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Streamline xanchor and yanchor names for center/middle

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
38/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
python

Research direction

Start with the fig.add_annotations() entry point and locate how xanchor and yanchor values are validated. Check whether the same validation is shared elsewhere, then review any related tests. Done should include backward-compatible acceptance of both center and middle where appropriate, with existing values still working.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

feature P3

The 'xanchor' property is an enumeration that may be specified as:
- One of the following enumeration values:
['auto', 'left', 'center', 'right']

The 'yanchor' property is an enumeration that may be specified as:
- One of the following enumeration values:
['auto', 'top', 'middle', 'bottom']

This is for plotly 6.3.0 trying to use fig.add_annotations() but it likely applies everywhere where xanchor and yanchor are used.

It does make sense that for the extremes of the bounding box left right top bottom, the names are different, but why is 'center' used for x direction and 'middle' for y direction? This distinction seems artifical to me and I wonder why this was chosen?

I propose to streamline the naming conventions, but now for backwards compatibility to at least accept both center/middle for x/yanchor.

Dominant language
Python
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Merged PRs (30d)
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