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gridpattern

ANALYTICS
Velocity0.0

grid Pattern Grobs

github.com/trevorld/gridpattern ↗

gridpattern keeps widening its catalogue, and the newest patterns finally use the device's own line rendering.

r-graphicspattern-fillsgriddata-visualizationggplot2-ecosystem
◆Current state
An R package supplying pattern fills for grid graphics — stripes, weaves, polygon tilings, images and placeholders. Releases are infrequent and irregular, roughly one or two a year with an eighteen-month gap before the most recent. The work divides between adding pattern types and making the existing ones behave consistently, particularly around units and how spacing parameters are interpreted.
◆Where it's heading
Two long-running efforts are visible. The first is unit consistency: v1.2.1 gave the geometry patterns a units parameter, v1.2.2 extended it to weave and fixed polygon tiling to respect it — the slow propagation of one design decision through a family of functions. The second is integration with R's own graphics capabilities, which reaches its clearest expression in v1.4.2's line pattern: rather than filling bands with solid colour as stripe does, it draws stroked lines through the device, so every built-in linetype including dotdash, twodash and custom hex specifications works. The package is also visibly maintaining its external dependencies, having rotated placeholder image services as hosts disappeared.
◆Prediction
Expect further pattern types and continued propagation of the units parameter to any function still missing it; the entries give no indication of a change in the package's scope beyond pattern fills.

◆Recent moves

  1. 1mo ago

    Hatch and line patterns added; wave gains ten new types

    The line pattern is the substantive addition — it draws stroked lines using the device's native rendering rather than filling bands with colour, which makes all of R's built-in linetype values usable inside a pattern fill for the first time. A hatch pattern and ten new wave types arrive alongside it. The indented wave type also widens its stroke to match the new types, a breaking visual change users compensate for by reducing density.

    View source ↗
  2. 1y ago

    aRtsy generative patterns available as fills

    Adds an aRtsy pattern type backed by the aRtsy package, bringing generative art output into the pattern-fill system. Consistent with the package's approach of wrapping external generators rather than reimplementing them.

    View source ↗
  3. 2y ago

    units parameter reaches weave; polygon tiling honours it

    Extends the units parameter to grid.pattern_weave() and fixes polygon tiling to respect it when set away from the snpc default, continuing the propagation begun in v1.2.1. Also rotates several placeholder image names to a new hosting service and drops those whose sources disappeared.

    View source ↗
  4. 2y ago

    patternFill() returns a grid pattern object; patterns can nest

    Adds patternFill() wrapping patternGrob() to produce a grid::pattern() fill object, and lets the geometry patterns take pattern fills themselves, so patterns can nest. The units parameter is introduced here for spacing and offsets, the change that later releases spend their time propagating. The placeholder default also moves from kitten to bear after the former's host became unreliable.

    View source ↗
  5. 2y ago

    Text pattern example skipped on devices lacking the glyphs

    Skips the text pattern example on graphics devices such as pdf() that cannot render the playing-card Unicode glyphs it uses. A documentation-example fix with no effect on the package's behaviour.

    View source ↗
  6. 2y ago

    reset_image_cache() added; R 4.1 feature detection offered standalone

    Adds reset_image_cache() to clear the cache backing the image and placeholder patterns, and republishes guess_has_R4.1_features() as a standalone MIT-0 file other package authors can copy in. The standalone release is the more interesting move — a maintenance helper generalised into something the wider ecosystem can reuse.

    View source ↗