CalendR Dates and Gradients based on df

[zmcclean]

Hello Everyone,

Thank you in advance for your help it is much appreciated.
I am currently using the CalendR package to create a year calendar and a calendar for each month.

I have the following data frame example:

'''

 team <- c("A", "A", "A", "A", "A", "A", "A", "A", "A", "A")
 opponent <- c("B", "C", "D", "B", "D", "C", "D", B", "B", "D")
 opponentHA <- c("@B", "C", "@D", "@B", "@D", "C", "D", B", "@B", "D")
 dayofyear <-  c(16, 69, 69, 88, 103, 121, 154, 176, 182, 202) 
  ###this is the day of year with October 1, 2021 set as Day 1
 ranking <- c(-3, 2, 2, -1, 0, 3, 0, -3, 2, 1)

 df  <- data.frame(dayofyear, team, opponent, opponentHA, ranking)

'''

Using CalendR I would like a yearly calendar from October 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022 where each of the dates in the df is

1. indicated with a red to green color gradient (ranking = -3 (red), ranking = 3 (green))

This goal has caused me some trouble primarily due to difficulties adding a gradient based on the df$ranking values associated with each date.

My calendR code is below:

'''

 calendR(start_date = "2021-10-01",
    end_date = "2022-04-30",
    start = "M",               
    mbg.col = 1,           
    months.col = "white",      
    special.days = df$dayofyear, 
    gradient = TRUE,
    special.col = "#0A8007", # Color highest value special day = green
    low.col = "red",
    lty = 0,               
    weeknames = c("Mo", "Tu",  "We", "Th", "Fr", "Sa", "Su"),
    title = "Oct - May 2021",
    subtitle = "Gradient Based on Ranking",
    title.size = 40, 
    subtitle.size = 20,
    orientation = "l")

'''

from this code I receive an error stating that
"Error in calendR(start_date = "2021-10-01", end_date = "2022-04-30", start = "M", :
If gradient = TRUE, the length of 'special.days' must be the same as the number of days of the corresponding month or year"

Based on this error, this is extremely inconvenient considering I would like to apply a gradient to individual dates not every date on the calendar. Is there a better alternative to CalendR keeping in mind that I need this calendar to be very visually appealing.

Thank you very much for you help! It is much appreciated. I look forward to chatting with you.

[DavoWW]

Hi @zmcclean,
I don't think it's possible to use a colour gradient (or multiple pre-defined colours) to colour only the "special days" using the calendR package. You could ask the package maintainer for help, or lodge a new feature request. See the output from maintainer("calendR").
Also, note that some double quotes are missing from the code you posted.

Maybe this alternative package would help:
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3331605/how-to-create-color-coded-calendars-in-r.html

[zmcclean]

Thank you for your help on this. It is too bad that this package does not allow for this feature. I will follow your recommendations!

[R-CODER]

Hi! I am the author of the package. I saw this question on Twitter. The GitHub repository of the package contains lots of examples of different scenarios: https://github.com/R-CoderDotCom/calendR

Achieving what you want was possible but only with one color for the gradient. I had to fix only one line of code to allow two colors. Please install the latest GitHub version of the package and run the following code:

library(calendR)

team <- c("A", "A", "A", "A", "A", "A", "A", "A", "A", "A")
opponent <- c("B", "C", "D", "B", "D", "C", "D", "B", "B", "D")

opponentHA <- c("@B", "C", "@D", "@B", "@D", "C", "D","B", "@B", "D")
dayofyear <-  c(16, 69, 69, 88, 103, 121, 154, 176, 182, 202) 
###this is the day of year with October 1, 2021 set as Day 1
ranking <- c(-3, 2, 2, -1, 0, 3, 0, -3, 2, 1)

df  <- data.frame(dayofyear, team, opponent, opponentHA, ranking)

from <- "2021-10-01"
to <- "2022-04-30"

as.Date(to)-as.Date(from) # 211 (+ 1)

# Set all as NA (NA values will be colored with white)
days <- rep(NA, 212)

# Pass you data to the corresponding days
days[df$dayofyear] <- df$ranking

calendR(from = "2021-10-01",
        to = "2022-04-30",
        start = "M",               
        mbg.col = 1,           
        months.col = "white",      
        special.days = days, 
        gradient = TRUE,
        special.col = "#0A8007", # Color highest value special day = green
        low.col = "red",
        lty = 0,               
        weeknames = c("Mo", "Tu",  "We", "Th", "Fr", "Sa", "Su"),
        title = "Oct - May 2021",
        subtitle = "Gradient Based on Ranking",
        title.size = 40, 
        subtitle.size = 20,
        orientation = "l")

The previous code will result into:

I think this is what you wanted to achieve. The calendR package is very flexible, but sometimes hard to understand.

Best regards,
José Carlos

[R-CODER]

Both are possible to achieve. Check the examples of the GitHub repository, for instance:

# Vector of NA which length is the number of days of the year or month
myfills <- rep(NA, 366)

# Add the events to the desired days
myfills[c(1:4, 50, 300:315)] <- "Holidays"
myfills[16] <- "Birthday"

calendR(special.days = myfills,
        special.col = 2:3,     # Add as many colors as events
        legend.pos = "right")  # Add a legend if desired

[zmcclean]

Thank you very much for putting the time and effort into making this change for me. Your skills and knowledge are much appreciated

[zmcclean]

Hello José ,

Once again, thank you for your help. I have updated calendR and have ran the code in the way you have provided (thank you for this). However, I still run get the following error response.

Error in if (any(special.days > length(dates))) { :
missing value where TRUE/FALSE needed

Do you have any recommendations on how to avoid this error? Thank you for your time. I appreciate your help on the matter.

[R-CODER]

HI!

I can't reproduce your issue:

Make sure you have updated the package correctly. I usually use detach(package:calendR, unload = TRUE) and remove.packages("calendR") before installing and loading the newest version.

Your error is familiar to me, but I don't remember in which scenario I faced it. Today I also added a new argument named ncol, so to check if the function you are using is up to date checking if that argument exists.

[zmcclean]

@R-CODER

remove.packages("calendR")

Thank you for the help with this. It turns out that removing the package and then installing it worked and your solution is perfect. Thanks a lot for the help.