topic Re: Best way to create a template/style following Stephen Few's book? in Graphics Programming

Best way to create a template/style following Stephen Few's book?

morglum — Sat, 02 Jan 2016 16:53:38 GMT

Hi everyone (and happy new year!),

I've just got my hands on Stephen Few's "Show me the numbers" and would like to implement to most basics advice automatically by creating a template/style. Has anyone already created a template that would set the layout automatically (colors, borders, font,..) ?

cheers!

Re: Best way to create a template/style following Stephen Few's book?

Reeza — Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:40:30 GMT

SAS supports CSS in many procedures so you can use that. I don't know about Stephen Few's CSS, but Edward Tufte has a CSS out that may be helpful.

https://github.com/edwardtufte/tufte-css

And SAS's documentation on CSS:

http://support.sas.com/rnd/base/ods/templateFAQ/Template_csstyle.html

I'd also be interested in a Stephen Few/Edward Tufte SAS/CSS style sheet. I find design not entirely SAS forte.

Re: Best way to create a template/style following Stephen Few's book?

morglum — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 00:29:14 GMT

Thanks Reeza for the links. I wasnt aware of it and it looks great. I'll give it a look as it is very interesting and a good starting point, but I'm afraid learning CSS will have to wait as work is resuming soon.

Re: Best way to create a template/style following Stephen Few's book?

ballardw — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 17:09:19 GMT

I recommend investigating the various SAS supplied style templates. If one is close to what you need then modifying a few elements is going to be much easier than creating one from scratch.

Create a couple of small example data sets to print and graph basic elements and then write a program that loops over the various installed styles to create a document with the same output using the various styles.

Re: Best way to create a template/style following Stephen Few's book?

Rick_SAS — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 16:07:28 GMT

This is a very common topic at conferences, so there are multiple papers written about how to use PROC TEMPLATE to create a custom style. Go to your favorite internet search engine and search for

sas "proc template" style

If you want to restrict yourself to SAS papers and documentation, add

site:sas.com

If you want a reference book, Kevin Smith wrote the book PROC TEMPLATE Made Easy.

Re: Best way to create a template/style following Stephen Few's book?

morglum — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 14:38:13 GMT

It's not perfect, but here's my template, along with examples of use with proc report and proc sgplot.

** EDIT here's my new shade of light grey for background shading.
%let verylightgrey = %rgb(245,245,245);

Re: Best way to create a template/style following Stephen Few's book?

Reeza — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 17:39:02 GMT

Thank You!!!

That looks like a nice style. I've placed a copy on github for quick access in the future and if I update it, I'll post it there as well.

https://gist.github.com/statgeek/9845cc3d26e4c35e01a2

Re: Best way to create a template/style following Stephen Few's book?

morglum — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 18:18:49 GMT

Thanks!

One thing I'm looking for is the ability to set different a color palette for small objects vs larger objects.

For example, lines would use the medium palette, while bars would use the light palette.

Re: Best way to create a template/style following Stephen Few's book?

morglum — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 14:36:34 GMT

I've changed the background shading of the alternate rows. Here's my new shade of grey.

*** very light grey est utilisé pour le background shading;
%let verylightgrey = %rgb(245,245,245);