aligning distinct non-facet plots in ggplot2 using Rpy2 in Python

Question

I am combining two distinct plots into a grid layout with grid as suggested by @lgautier in rpy2 using python. The top plot is a density and and the bottom a ba

Answer 1

Untested translation of the answer using gridExtra's grid.arrange(). The left sides of the plots (where the labels for the y-axis are) might not always be aligned though.

from rpy2.robjects.packages import importr
gridextra = importr('gridExtra')
from rpy2.robjects.lib import ggplot2
_ggplot2 = ggplot2.ggplot2
def dollar(x, name): # should be included in rpy2.robjects, may be...
    return x[x.index(name)]

def g_legend(a_gplot):
    tmp = _ggplot2.ggplot_gtable(_ggplot2.ggplot_build(a_gplot))
    leg = [dollar(x, 'name')[0] for x in dollar(tmp, 'grobs')].index('guide-box')
    legend = dollar(tmp, 'grobs')[leg]
    return legend
legend1 = g_legend(p1)
legend2 = g_legend(p2)
nolegend = ggplot2.theme(**{'legend.position': 'none'})
gridexta.grid_arrange(p1 + nolegend, legend1, 
                      p2 + nolegend, legend2,
                      ncol=2, widths = FloatVector((5.0/6,1.0/6)))