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Top and Bottom plots seem to have less spacing when using `subplot` in `plotly`

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
45/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
r
Domain
data-visualization

Research direction

Start by running the provided R reprex with subplot and 45 histograms to reproduce the top- and bottom-row spacing issue. Trace the subplot layout behavior and verify that the resulting histograms have equal margins with visible labels; the issue is resolved when top and bottom plots are spaced consistently.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Description:

When attempting to display multiple histograms using subplot from the plotly package, the plots in the top row and bottom row appear with less spacing, making them difficult to analyze. This issue is primarily reproducible when there are large number of visualizations to plot together.

Here is a minimal reprex for the same:

# Load necessary libraries
library(ggplot2)
library(plotly)

# set seed for reproducibility
set.seed(123)

# simulate a dataset
simulateDataset <- function(numRows = 100, numCols = 40) {
  data <- data.frame(matrix(nrow = numRows, ncol = numCols))
  
  for (i in 1:numCols) {
    if (i %% 2 == 0) {
      data[[i]] <- rnorm(numRows, mean = 50, sd = 10)  # Normal distribution
    } else {
      data[[i]] <- rexp(numRows, rate = 0.1)           # Exponential distribution
    }
  }
  
  names(data) <- paste0("Var", 1:numCols)
  return(data)
}

# simulate the data
df <- simulateDataset(numRows = 100, numCols = 45)

# create histograms and convert to plotly
plotList <- lapply(names(df), function(colName) {
  if (is.numeric(df[[colName]])) {
    p <- ggplot(df, aes(x = .data[[colName]])) + 
      geom_histogram(binwidth = 0.5, fill = 'grey', color = 'black')
    
    ggplotly(p)
  }
})

# define number of rows based on number of plots in each row
numberOfRows <- ceiling(length(plotList) / 3)

# display all plots together using subplot
subplot(plotList, nrows = numberOfRows, margin = 0.05, titleX = TRUE, titleY = TRUE)

Expected Behavior:
Each histogram should have equal margins, with appropriate spacing and labels visible.

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