st: RE: RE: ADO file to graph using features of the default scheme

["Brent McSharry" <brent@focused-light.net>]

A belated thank you for your useful reply Mr Cox:

somehow i had read the manual incorrectly, and had been caught up in the 
documentation regarding how to set the scheme files, and thus "couldn't see 
the wood for the trees"!
the pstyle option definately has all the functionality I need for this ado 
file.

the line pattern was the only thing which I wished to force from the 
nominated scheme. For those who encounter the same problem, the eventual 
code ended up something like:

local linepatmac dash dot dash_dot shortdash shortdash_dot longdash 
longdash_dot solid solid solid
forvalues ` i'  = 2/`novars' {
/// novars = macro containing number of variables in varlist - 1st variable 
is dependant variable
   ...
   local styleno = `i' - 1
   local linepat: word `styleno' of `linepatmac'
   local scatterstr `scatterstr' (scatter `meanobs`i'' `meanexp`i'', 
pstyle(p`styleno') m(`symb'))
   local linestr `linestr' (line `bestfit`i'' `meanexp`i'', 
pstyle(p`styleno') lwidth(thin) lpattern(`linepat'))
   local civstr `civstr' (rcap `ubv`i'' `lbv`i'' `meanexp`i'', 
pstyle(p`styleno'))
   local lblstr (scatter `meanobs`i'' `meanexp`i'', pstyle(p`styleno') 
mlabel(`totobs`i'') mlabp(12) m(i))
}
twoway `scatterstr' `linestr' `cihstr' `civstr' `lblstr'

> Date: Sun, 9 May 2010 19:07:27 +0100
> From: "Nick Cox" <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>
> Subject: st: RE: ADO file to graph using features of the default scheme
>
> The current scheme is detectable as c(scheme).
>
> Even so, this doesn't seem especially easy as many scheme definitions
> just signal variations from some named scheme, so you'd need to look
> beyond the scheme file defining c(scheme) in many cases.
>
> My attitude tends to be Olympian here. I don't feel any guilt in
> choosing colours as program writer so long as users have hooks to change
> them to what they wish.
>
> Evidently you know about [G] pstyle.
>
> Nick
> n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk
>
> Brent McSharry
>
> I am using Stata/IC 10.1 for Windows.
>
> I am writing an .ado program in which several models are plotted  on a
> twoway graph, plotting each model's observed against expected outcome,
> divided into quantiles of risk (a graphical hosmer lemeshow goodness of
> fit - displaying 1 or more models) . Each model will have a scatter
> markers,
> rcap (denoting confidence interval), line (of best fit, frequency
> weighted)
> and label (stating the number of observations in that quantile). Thus 3
> different plot types are associated with each model. I would like each
> model
> (and the associated 3 different plot types + marker label) to have the
> same
> color, and each new model to have a different colour (or grayscale) for
> all
> of its associated plot types.
>
> One solution I can see is to create a macro with the names of the colors
> to
> cycle through (for each model), and assign the same color option in turn
> to
> each plot type eg:
> local colorcycle red blue green ...
> forvalues i=1/`novars' {
>    local coloroption: word `i'  of `colorcycle'
>    local scatmac `scatmac' (scatter..., mcolor(`coloroption'))
>    local rcapmac `rcapmac' (rcap..., lcolor(`coloroption'))
>    }
>
> Another is to create a scheme file with the same colours in turn for
> each
> plot type eg:
> p1line red
> p2line blue
> p1scatter red
> p2scatter blue
>
> However, either option will negate the users default scheme (and the
> second
> option is not as useful for distributing the ado file to other users).
> Is
> there any way in Stata to find the color p1 p2 p3 etc in the scheme
> which is
> active at the time of execution of an ado file?

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