chart shading and color

[tclark]

I would like to create a chart with NBER recessions shaded and some other dates indicated by vertical lines. Although I can do that simply with the SHADING and GRID options, the default use of gray for the former and black for the latter makes things hard to distinguish. Can you suggest a good way to control the color of either the shading or the vertical grid lines to make them easier to distinguish? Thanks very much.

[TomDoan]

Unfortunately, both of those are set to use grayscale rather than color. You can alter the level of gray in either (it's fill pattern 0 for the shading), but not the color. We can put that on the wish list.

[TomDoan]

What were you thinking of doing if it were possible?

[tclark]

For the chart I have in mind, with NBER shading and vertical lines marking some other dates of interest (specifically, the uncertainty events denoted in some of the work by Nick Bloom and others; some of these events fall in recession periods), what I am guessing would be most visible would be to keep the existing gray shading for the recessions and allow a color (e.g., red for visibility) for the grid lines of the other dates to be marked.

[TomDoan]

I can add options to GRPARM to change the patterns for the grid lines and background shading. However, that idea works a lot better in color than in B&W:

test grid lines color.PDF

Color version

(7.37 KiB) Downloaded 718 times

test grid lines bw.pdf

B&W version

(7.38 KiB) Downloaded 702 times

I'm not sure how to render that in B&W without it either looking odd (as above) or getting back to the original problem.

[PeterF]

Hello Tom,

from my point of view, options at GRPARM for setting the color of grind lines and the shaded area would be a perfect enhancement. Especially for presentations, those options would be a great plus.

Best regards
Peter

[tclark]

Tom -- Thanks very much for that. The color works, as you suggest. The B&W is of course harder to make work.