Prepare dummy data to visually align a single gene across faceted molecules

make_alignment_dummies() helps you to visually align genes across molecules that have been faceted with a free x scale. The output of this function is a data frame of dummy genes. If these dummy genes are added to a 'ggplot2' plot with ggplot::geom_blank(), they will extend the x axis range in such a way that the start or end of a selected gene is visually aligned across the facets.

make_alignment_dummies(data, mapping, on, side = "left")

Arguments

data

Data frame of genes. This is almost certainly the same data frame that will later be passed to ggplot2::ggplot().

mapping

Aesthetic mapping, created with ggplot2::aes(). Must contain the following aesthetics: xmin, xmax, y, and id (a unique identifier for each gene).

on

Name of gene to be visually aligned across facets. This gene must be present in 'data', in the column mapped to the id aesthetic.

side

Should the visual alignment be of the 'left' (default) or 'right' side of the gene?

Examples

dummies <- make_alignment_dummies(example_genes, ggplot2::aes(xmin = start,
  xmax = end, y = molecule, id = gene), on = "genE")

ggplot2::ggplot(example_genes, ggplot2::aes(xmin = start, xmax = end,
    y = molecule, fill = gene)) +
  geom_gene_arrow() +
  ggplot2::geom_blank(data = dummies) +
  ggplot2::facet_wrap(~ molecule, scales = "free", ncol = 1)