gg2  +
  scale_color_distiller(palette = "Spectral", aesthetics = c("colour", "fill"))
all.equal(ggFill2,ggColor2)
# [1] TRUE