R Plotly: Cannot re-arrange x-axis when axis type is category

Question

I have the following data:

myData <- data.frame(FISCAL_YEAR_WEEK = c(\'2016-09\',\'2016-09\',\'2016-09\',\'2016-09\',\'2016-09\',\'2016-10\',\'2016-10\',\         


        

Answer 1

Until recently, the only way to sort a plot.ly categorical axis was to sort the data of the first categorical trace of the graph (ref: Etienne's answer on plot.ly community site).

That's changed, and you can achieve the categorical axis sort you desire by setting categoryorder in either of the following manners:

ax <- list(
  type = "category",
  categoryorder = "category ascending",
  showgrid = TRUE,
  showline = TRUE,
  autorange = TRUE,
  showticklabels = TRUE,
  ticks = "outside",
  tickangle = 0
)

Or:

ax <- list(
  type = "category",
  categoryorder = "array",
  categoryarray = sort(unique(myData$FISCAL_YEAR_WEEK)),
  showgrid = TRUE,
  showline = TRUE,
  autorange = TRUE,
  showticklabels = TRUE,
  ticks = "outside",
  tickangle = 0
)

For more on plot.ly's categorical axis sort, see their reference doc.