changing default chart fill

[Ian Martin-2]

The default for the background of charts in V. 19 is a washed out
gray, and the default symbol colours are sort of muddy pastels. Who
comes up with this stuff?  The result is almost impossible to use,
even for exploratory draft charts.

I cannot find any way to set a permanent default to white or no-fill
background and black and vibrant primary colours for the symbols in
rotation.  Do I have to use a template every single time?

I had assumed FILE --> Preferences (Charts) would allow me to set
default background and symbol colours as well as fonts, but it seems
not.  Any help?

regards,
Ian Martin

Ian D. Martin, Ph.D.

Tsuji Laboratory
University of Waterloo
Dept. of Environment & Resource Studies

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[Lemon, John S.]

Ian

 

These settings can be found in Edit > Options > and then in the Chart styles section of the charts tab.

 

Alternatively you could create one or more templates that do exactly what you want and use those.

 

Best Wishes

 

John S. Lemon

DIT ( Directorate of Information Technology ) - Student Liaison Officer

University of Aberdeen

Edward Wright Building: Room G86a

Tel:  [phone]

 

DIT news for Students

 

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Ian Martin
Sent: 26 January 2011 03:59
To: [hidden email]
Subject: changing default chart fill

 

The default for the background of charts in V. 19 is a washed out gray, and the default symbol colours are sort of muddy pastels. Who comes up with this stuff?  The result is almost impossible to use, even for exploratory draft charts.

 

I cannot find any way to set a permanent default to white or no-fill background and black and vibrant primary colours for the symbols in rotation.  Do I have to use a template every single time?

 

I had assumed FILE --> Preferences (Charts) would allow me to set default background and symbol colours as well as fonts, but it seems not.  Any help?

 

regards,

Ian Martin

 

Ian D. Martin, Ph.D.

 

Tsuji Laboratory

University of Waterloo

Dept. of Environment & Resource Studies

 

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The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.

[Jon K Peck]

To each his own.  The most general way to permanently change the background color across all chart types is to modify the master template, which is in the template subdirectory of your Statistics installation and is named chart_style.sgt.  
1. Open it in Notepad, say, and search for F0F0F0.  That's the hex code for the standard background color.
2. Change it to any other color.  FFFFFF would be white.
3. Save the file under a different name.  Be sure to give it the sgt extension by putting the whole name in quotes in the Notepad box, e.g., "chart_style_whitebackground.sgt"
4. Under Edit>Options>Charts, change the radio button in the Chart Template box to "Use chart template file" and select your modified version.

There are easier ways to use or modify templates, but this will give you a global fix.

HTH,

Jon Peck
Senior Software Engineer, IBM
[hidden email]
312-651-3435



From:        Ian Martin <[hidden email]>
To:        [hidden email]
Date:        01/25/2011 09:04 PM
Subject:        [SPSSX-L] changing default chart fill
Sent by:        "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <[hidden email]>

---

The default for the background of charts in V. 19 is a washed out
gray, and the default symbol colours are sort of muddy pastels. Who
comes up with this stuff?  The result is almost impossible to use,
even for exploratory draft charts.

I cannot find any way to set a permanent default to white or no-fill
background and black and vibrant primary colours for the symbols in
rotation.  Do I have to use a template every single time?

I had assumed FILE --> Preferences (Charts) would allow me to set
default background and symbol colours as well as fonts, but it seems
not.  Any help?

regards,
Ian Martin

Ian D. Martin, Ph.D.

Tsuji Laboratory
University of Waterloo
Dept. of Environment & Resource Studies

=====================
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[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
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[Ian Martin-2]

Jon, thanks to you, ViAnn, and John Lemon for the suggestions.  I was hoping for a global default change, though ViAnn and John had provided suggested changing the default to an edited version of a particular chart.  As  detailed below, this causes termination of the SPSS processor.

Before I was able to try your suggestion, I did go the route suggested by John Lemon and ViAnn to change the default to an error bar template .sgt that I had saved, just to see if that would change background colour for further error bar charts, or perhaps for all charts. 

When I attempted to generate the next error bar chart after having changed the default  template to this saved default error bar template, SPSS crashed with message:

"An unknown error has terminated communication with the processor. The SPSS Statistics Processor is unavailable." 

(specs: SPSS V. 19 academic 1-y license, Mac OS 10.6.3, MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Core 2 duo)

I restarted a new instance of SPSS 19, and the same error message is generated each time I try to generate a graph, from any data file.  I've just now restarted once again, and reset the options>chart to "use current settings" and  was able to generate a new error bar chart.   

So, I'd say that qualifies as a bug, the third significant problem I've encountered in my first few hours of use of the new V. 19. 

I will, with some trepidation, try your suggestion to modify the hex code in the default file chart_style.sgt

regards,

Ian

Ian D. Martin, Ph.D.

Tsuji Laboratory

University of Waterloo

Dept. of Environment & Resource Studies

On 26 Jan, 2011, at 10:25 AM, Jon K Peck wrote:

To each his own.  The most general way to permanently change the background color across all chart types is to modify the master template, which is in the template subdirectory of your Statistics installation and is named chart_style.sgt.  
1. Open it in Notepad, say, and search for F0F0F0.  That's the hex code for the standard background color.
2. Change it to any other color.  FFFFFF would be white.
3. Save the file under a different name.  Be sure to give it the sgt extension by putting the whole name in quotes in the Notepad box, e.g., "chart_style_whitebackground.sgt"
4. Under Edit>Options>Charts, change the radio button in the Chart Template box to "Use chart template file" and select your modified version.

There are easier ways to use or modify templates, but this will give you a global fix.

HTH,

Jon Peck
Senior Software Engineer, IBM
[hidden email]
312-651-3435



From:        Ian Martin <[hidden email]>
To:        [hidden email]
Date:        01/25/2011 09:04 PM
Subject:        [SPSSX-L] changing default chart fill
Sent by:        "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <[hidden email]>

---

The default for the background of charts in V. 19 is a washed out
gray, and the default symbol colours are sort of muddy pastels. Who
comes up with this stuff?  The result is almost impossible to use,
even for exploratory draft charts.

I cannot find any way to set a permanent default to white or no-fill
background and black and vibrant primary colours for the symbols in
rotation.  Do I have to use a template every single time?

I had assumed FILE --> Preferences (Charts) would allow me to set
default background and symbol colours as well as fonts, but it seems
not.  Any help?

regards,
Ian Martin

Ian D. Martin, Ph.D.

Tsuji Laboratory
University of Waterloo
Dept. of Environment & Resource Studies

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

[parisec]

Hi all

I'm pulling up and old thread because i just re-installed v21 after MS dumped me off of XP and i had to go to Win7.

I want to get my old chart template back. I successfully got rid of the grayed out background by following Jon Peck's advice in this thread. However, i also went to Edit-Options-Charts and changed the category colors for Grouped charts and pressed "apply". It shows that the colors are what i chose but when i run the chart, the colors are exactly the same as in the original template minus the grayed out background.

could i have screwed something up when i replaced the F0F0F0 with FFFFFF?? can i go in and change the colors (and line thickness for that matter) in the chart_style.sgt file?

Thanks
Carol

 

[Andy W]

Your default chart template takes precedence over the direct settings with Edit -> Options. If you look at the end of the template there are a set of "cycle" tags that define the default set of colors, shapes, line types etc. You can change those RGB hex codes to whatever suits your fancy - I would recommend borrowing judiciously from ColorBrewer. http://colorbrewer2.org/

[PRogman]

When it comes to the color cycle I find it more convenient to place the color selection in a separate template. At one time I need a 5-step color scale, another time I need a 5 step divergent color scale and then again I might need a 4 or 6 step sequential color scale. Or I need a gray-scale. Usually I create the desired graph and add the selected color scale with a template as the end.
  One problem with poking around with the default template is when the program is updated -- the default template may be replaced by a new version. Saving the altered default template under a new name and pointing SPSS to this in Menu|Edit|Options|Charts|Chart Template|Use chart template file... works well and prevents lost template editing. The ColorBrewer is an excellent source for color schemes. Below is the contents of one of my templates (CB_GreySeq5.sgt) with the first five colors changed.

(Andy's tips have been really helpful and I prefer the transparent background with dashed gridlines. Thank you!)
/PR

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<template SPSS-Version="3.0"
          date="2014-01-26"
          description="ColorBrewer SeqGreys5"
          selectPath="18 "
          xmlns="http://www.ibm.com/software/analytics/spss/xml/visualization" 
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.ibm.com/software/analytics/spss/xml/visualization http://www.ibm.com/software/analytics/spss/xml/visualization/vizml-template-3.5.xsd">
        <setColor aestheticNumber="1">
                <cycle>
                        <style color="#F7F7F7" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#CCCCCC" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#969696" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#636363" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#252525" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#ef3338" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#48c2c5" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#cccccc" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#7aaad5" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#0a562c" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#f8981d" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#ddbaf1" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#1a5f76" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#ccffcc" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#bb3f7f" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#999999" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#000000" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#b6e7e8" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#ffffff" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#797aa7" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#70dc84" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#333333" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#acd0ee" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#a21619" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#5d61ff" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#e4e4e4" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#248bac" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#b89bc9" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#666666" visible="true"/>
                        <style color="#0d8d46" visible="true"/>
                </cycle>
        </setColor>
</template>

[Andy W]

Your advice of having separate templates is a good one, and one I have debated on doing before for a set of different color ramps. Part of the annoyance for sequential ramps is that the anchors for a ramps will be the same, but the gradations won't. So a set of 4 colors will be different than for a set of 5 or 6 colors, so you pretty much need completely separate templates for those minor differences.

The problem isn't as bad for qualitative color ramps though. I typically map the colors directly in inline GPL code, but you may consider ramps inspired by Van Gogh or Wes Anderson movies.

Even for categorical ramps though I typically actively choose what colors to assign to what categories. For just a quick plot for myself it makes little difference (so pick a set of whatever defaults you like) but for presentation I typically am more active in how I assign the colors. If I want to focus attention on a particular object in the plot, I will choose a more saturated color (often red) and make the other objects lighter (pastel colors, or actually mapping saturation or transparency - transparency should be used way more often than it is). If I have a set of categorical variables I might intentionally choose colors that will functionally group the categories (e.g. make two related categories different shades of green). Here is an example of where I used a cyclical color ramp to symbolize day of week patterns. I try to avoid using categorical color ramps in publications though - they tend to be quite complicated to decipher even with only 4 categories (let alone more).

For continuous color ramps I've used the mapped aesthetics of grey to red (for sequential) and green to purple (divergent).

So long story short - I encourage everyone to change the defaults for there particular situation. Choosing a reasonable set of colors though takes active thought, one that is not always amenable to having a set of defaults. I am probably going to take Progman's advice though about compartmentalizing different parts of the chart template though (so thank you!) - I've been accumulating different templates for reports and ones for presentations (presentations often use way too small fonts and labels) that I think would be a good use for it.

[Jon K Peck]

Choosing a good color scheme really depends on your goals and on what media the output will be viewed or reproduced.  Far be it from me to offer much advice, since I am red-green color blind (another thing to consider in picking a scheme, since this fairly common), but I would point out that the color scheme issue also comes up for tables.  There are two Cynthia Brewer schemes packaged with the SPSSINC MODIFY TABLES extension command good for 9-12 columns.  Others could easily be added.

Here are two examples coloring a crosstab table with Brewer colors plus a blue wash effect all using employee data.sav.


CROSSTABS
  /TABLES=educ BY jobcat.

* contrasting the columns.
SPSSINC MODIFY TABLES subtype="'Crosstabulation'"
SELECT="<<ALL>>"
/STYLES  APPLYTO=BOTH
CUSTOMFUNCTION="customstylefunctions.qualitative".

* milder colors.
SPSSINC MODIFY TABLES subtype="'Crosstabulation'"
SELECT="<<ALL>>"
/STYLES  APPLYTO=BOTH
CUSTOMFUNCTION="customstylefunctions.pastelqualitative".

* Wash columns blue.
SPSSINC MODIFY TABLES subtype="'Crosstabulation'"
SELECT="<<ALL>>"
/STYLES  APPLYTO=BOTH
CUSTOMFUNCTION="customstylefunctions.washColumnsBlue".


Jon Peck (no "h") aka Kim
Senior Software Engineer, IBM
[hidden email]
phone: [phone]




From:        Andy W <[hidden email]>
To:        [hidden email],
Date:        05/07/2014 07:21 PM
Subject:        Re: [SPSSX-L] edit>options>chart>use template,              trashes SPSS 19 Re: [SPSSX-L] changing default chart fill
Sent by:        "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <[hidden email]>

---

Your advice of having separate templates is a good one, and one I have
debated on doing before for a set of different color ramps. Part of the
annoyance for sequential ramps is that the anchors for a ramps will be the
same, but the gradations won't. So a set of 4 colors will be different than
for a set of 5 or 6 colors, so you pretty much need completely separate
templates for those minor differences.

The problem isn't as bad for qualitative color ramps though. I typically map
the colors directly in inline GPL code, but you may consider ramps inspired
by  Van Gogh
<http://andrewpwheeler.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/how-art-can-influence-info-viz/>
or  Wes Anderson
<http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2014/03/give-your-r-charts-that-wes-anderson-style.html>
movies.

Even for categorical ramps though I typically actively choose what colors to
assign to what categories. For just a quick plot for myself it makes little
difference (so pick a set of whatever defaults you like) but for
presentation I typically am more active in how I assign the colors. If I
want to focus attention on a particular object in the plot, I will choose a
more saturated color (often red) and make the other objects lighter (pastel
colors, or actually mapping saturation or transparency - transparency should
be used way more often than it is). If I have a set of categorical variables
I might intentionally choose colors that will functionally group the
categories (e.g. make two related categories different shades of green).
Here is an example of where I used a  cyclical color ramp
<http://andrewpwheeler.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/cyclical-color-ramps-for-time-series-line-plots/>
to symbolize day of week patterns. I try to avoid using categorical color
ramps in publications though - they tend to be quite complicated to decipher
even with only 4 categories (let alone more).

For continuous color ramps I've used the mapped aesthetics of  grey to red
<http://andrewpwheeler.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/fluctuation-diagrams-in-spss/>
(for sequential) and  green to purple
<http://andrewpwheeler.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/plotting-interactions-and-non-linear-predictions/>
(divergent).

So long story short - I encourage everyone to change the defaults for there
particular situation. Choosing a reasonable set of colors though takes
active thought, one that is not always amenable to having a set of defaults.
I am probably going to take Progman's advice though about compartmentalizing
different parts of the chart template though (so thank you!) - I've been
accumulating different templates for reports and ones for presentations
(presentations often use way too small fonts and labels) that I think would
be a good use for it.



-----
Andy W
[hidden email]
http://andrewpwheeler.wordpress.com/
--
View this message in context: http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/changing-default-chart-fill-tp3357377p5725898.html
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