RE: st: bar graph axis color- frustrated

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

There is no disagreement here. The ideal documentation for graphics, in terms of meeting the needs of the complete range of users, is hundreds of pages of examples PLUS hundreds of pages of detail on the syntax, namely Michael's book PLUS [G]. 

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

Fred Wolfe

Nick's point about "bloating the documentation" while certainly
correct, raises the issue of the quality of the graphics
documentation. It is superb documentation of you know a great deal to
start with, but I find it often impossible to fathom. One very useful
to bloat, I think, would be more examples. many more examples. There
are a myriad of complicated pages without example code.

When I have a problem the first thing I do is go to Michael Mitchell's
great book (a book of examples). The last thing is to go to the Stata
manual.

As an aside, both Michael's book and the manual spend much time in
graph bar and dot with over(). I usually have multiple variables with
overlapping groups. Over() doesn't help. I do wish that Stata might
address that very common problem (at least for me).

On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 5:03 AM, Nick Cox <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> This isn't (meant to be) contentious, but the thread does underline that
> none of half-a-dozen experienced Stata users knew the answer just like
> that, including Michael Mitchell who has written an entire book on Stata
> graphics.
>
> (I was asleep, but I wouldn't have known either.)
>
> But the solution is documented and the tail statement in
>
> "yvaroptions(over_subopts) allows you to specify over_subopts for the
> yvars.  This is seldom done."
>
> appears to be quite correct.
>
> There is a fine line between answering all possible questions and
> bloating the documentation further. Sometimes the longer your help
> files, the less people are inclined to read through them.
>
> Nick
> n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk
>
> Kieran McCaul
>
> it's really buried away, isn't it.
>
> Changing the look of the category axis is really something I would
> expect people would want to do.  Perhaps the Graphics Manual could be
> updated to show a few examples.

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