R Plotly: How to set the color of Individual Bars of a Waterfall Chart in R Plot.ly?

Question

I am trying to change the color of the individual bars of a waterfall chart using R Plotly. More specifically the first and the last bar, I want it to be blue and yellow respectively. So in the below graph, Group 1 has to be blue and Group 2 has to be yellow.

R Plotly Waterfall chart seems to only have the option to set three colors for increasing, decreasing and total bars.

Here is the code used to generate the above graph:

library(plotly)

df <- data.frame(Rank = 1:7, Variable = c("Group 1","A","B","C","D","E","Group 2"),
Value = c(10,2,2,2,1,1,20),
measure = c("relative","relative","relative","relative","relative","relative","total"),
colour = c("yellow","green","green","green","green","green","blue"))


df$Variable <- factor(df$Variable, levels = unique(df$Variable))
df$text <- as.character(round(df$Value,2))
df$Factor <- as.numeric(df$Variable)



plot_ly(df, name = "20", type = "waterfall", measure = ~measure,
             x = ~Variable, textposition = "outside", y= ~Value, text =~paste0('$',text),
             hoverinfo='none',cliponaxis = FALSE,
             connector = list(line = list(color= "rgb(63, 63, 63)"))
        ) %>%
  layout(title = "",
         xaxis = list(title = ""),
         yaxis = list(title = "",tickprefix ='$'),
         autosize = TRUE,
         showlegend = FALSE
         )

Any help would be really appreciated.

Answer 1

R Plotly Waterfall chart seems to only have the option to set three colors for increasing, decreasing and total bars.

Unfortunaley, you seem to be absolutely right. But the good news is that plotly lets you add shapes to charts almost just as you'd like. And you're already able to set one of your preferred colors to Group2 via the totals color. So you only really need to add one shape to get:

I don't know if this will be possible to your real world data, but in works fine in this case. Here's how you do it:

library(plotly)

df <- data.frame(Rank = 1:7, Variable = c("Group 1","A","B","C","D","E","Group 2"),
Value = c(10,2,2,2,1,1,20),
measure = c("relative","relative","relative","relative","relative","relative","total"),
colour = c("yellow","green","green","green","green","green","yellow"))


df$Variable <- factor(df$Variable, levels = unique(df$Variable))
df$text <- as.character(round(df$Value,2))
df$Factor <- as.numeric(df$Variable)



p<-plot_ly(df, name = "20", type = "waterfall", measure = ~measure,
             x = ~Variable, textposition = "outside", y= ~Value, text =~paste0('$',text),
             hoverinfo='none',cliponaxis = FALSE,
             connector = list(line = list(color= "rgb(63, 63, 63)")),
             totals = list(marker = list(color = "yellow", line = list(color = 'yellow', width = 3)))
        ) %>%
  layout(title = "",
         xaxis = list(title = ""),
         yaxis = list(title = "",tickprefix ='$'),
         autosize = TRUE,
         showlegend = FALSE,


         shapes = list(
               list(type = "rect",
                    fillcolor = "blue", line = list(color = "blue"), opacity = 1,
                    x0 = -0.4, x1 = 0.4, xref = "x",
                    y0 = 0.0, y1 = 10, yref = "y"))

         )
p

Would you like more shapes? Just add another in the shapes list in layout like this:

library(plotly)

df <- data.frame(Rank = 1:7, Variable = c("Group 1","A","B","C","D","E","Group 2"),
Value = c(10,2,2,2,1,1,20),
measure = c("relative","relative","relative","relative","relative","relative","total"),
colour = c("yellow","green","green","green","green","green","yellow"))


df$Variable <- factor(df$Variable, levels = unique(df$Variable))
df$text <- as.character(round(df$Value,2))
df$Factor <- as.numeric(df$Variable)



p<-plot_ly(df, name = "20", type = "waterfall", measure = ~measure,
             x = ~Variable, textposition = "outside", y= ~Value, text =~paste0('$',text),
             hoverinfo='none',cliponaxis = FALSE,
             connector = list(line = list(color= "rgb(63, 63, 63)")),
             totals = list(marker = list(color = "yellow", line = list(color = 'yellow', width = 3)))
        ) %>%
  layout(title = "",
         xaxis = list(title = ""),
         yaxis = list(title = "",tickprefix ='$'),
         autosize = TRUE,
         showlegend = FALSE,


         shapes = list(
               list(type = "rect",
                    fillcolor = "blue", line = list(color = "blue"), opacity = 1,
                    x0 = -0.4, x1 = 0.4, xref = "x",
                    y0 = 0.0, y1 = 10, yref = "y"),

               list(type = "rect",
                 fillcolor = "blue", line = list(color = "blue"), opacity = 0.2,
                 x0 = 3, x1 = 4, xref = "x",
                 y0 = 4, y1 = 12.5, yref = "y"))




         )
p

Output: