Eliminate strip.background on one axis (ggplot2)

Question

Many of the theme elements in ggplot2 have a .x or .y only extension to remove/alter something on only one axis. strip.background does not have a strip.background.x equivalent as can be seen below.

How can I remove the text and strip.background from the facet labels on only one axis?

a <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, hp)) +
    geom_point() +
    facet_grid(cyl~gear) 

a + theme(strip.text.y = element_blank(), 
    strip.background.x = element_blank())

##     > a + theme(strip.text.y = element_blank(), strip.background.x = element_blank())
##     Error in (function (el, elname)  : 
##       "strip.background.x" is not a valid theme element name.

Roland · Answer 1 · 2013-09-28T14:11:06.573

8

library(ggplot2)
a <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, hp)) +
  geom_point() +
  facet_grid(cyl~gear) 

strip.remover <- function(ggp, what="x") {
  require(gridExtra)

  zeroGrob <- function() {
    g0 <- grob(name="NULL")
    class(g0) <- c("zeroGrob",class(g0))
    g0
  }

  g <- ggplotGrob(ggp)

  g$grobs <- lapply(g$grob, function(gr) {
    if (any(grepl(paste0("strip.text.", what),names(gr$children)))) {
      gr$children[[grep("strip.background",names(gr$children))]] <- zeroGrob()
      gr$children[[grep("strip.text",names(gr$children))]] <- zeroGrob()
    }
    return(gr)
  }
  )

  class(g) = c("arrange", "ggplot",class(g)) 
  g
}

strip.remover(a, "y")

enter image description here

edited Sep 28 '13 at 14:11

answered Sep 28 '13 at 07:40

Roland

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I learned this from [@baptiste](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11979017/changing-facet-label-to-math-formula-in-ggplot2#comment24535306_16964861). – Roland Sep 28 '13 at 07:54
even I think that you can simplify your "grobs strip search"..it looks a little bit complicated.. – agstudy Sep 28 '13 at 07:56
@Rolan, very clever. I think I like agstudy's a little more in that it is slightly simplier and does not rely on nonexported functions. – Tyler Rinker Sep 28 '13 at 13:27
@TylerRinker The difference is that in his solution the strips are still there (only set to transparent). – Roland Sep 28 '13 at 13:34
Hmm, very true. Is there a way to eliminate the need for `ggplot2:::zeroGrob`? Maybe define the function ourselves? I'm throwing this into a person use package: https://github.com/trinker/plotflow but if ever I did push to CRAN the `:::` is a no go. – Tyler Rinker Sep 28 '13 at 13:38
@Roland even with `fill=NA` does the agstudy solution take up space? The solutions appear identical? – Tyler Rinker Sep 28 '13 at 13:40
I looked and the answer is yes. – Tyler Rinker Sep 28 '13 at 13:50
1

@TylerRinker I define `zeroGrob()` inside the function now. – Roland Sep 28 '13 at 13:54
Perfect. Exactly what I was after. – Tyler Rinker Sep 28 '13 at 14:02
This approach no longer works after ggplot2 2.0 version – Tyler Rinker Jan 20 '16 at 01:50
1

@TylerRinker Thank you for the notice. However, I simply can't update all my answers that break after package updates. – Roland Jan 20 '16 at 07:58
@Roland ageed wasnt sure how to handle it as I want other searchers to be able to find the best answer, which changed after the update. I thought about a new question but that was a dupe. – Tyler Rinker Jan 20 '16 at 12:56
Added a 50 point reward for original answer that is now obsolete after ggplot2 2.0 – Tyler Rinker Jan 22 '16 at 16:45
@TylerRinker Thanks, but that was really not necessary. – Roland Jan 23 '16 at 09:08

score 7 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 02 '18 at 01:12

7

Here's a way to remove the relevant strips,

library(grid)  # for the grid functions
g <- ggplotGrob(a)
keep <- !grepl("strip-right", g$layout$name)
g$grobs <- g$grobs[keep]
g$layout <- g$layout[keep, ]
grid.newpage()
grid.draw(g)

edited Nov 02 '18 at 01:12

IRTFM

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answered Sep 28 '13 at 14:24

baptiste

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score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 20 '16 at 13:20

7

At least for the ggplot2 version 2.0.0. if you set the strip.text.x= or strip.text.y= to element_blank() it removes text and the background for particular axis.

a + theme(strip.text. = element_blank())

answered Jan 20 '16 at 13:20

Didzis Elferts

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score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 28 '13 at 07:48

3

Same idea but using grid package

g <- ggplotGrob(a)
gg <- g$grobs
strip_right.index <- which(grepl('strip-right',g$layout$name))
for(ii in strip_right.index)
  gg[[ii]] <- editGrob(getGrob(gg[[ii]],'strip.back'
                               ,grep=TRUE,global=TRUE)
                       ,gp = gpar(fill=NA))

g$grobs <- gg
grid.draw(g)

enter image description here

answered Sep 28 '13 at 07:48

agstudy

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But the panels will still be there, i.e., take up graph space, won't they? I think you could at least set `fill=NA`. – Roland Sep 28 '13 at 07:50
@Roland my mistake..I mean NA in fact. – agstudy Sep 28 '13 at 07:51
@agstudy I think this solution is a bit more generalizable in that it doesn't rely on non exported functions. Could you extend it to remove the other side as well (the x side)? – Tyler Rinker Sep 28 '13 at 13:26

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

In ggplot2 version 3.0.0 this works as you expected. theme(strip.background.x = element_blank()) is now a valid theme element name.

Citing from https://github.com/tidyverse/ggplot2/releases/tag/v3.0.0:

Minor bug fixes and improvements

Faceting

You can now style the background of horizontal and vertical strips independently with strip.background.x and strip.background.y theme settings (#2249).

The underlying feature request can be found here: https://github.com/tidyverse/ggplot2/issues/2249

Eliminate strip.background on one axis (ggplot2)

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