st: -tabplot- updated on SSC

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

Thanks as usual to Kit Baum, the -tabplot- package on SSC has been updated.

-tabplot- works in Stata 8 up except that as advertised in

<http://hsphsun3.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/lwgate/STATALIST/archives/statalist.1208/Author/article-918.html>

any users of Stata 8 or 9 downloading it will need to rename the
tabplot.sthlp file to tabplot.hlp for it to be readable by their
Stata.

-tabplot- offers an alternative to stacking bars or arranging them
side by side; it arranges them in table form, in what on occasion I
have called a table plot, or what can be called a one-way, two-way or
three-way bar chart.

By default -tabplot- calculates and shows cell frequencies (percents
etc.) for one, two or three categorical variables, but with a little
effort it can be subverted to show any cell summary for such a
cross-classification. There are several small virtues to such a
format. One is that values can be shown alongside bars, thereby
hybridising graph and table. Another is that very small frequencies
(more generally values) are more evident to inspection. (In a stacked
bar chart, for example, such values are easy to miss as thin slivers
of a different colour.)

The update is twofold. First, I continue to add references to
occurrences of this kind of plot and remain very open to new
references, especially old or interesting ones. Although when you see
such a plot, the idea will seem very simple and obvious to you, they
remain far less common than (e.g.) stacked bar charts.

Second, Marcello Pagano kindly alerted me to a small but careless bug,
which I have fixed. (If it had bit you, you would have noticed.)

Incidentally, some readers might be aware of -tableplot- (SSC) and
wonder about the difference. -tableplot- is not being maintained by
me; the intention is that what you can do with -tableplot- you can do
with -tabplot-, although with different syntax. It's best to switch
and learn the difference, as -tableplot- is going nowhere new.

Nick
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