Feature idea: default plot color for a variable

[lucas-mior]

When declaring a variable, there could be an annotation (lets say "PlotColor") that tells the default color of the plot line of that variable. It would be very useful when doing tests with a model.

[henrikt-ma]

This is related to the desire for figure style sheets, and I think would it be possible to achieve a similar effect using a library wide figure style sheet (that is, some sort of top-level style sheet which applies to all figures within a library). By adding an id-annotation for component declarations (and possibly other places as well), it would be easy for a style sheet selector to match a given variable, similar to the idea of a PlotColor-annotation, but style sheets would also come with other interesting ways of coloring variables in figures. For example, a class-annotation could serve to tag variables according to their roles, making it easier to get consistent coloring across all the figures of a library.

[HansOlsson]

It also very much depends on the specific usage.

If you plot two different variables, it may make sense to have them define the color, but if you plot roughly the same variable (for different parameters, or for different sub-components) you will need something else.

Since we have added figure-annotations I think the first step would be to consider how to add color-information to specific plots.

In both cases we also need to consider the other colors on the screen; it's become trendy to use dark-mode and plot-colors intended for light-mode may not work well in dark-mode and vice-versa.

[DagBruck]

Maybe one also want to defined plot colors on a type? Or a selection of colors. All pressures are blue, all temperatures go from red to orange?

[DagBruck]

When declaring a variable, there could be an annotation (lets say "PlotColor") that tells the default color of the plot line of that variable. It would be very useful when doing tests with a model.

I assume that all tools provide some default color if you plot a variable. Is the problem that you do not like the default colors of tool X? Or do you want want some highlighted color so you know that every red line means variable a.b.c?

Alternatively, do you want an annotation that says "always plot this variable after a simulation"?

[lucas-mior]

I assume that all tools provide some default color if you plot a variable. Is the problem that you do not like the default colors of tool X?

No. The tools may have N mechanisms to choose which color to use. It might be random, it might be order of plotting, it might be alphabetical order, etc. Those are not very helpful, because if you unplot a variable and then plot it again, it might have another color. It is not that I don't like the default colors.

Alternatively, do you want an annotation that says "always plot this variable after a simulation"?

This would be useful, but I think it is a separate issue.

What I think would be more useful is an annotation that tells the plotting tool which color the variable should be plotted in. So one can easily identify it when analysing results. Of course, the tool should choose any color if this annotation is not included.

[HansOlsson]

Language group: Not going to work on at the moment - might revisit after adding more general styling.