Is there a table or catalog of aesthetics for ggplot2?

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I am new to ggplot2 and have been trying to find a comprehensive list of aesthetics. I think I understand their purpose but it is hard to know which can be used in various situations (mostly geoms?). Hadley's website occasionally lists available aesthetics on pages for individual geoms and the R doc's occasionally (though more rarely) do the same. I even found a geom for which the two do not quite match.

I searched through the comments here for an answer and even bought the book! Alas, no help.

I think it would be fantastic to have a table with all the aesthetics listed in one dimension and all the geoms (and other objects?) listed in another.

Does anyone know of such a thing?

Is there a simple way (command) in R to list all the aesthetics that can be applied to an object?

Here's how a table might start:

List           x       y       fill      size    colour   linetype . . .
geom_point    Yes     Yes      Yes       Yes      Yes        No
geom_abline   Yes     Yes      No        Yes      Yes       Yes
.
.
.

A catalog of aesthetic definitions/parameters would be a very helpful reference as well.

ggplot2 r
3 Answers

This answer details all aesthetics, not only the default ones.

Get all Geom* function


library(tidyverse)
env <- asNamespace("ggplot2")
all_Geoms <- ls(envir = env, pattern = "^Geom.+")
all_Geoms <- mget(all_Geoms, env)

Get all aesthetics

all_aes <- map(all_Geoms, ~.$aesthetics())

# change Geom* to geom_*
names(all_aes) <- 
  names(all_aes) %>%
  substr(5,nchar(.)) %>% 
  tolower() %>% 
  paste0("geom_",.)

# remove if geom_* doesn't exist
all_aes[!names(all_aes) %in% ls(envir = env)] <- NULL
head(all_aes, 3)
#> $geom_abline
#> [1] "slope"     "intercept" "colour"    "size"      "linetype"  "alpha"    
#> [7] "group"    
#> 
#> $geom_area
#> [1] "x"        "y"        "colour"   "fill"     "size"     "linetype"
#> [7] "alpha"    "group"   
#> 
#> $geom_bar
#> [1] "x"        "y"        "colour"   "fill"     "size"     "linetype"
#> [7] "alpha"    "group"

lay out in a long table

all_aes_long <- all_aes %>%
  enframe("fun","aes") %>%
  unchop(aes)

all_aes_long
#> # A tibble: 325 x 2
#>    fun         aes      
#>    <chr>       <chr>    
#>  1 geom_abline slope    
#>  2 geom_abline intercept
#>  3 geom_abline colour   
#>  4 geom_abline size     
#>  5 geom_abline linetype 
#>  6 geom_abline alpha    
#>  7 geom_abline group    
#>  8 geom_area   x        
#>  9 geom_area   y        
#> 10 geom_area   colour   
#> # ... with 315 more rows

lay out in a wide table

I suggest to use View() to visualize this one.

all_aes_wide <-
  all_aes_long%>%
  mutate(val = 1) %>%
  spread(aes,val,fill = 0)

all_aes_wide
#> # A tibble: 38 x 38
#>    fun   alpha angle colour family  fill fontface geometry group height
#>    <chr> <dbl> <dbl>  <dbl>  <dbl> <dbl>    <dbl>    <dbl> <dbl>  <dbl>
#>  1 geom~     1     0      1      0     0        0        0     1      0
#>  2 geom~     1     0      1      0     1        0        0     1      0
#>  3 geom~     1     0      1      0     1        0        0     1      0
#>  4 geom~     0     0      0      0     0        0        0     1      0
#>  5 geom~     1     0      1      0     1        0        0     1      0
#>  6 geom~     1     0      1      0     1        0        0     1      0
#>  7 geom~     1     0      1      0     0        0        0     1      0
#>  8 geom~     1     0      1      0     1        0        0     1      0
#>  9 geom~     1     0      1      0     0        0        0     1      0
#> 10 geom~     1     0      1      0     1        0        0     1      0
#> # ... with 28 more rows, and 28 more variables: hjust <dbl>,
#> #   intercept <dbl>, label <dbl>, lineheight <dbl>, linetype <dbl>,
#> #   lower <dbl>, map_id <dbl>, middle <dbl>, radius <dbl>, shape <dbl>,
#> #   size <dbl>, slope <dbl>, stroke <dbl>, subgroup <dbl>, upper <dbl>,
#> #   vjust <dbl>, weight <dbl>, width <dbl>, x <dbl>, xend <dbl>,
#> #   xintercept <dbl>, xmax <dbl>, xmin <dbl>, y <dbl>, yend <dbl>,
#> #   yintercept <dbl>, ymax <dbl>, ymin <dbl>

bonus : frequency of aes

table(all_aes_long$aes)
#> 
#>      alpha      angle     colour     family       fill   fontface 
#>         37          3         36          2         20          2 
#>   geometry      group     height      hjust  intercept      label 
#>          1         38          2          2          1          2 
#> lineheight   linetype      lower     map_id     middle     radius 
#>          2         33          1          1          1          1 
#>      shape       size      slope     stroke   subgroup      upper 
#>          4         35          1          4          2          1 
#>      vjust     weight      width          x       xend xintercept 
#>          2          6          2         30          2          1 
#>       xmax       xmin          y       yend yintercept       ymax 
#>          2          2         27          2          1          8 
#>       ymin 
#>          8
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