enable updating the config of a plot without changing other parameters

[josephernest]

We can change the layout of an existing plot with Plotly.relayout, change the data with Plotly.react, but how to change the config of a plot without changing the other parameters?

Example:

// happens when clicking on a button
var config = element.config;    // problem: this doesn't exist!   <-- how to get the current config state of the plot?
config["staticPlot"] = true;  // let's add a configuration parameter
Plotly.react(element.id, element.data, element.layout, config)

How to get element.config in the same way element.layout and element.data exist?

[alexcjohnson]

Haha how timely, @archmoj and I were just discussing this exact question yesterday in the context of #6393

Sometimes it works to change config via Plotly.react, sometimes it doesn't. I think the right thing to do is, if config changes, we should completely empty and recreate the graph. That means using the newPlot pathway instead of the _doPlot pathway it uses today.

How to get element.config in the same way element.layout and element.data exist?

Right, we should save that but currently we do not. At the moment we have only element._context which is the "filled in version" akin to element._fullData rather than element.data.

[josephernest]

Haha funny timing indeed @alexcjohnson!
Yes what I wanted to achieve is:

Plotly.react(element.id, element.data, element.layout, { ...element.config, staticPlot: true } );   // merge current config with { staticplot: true }

I needed this because

Plotly.react(element.id, element.data, element.layout, { staticPlot: true } );

does not work (it erases the previous config and returns to default modebar buttons...).

What would you use in the meantime ? :)

[alexcjohnson]

You can try { ...element._context, staticPlot: true } as the new config. But I think you may need to switch to Plotly.newPlot instead of Plotly.react since we're aware of some cases that config changes are not properly adopted by Plotly.react today. Also I'll note if you have the DOM element you can use that instead of its ID as the first arg. So with the caveat that I haven't tried it myself:

Plotly.newPlot(element, element.data, element.layout, { ...element._context, staticPlot: true });

[camdecoster]

I'm going to split this issue into two issues:

• enable updating the config of a plot without changing other parameters #6394: This current issue, which will cover adding the original config to the graph div in a way that it can be accessed similarly to gd.data and gd.layout
• Some configuration changes aren't reflected during calls to Plotly.react #7551: This covers what fix: React to config changes #7475 fixes. The issue is discussed in this comment from @alexcjohnson.