Creating an Inset as a Table of Text

Perhaps the most common use for an inset is to display a table of statistics within the graph. This section shows how to construct that type of basic table. Later examples will show how to make the contents of the table more dynamic and how to integrate the table into the graph.

The basic technique for constructing the table is to place several ENTRY statements in a LAYOUT GRIDDED block. Each ENTRY statement becomes a cell of the grid. ENTRY statement options and layout options are used to further organize the table.

Suppose you want to create the following table of text:

A Table of Text Created with One Column and Three Rows

The simplest technique for creating the table is to construct a one-column, three-row table. The following example uses three ENTRY statements: one for each row in the table. The statistic name is left-justified in each row, and the statistic value is right-justified:

layout gridded / columns=1  border=true;
  entry halign=left "N"       halign=right "5203" ;
  entry halign=left "Mean"    halign=right "119.96" ;
  entry halign=left "Std Dev" halign=right "19.98" ;
endlayout;

Another technique is to create the table with two columns and three rows. This approach places each statistic name and statistic value in its own cell. Although this technique requires six ENTRY statements, it is a more flexible arrangement because each column alignment can be set independently. The following example left-justifies the text for each ENTRY statement:

A Table of Text Created with Two Columns and Three Rows

layout gridded / columns=2  order=rowmajor border=true;
  /* row 1 */
    entry halign=left "N";
    entry halign=left "5203";
  /* row 2 */
    entry halign=left "Mean";
    entry halign=left "119.96";
  /* row 3 */
    entry halign=left "Std Dev";
    entry halign=left "19.98";
endlayout;

ORDER=ROWMAJOR means that cells are populated horizontally, starting from column 1, followed by column 2, and then advancing to the next row. You should order the ENTRY statements as shown. To add additional rows in the table, just add additional pairs of ENTRY statements.

Of course, the LAYOUT GRIDDED statement enables you to organize cells by column, so you can achieve this same effect with ORDER=COLUMNMAJOR. The following code fragment populates the cells vertically down the columns by populating the first cell in row 1, followed by the first cell in row 2, followed by the first cell in row 3, and then advancing to the next column.

layout gridded / rows=3 order=columnmajor border=true;
  /* column 1 */
    entry halign=left "N";
    entry halign=left "Mean";
    entry halign=left "Std Dev";
  /* column 2 */
    entry halign=left "5203";
    entry halign=left "119.96";
    entry halign=left "19.98";
endlayout;

In both cases, an HALIGN=LEFT prefix option was added to each ENTRY statement to left-justify its text (the default is HALIGN=CENTER). Note that the column widths in the table are determined by the longest text string in each column on a per column basis.

The following example illustrates how to change the column justification and add extra space between the columns with the COLUMNGUTTER= option. Borders have been added to the ENTRY statements to show the text boundaries and alignment. Although it is not used in this example, the LAYOUT GRIDDED statement also provides a ROWGUTTER= option to add space between all rows.

Adding Space Between Columns with the COLUMNGUTTER= Option

layout gridded / rows=3 order=columnmajor
                 columngutter=5px border=true;
  /* column 1 */
    entry halign=left "N"       / border=true;
    entry halign=left "Mean"    / border=true;
    entry halign=left "Std Dev" / border=true;
  /* column 2 */
    entry halign=right "5203"   / border=true;
    entry halign=right "119.96" / border=true;
    entry halign=right "19.98"  / border=true;
endlayout;

With the borders turned on in the layout, you should notice that there is spacing that appears on the left and right of the ENTRY text. The space is called padding, and it can be explicitly set with the PAD= option in the ENTRY statement. The default padding (in pixels) for ENTRY statements is

PAD=(TOP=0  BOTTOM=0  LEFT=3  RIGHT=3)

You can adjust that padding as desired.

To embellish the basic inset table with a spanning title, nest one GRIDDED layout within another GRIDDED layout. In the following example, notice that the outer GRIDDED layout has one column and two rows (the nested GRIDDED layout is treated as one cell).

layout gridded / columns=1;
  entry textattrs=(weight=bold) "Stat Table";
  layout gridded / rows=3 order=columnmajor border=true;
  /* column 1 */
    entry halign=left "N";
    entry halign=left "Mean";
    entry halign=left "Std Dev";
  /* column 2 */
    entry halign=left "5203";
    entry halign=left "119.96";
    entry halign=left "19.98";
  endlayout;
endlayout;