Change background color of R plot

Question

All right, let\'s say I have the following plot.

df = data.frame(date=c(rep(2008:2013, by=1)),
                value=c(303,407,538,696,881,1094))

barplot(df         


        

Answer 1

I use abline() with extremely wide vertical lines to fill the plot space:

abline(v = xpoints, col = "grey90", lwd = 80)

You have to create the frame, then the ablines, and then plot the points so they are visible on top. You can even use a second abline() statement to put thin white or black lines over the grey, if desired.

Example:

xpoints = 1:20
y = rnorm(20)
plot(NULL,ylim=c(-3,3),xlim=xpoints)
abline(v=xpoints,col="gray90",lwd=80)
abline(v=xpoints,col="white")
abline(h = 0, lty = 2) 
points(xpoints, y, pch = 16, cex = 1.2, col = "red")