Re: st: SV: -spineplot- available from SSC

[n j cox <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>]

Thank you for your interest. I can see why you want
to do this, but the idea at first sight is a little problematic.

1. You are correct. My program nowhere computes the centres of the tiles
[which could be oblong, and need not be squares]
-spineplot- creates, as it never needs them.

2. -spineplot- is based on a temporarily reduced dataset.
That means that you would need to carry forward any extra
variables as part of the reduction to be able to use
them for the graph.

3. The problem with superimposing text is that there
is no guarantee that there is space for it to fit nicely
on each tile, as some tiles can be very small, even zero
area. (-tabplot- on SSC is in complete contrast here.)

I can see two easy ways to move forward, at least a little.

4. If you want to add text ad hoc, the graph editor offers
one obvious way.

5. Next time round, I'd add -plot()- and -addplot()- options
for users to superimpose their own extra plots.

Nick
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk

Peter Jepsen

Thank you, Nick et al. I've got a feature request! I find that I want to 
add text to some of the squares, preferably in the middle. I was hoping 
that I could modify the code myself to superimpose a scatterplot with 
-mlabel(mytextvar)- and -mlabpos(0)- but I can't get the coordinates for 
the centres of the squares. I can see from the ado-code that the centre 
on the x-axis ("xmid") is computed, but I don't know how to get the 
"ymid". So, I kindly as you to consider adding this feature.

n j cox

Thanks to Kit Baum, a -spineplot- package for spine plots
is now available from SSC. Stata 8.2 is required. Use -ssc-
to install.




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