controlling the tables of legends : 3 cols in first row, 1 in second, 3 in third?

[László Sándor]

Hi,
Before I give up on this (for Stata 13.1 MP for unix console), I still ask here: Could one manipulate legends to show a box like this mock example?

1 2 3
  4
5 6 7

It's not the end of the world, but as I am plotting 3 lags, the contemporaneous series, and 3 forwards, it would make sense to label them this way, and not

1 2 3
4 5 6
7

Such an option does not seem to be documented, but maybe someone knows a hack.

[Sergiy Radyakin]

sysuse nlsw88, clear
graph bar wage if occu<=7, over(occu) asyvar legend(cols(3) hole(4 6))

[László Sándor]

Of course, I overlooked this, but it is *documented*. Thanks!

[László Sándor]

Ah, but the holes must be consistent with order of labels specified for the same legend somehow. Meaning that the order must also skip the holes, no? In any case, I got no holes on my attempt when I had to use labels (and thus order).

[Nick Cox]

Sergiy gave a good answer to the question. Still, a deeper principle is to lose the legend if you can. The same graph goes better as a legendless dot chart, I suggest.

graph dot wage if occu<=7, over(occu, sort(1) descending)  scheme(s1color) linetype(line) lines(lw(vthin) lc(gs12)) marker(1, mc(orange))

[Sergiy Radyakin]

I totally agree with Nick. The chart I posted was intended as any example to demonstrate the gaps in the legend. Everything outside the legend is irrelevant and should be ignored by the reader. If Laszlo posted an example of his code running on public data, there would be no such confusion.

Furthermore, Laszlo is still not satisfied with solution, but neither the code he typed, nor produced result is shown. Only some incompatibility between holes and labels is mentioned. There is no problem to use both options simultaneously, but perhaps that depends on the graph type and other circumstances:



labels first and last applied to corresponding series in this example.

sysuse nlsw88, clear
graph bar wage if occu<=7, over(occu) asyvar legend(cols(3) hole(4 6) label(1 "first") label(7 "last"))

Best, Sergiy Radyakin

[László Sándor]

Thanks, Sergiy, Nick.

I slept on my code, and of course, I simply miscoded how I wanted to generate (!) the numbering for the holes. Once I get it right, I get graphs like this one (for mock data). Which is not very pleasing aesthetically, but I think you'd agree that doing away with the legend makes little sense.

For posterity: Indeed, you can (should) simply specify legend labels with consecutive numbers, without renumbering them for the holes inserted into the sequence.

[László Sándor]

If you cannot see the inserted picture either, I re-upload a copy here.