Seeking workaround for gtable_add_grob code broken by ggplot 2.2.0

Question

In plots with multiple facet variables, ggplot2 repeats the facet label for the \"outer\" variable, rather than having a single spanning facet strip across all the levels of

Answer 1

Indeed, ggplot2 v2.2.0 constructs complex strips column by column, with each column a single grob. This can be checked by extracting one strip, then examining its structure. Using your plot:

library(ggplot2)
library(gtable)
library(grid)

# Your data
df = structure(list(location = structure(c(1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 
 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 1L, 1L, 
 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 
 2L, 2L), .Label = c("SF", "SS"), class = "factor"), species = structure(c(1L, 
 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 
 1L, 1L, 1L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 
 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L), .Label = c("AGR", "LKA"), class = "factor"), 
    position = structure(c(1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 
    2L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 
    1L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 
    2L), .Label = c("top", "bottom"), class = "factor"), density = c(0.41, 
    0.41, 0.43, 0.33, 0.35, 0.43, 0.34, 0.46, 0.32, 0.32, 0.4, 
    0.4, 0.45, 0.34, 0.39, 0.39, 0.31, 0.38, 0.48, 0.3, 0.42, 
    0.34, 0.35, 0.4, 0.38, 0.42, 0.36, 0.34, 0.46, 0.38, 0.36, 
    0.39, 0.38, 0.39, 0.39, 0.39, 0.36, 0.39, 0.51, 0.38)), .Names = c("location", 
   "species", "position", "density"), row.names = c(NA, -40L), class = "data.frame")

# Your ggplot with three facet levels
p=ggplot(df, aes("", density)) + 
  geom_boxplot(width=0.7, position=position_dodge(0.7)) + 
  theme_bw() +
  facet_grid(. ~ species + location +  position) +
  theme(panel.spacing=unit(0,"lines"),
     strip.background=element_rect(color="grey30", fill="grey90"),
     panel.border=element_rect(color="grey90"),
     axis.ticks.x=element_blank()) +
  labs(x="")

# Get the ggplot grob
pg = ggplotGrob(p)

# Get the left most strip
index = which(pg$layout$name == "strip-t-1")
strip1 = pg$grobs[[index]]

# Draw the strip
grid.newpage()
grid.draw(strip1)

# Examine its layout
strip1$layout
gtable_show_layout(strip1)

One crude way to get outer strip labels 'spanning' inner labels is to construct the strip from scratch:

# Get the strips, as a list, from the original plot
strip = list()
for(i in 1:8) {
   index = which(pg$layout$name == paste0("strip-t-",i))
   strip[[i]] = pg$grobs[[index]]
}

# Construct gtable to contain the new strip
newStrip  = gtable(widths = unit(rep(1, 8), "null"), heights = strip[[1]]$heights)

## Populate the gtable    
# Top row
for(i in 1:2) {
   newStrip = gtable_add_grob(newStrip, strip[[4*i-3]][1], 
           t = 1, l = 4*i-3, r = 4*i)
}

# Middle row
for(i in 1:4){
   newStrip = gtable_add_grob(newStrip, strip[[2*i-1]][2], 
         t = 2, l = 2*i-1, r = 2*i)
}

# Bottom row
for(i in 1:8) {
   newStrip = gtable_add_grob(newStrip, strip[[i]][3], 
       t = 3, l = i)
}

# Put the strip into the plot 
# (It could be better to remove the original strip. 
# In this case, with a coloured background, it doesn't matter)
pgNew = gtable_add_grob(pg, newStrip, t = 7, l = 5, r = 19)

# Draw the plot
grid.newpage()
grid.draw(pgNew)

OR using vectorised gtable_add_grob (see the comments):

pg = ggplotGrob(p)

# Get a list of strips from the original plot
strip = lapply(grep("strip-t", pg$layout$name), function(x) {pg$grobs[[x]]})

# Construct gtable to contain the new strip
newStrip  = gtable(widths = unit(rep(1, 8), "null"), heights = strip[[1]]$heights)

## Populate the gtable    
# Top row
cols = seq(1, by = 4, length.out = 2)
newStrip = gtable_add_grob(newStrip, lapply(strip[cols], `[`, 1), t = 1, l = cols, r = cols + 3)

# Middle row
cols = seq(1, by = 2, length.out = 4)
newStrip = gtable_add_grob(newStrip, lapply(strip[cols], `[`, 2), t = 2, l = cols, r = cols + 1)

# Bottom row
newStrip = gtable_add_grob(newStrip, lapply(strip, `[`, 3), t = 3, l = 1:8)

# Put the strip into the plot
pgNew = gtable_add_grob(pg, newStrip, t = 7, l = 5, r = 19)

# Draw the plot
grid.newpage()
grid.draw(pgNew)