ggplot: align plots by the data points

Question

I have a plot that has date on the x-axis with some data points ("vertical lines") plotted. And then another plot that looks similar except the lines are plotted to different dates depending on when the "ActionType" occurred. The graph looks like how I want it to look except that I want to left align the x-axis based on the first Action Type that occurred. I want to preserve the space between the dates when the Action Types occurred.

So instead of having all the first Action Types plotted to the date that they occurred, they would be plotted to the same point (an absolute scale, I guess?) but then the second event would be plotted reflecting the spacing from the first event and so forth and so forth. Another way I'm thinking about it is shifting the x-axis of the lower plots to line up the first events in all the plots.

I've tried starting the x-axis at the same point for all the graphs, but this doesn't work because the lines are mapped to the dates that they occurred. I've also tried facet_grid with scales= "free" but because each x-axis needs to be different I don't think this will work either. I would love to be able to visualize 15 unique email addresses, but I'm starting with 3 for now.

My data looks like this and it's called email_2:

    email   ActionType  date
1   xxxx    Email   12/5/14
2   xxxx    Email   11/26/14
3   xxxx    won     9/28/14
4   xxxx    Email   11/26/14
5   xxxx    Email   11/6/14
6   xxxx    Email   11/26/14
7   xxxx    demo    12/1/14
8   xxxx    Demo    2/9/15
9   xxxx    Email   9/15/14
10  xxxx    trial   9/9/14
11  xxxx    Meeting 9/24/14
12  xxxx    Email   12/1/14
13  xxxx    Email   11/6/14
14  xxxx    Email   9/15/14
15  xxxx    Email   9/15/14
16  xxxx    Email   11/26/14
17  yyyy    Email   9/4/14
18  yyyy    trial   8/14/14
19  yyyy    Email   8/25/14
20  yyyy    Email   8/21/14
21  yyyy    won     9/3/14
22  yyyy    Email   9/11/14
23  yyyy    Email   8/21/14
24  yyyy    Email   11/6/14
25  yyyy    Email   8/21/14
26  yyyy    Email   11/6/14
27  yyyy    Email   11/6/14
28  yyyy    Email   8/21/14
29  yyyy    Email   11/6/14
30  yyyy    Email   8/21/14
31  yyyy    Email   8/29/14
32  yyyy    Email   8/21/14
33  zzzz    Email   11/6/14
34  zzzz    Email   11/6/14
35  zzzz    Email   9/18/14
36  zzzz    trial   9/17/14
37  zzzz    Email   9/18/14
38  zzzz    Email   12/5/14
39  zzzz    Email   11/6/14
40  zzzz    Email   11/6/14
41  zzzz    Email   12/15/14
42  zzzz    Email   9/19/14
43  zzzz    Email   11/6/14
44  zzzz    Email   12/3/14
45  zzzz    Email   12/3/14
46  zzzz    Email   12/15/14
47  zzzz    Email   10/1/14
48  zzzz    Email   12/5/14
49  zzzz    won     10/2/14
50  zzzz    Email   9/18/14

My code to produce the visual looks like this:

email_3 <- subset(email_2, email == 'xxxx')
p1 <- ggplot(data=email_3,aes(date,ActionType)) +
  scale_x_date(limits=as.Date(c("2014-08-14","2015-02-10"))) +
  scale_y_continuous(email_3$email, breaks=NULL, limits=c(0,1)) +
  geom_vline(data=email_3, mapping=aes(xintercept = as.numeric(date),   
  color=ActionType),size = 2,show_guide=F) +
  theme(axis.title.x=element_blank()) +
  theme(axis.title.y=element_text(angle=360))

email_4 <- subset(email_2, email == 'yyyy')
p2 <- ggplot(data=email_4,aes(date,ActionType)) +
  scale_x_date(limits=as.Date(c("2014-08-14", "2014-11-07"))) +
  scale_y_continuous(email_4$email, breaks=NULL, limits=c(0,1)) +
  geom_vline(data=email_4, mapping=aes(xintercept = as.numeric(date), 
  color=ActionType),size=2,show_guide=F) +
  theme(axis.title.x=element_blank()) +
  theme(axis.title.y=element_text(angle=360))

email_5 <- subset(email_2, email == 'zzzz')
p3 <- ggplot(data=email_5,aes(date,ActionType)) +
  scale_x_date(limits=as.Date(c("2014-08-14", "2014-12-16"))) +
  scale_y_continuous(email_5$email, breaks=NULL, limits=c(0,1)) +
  geom_vline(data=email_5, mapping=aes(xintercept = as.numeric(date), 
  color=ActionType),size=2,show_guide=T) +
  theme(legend.position="bottom") +
  theme(axis.title.x=element_blank()) +
  theme(axis.title.y=element_text(angle=360))

grid.arrange(p1,p2,p3, ncol=1)

ggplot: align plots by the data points

Answers (1)

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