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Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

saros 1.6.0

Breaking Changes

  • Major change: makeme() returns an empty data.frame instead of NULL when no plot or table can be created, simplifying downstream code (e.g. gt::gt() fails if served NULL)
  • Major change: Resolved issue #372 - descend parameter now works correctly with ordered factors while preserving their inherent level ordering. Ordered factors maintain their natural order as the base, but descend can reverse the display order
  • Enhanced custom_palette() to allow priority_palette_codes to supplement base palette when insufficient colors are available
  • Improved color palette handling for explicit NA factor levels when using showNA = "always"

New Features

  • New output type: makeme(type = "int_plot_html") for interactive interval plots with violin and box plots
  • New function: txt_from_cat_mesos_plots() to generate textual summaries from two categorical mesos-scale plots, highlighting significant differences in selected categories between groups.
  • New function: crowd_plots_as_tabset() to convert a list of ggplot2 objects (typically from makeme(crowd = ...)) into Quarto tabsets with automatic height calculation and optional download links. Supports both categorical and interval plots with intelligent auto-detection based on plot layers
  • New exported function: get_fig_title_suffix_from_ggplot() generates figure title suffixes with N range and optional download links for plots.
  • Added support for data_label = "mean" and data_label = "median" in makeme() for type = "cat_*_html" outputs (addresses issue #460)
  • Added data_label_position argument to makeme() allowing data labels to be positioned at “center”, “bottom”, “top”, or “above” bars in categorical plots (addresses issue #365)
  • Enhanced chr_table_html to support multiple independent variables for displaying background context with open-ended text responses
  • Added na_colour parameter to hex_bw() function to allow customization of text color for NA fills (default: “#ffffff”)
  • Added colour_2nd_binary_cat parameter to girafe() for checkbox plots - when set with checked/not_checked, reverses category order so the second category receives the specified color

Refactoring

  • Moved process_binary_category_colors() logic from make_content.cat_plot_html() to girafe(), consolidating all color-related logic in one place
  • Refactored checkbox plot handling in girafe() to integrate colour_2nd_binary_cat parameter with convert_to_checkbox_plot() function

Sorting Improvements

  • Independent-variable ordering is now computed per dependent variable, allowing indep order to vary per dep; descend_indep now consistently reverses indep order across tables and plots; plots use centralized .indep_order when indep is on the x-axis; ordered indep factors take precedence over sort_indep_by (reversed only when descend_indep=TRUE); legends preserve unused response levels in .category
  • Implemented B1 strategy for direct column-based sorting via whitelists. Allowed keys for dependent variables are now centrally defined and enforced; independent variables use a similar whitelist (including .count_total_indep). This prevents accidental sorting on arbitrary or missing columns and clarifies supported behavior
  • sort_indep_by now explicitly defaults to ".factor_order" and accepts NULL (treated as ".factor_order"). When no independent variable is provided (indep = NULL), specifying sort_indep_by or descend_indep no longer errors; they are simply ignored
  • Improved sorting stability for dependent variables with missing/duplicate labels — internal joins for computing .dep_order now key by .variable_name (unique) instead of .variable_label, preventing many-to-one join errors in edge cases while preserving displayed labels

Bug Fixes

  • CRITICAL: Resolved bug in makeme() where combinations of valid factor variables with all-NA factor variables incorrectly threw “mix of categorical and continuous variables” error. Variable type checking now uses filtered variable lists instead of original lists, preventing premature type validation errors
  • Resolved faceting issue in int_plot_html where label_separator = NULL with independent variables caused violin/boxplot and label geoms to appear in separate facets due to inconsistent string wrapping
  • Removed unnecessary “multiple main questions” warning when using label_separator = NULL, as having different main questions is expected behavior
  • Resolved issue #464 - makeme() failures for sigtest_table when dep and indep variables overlap. Now automatically excludes indep variables from dep selection to prevent conflicts
  • Corrected double NA check logic in check_bool() function - removed redundant condition that made validation always pass for NA values
  • Improved NULL and NA handling in glue_together_range() to prevent edge case failures with empty or invalid data ranges
  • Improved robustness of check_no_duplicated_label_suffix() to handle empty data frames and missing columns gracefully
  • Enhanced check_sort_by() validation to properly handle empty character vectors with clear error messages
  • Improved keep_subitem() to handle character inputs and use factor levels for better NA handling
  • Simplified arrange_table_data() sorting logic for better reliability
  • Updated documentation reference from ggplot2::theme_set() to ggplot2::set_theme() due to ggplot2 4.0.0
  • Fixed custom_palette() in girafe() to properly handle unnamed elements in priority_palette_codes as colors for “NA” category. Previously, unnamed elements were filtered out, causing NA categories to receive no color assignment (appearing as white fill with white text)

Enhancements

  • PERFORMANCE: Optimized makeme() examples for 73.8% faster execution (6.6s → 1.7s total). Reduced variable counts and crowd configurations while maintaining educational value
  • Updated fig_height_h_barchart2() example for consistency with optimized examples
  • Completely rewrote the .spread algorithm in subset_vector() for better spread maximization using evenly spaced positions
  • Added .onUnload() function to clean up global options when package is unloaded, preventing option pollution in user’s R session

Internal Refactoring

  • Substantially modularized internal implementation of makeme() into focused helper functions (argument setup, crowd processing, output assembly, validation). Improves readability, testability, and robustness without changing public API (closes #368)
  • Split post_process_makeme_data() into focused single-responsibility functions: process_indep_factor_levels() for general factor reversal and process_binary_category_colors() for cat_plot_html-specific binary category processing
  • Modularized tabular I/O functionality - renamed pretty_tabular.R to tabular_write.R and extracted tabular_read() function into separate file
  • Centralized global constants (sorting whitelists) in zzz.R under .saros.env for easier maintenance
  • Using air for consistent code formatting
  • CRAN Compliance: Reduced string lengths in documentation for girafe() and makeme() functions to meet CRAN’s character limit per line requirement

Development & Testing

  • Added comprehensive test coverage for makeme() helper functions with full roxygen2 documentation and @keywords internal annotation for internal API clarity
  • Added comprehensive visual regression testing for int_plot_html using vdiffr snapshot tests covering various scenarios
  • Added comprehensive test coverage for utility validation functions
  • Added comprehensive unit tests for makeme() variable type checking edge cases including all-NA variables
  • Added VS Code configuration for improved development experience
  • Added survey package to Suggests for enhanced testing capabilities
  • Updated build ignore patterns for coverage reports and library files

saros 1.5.4

CRAN release: 2025-06-04

  • Fix: Corrected error introduced in 1.5.3

saros 1.5.3

CRAN release: 2025-06-02

  • Fix: makeme now handles arguments in parent frame scopes correctly.
  • Fix: internal function get_common_levels now works with no provided col_pos.

saros 1.5.1

CRAN release: 2025-02-12

  • Feature: Added ".percentage" as valid (sorting) column
  • Feature: cat_table_html returns NULL if nothing to display
  • Fix: scale_x_reordered now only sorts when needed
  • Fix: cat_table_html takes showNA properly
  • Minor: refactoring of cat_plot_html

saros 1.5.0

CRAN release: 2025-01-10

Major changes

Minor changes

  • makeme(type="cat_plot_html") no longer shows a line one the y axis for single variable plots.
  • Refactored crosstable.data.frame() and crosstable.survey() methods.
  • Many more tests.
  • Countless bugfixes.

saros 1.2.0

CRAN release: 2024-09-03

Major changes

  • embed_*-functions are replaced by makeme(type="cat_plot") etc
    • makeme() takes S3-methods which eases expansions.
    • embed_* are thus lifecycle soft-deprecated.

New features

  • n_range() gives the n_range for a given dataset, dependent and independent variables.
  • n_range2() same as n_range() but takes a makeme()-object for convenience.
  • make_link() for generating downloadable figures, tables, data or anything else, on the spot.
  • ggsaver() is a minor wrapper to ease using make_link with ggplot2::ggsave().
  • fig_height_h_barchart() estimates the optimal figure height for a horizontal barchart.
  • fig_height_h_barchart2() same as above, but takes a makeme()-object for convenience.
  • makeme(type="cat_plot_html") allows sorting within each dependent variable-by-independent variable (facet-sort)

Bugfixes

  • Too many to list, but see saros 1.1.0 for some of them.

saros 1.1.0

-feat: Removed colour_palette (#328) -fix: Argument chapter_qmd_start_section_filepath now has effect. (#321) -fix: simplified create_email_credentials() (#305) -fix: pkgdown for recode_checkbox_sets (#304) -fix: cat_*_plot now displays keys for unused categories in legend (#301) -fix: single_y_bivariates_if_deps_above() no longer affects univariates (#300) -fix: More robust estimate_plot_height if dep only has one NA category (#299) -fix: Significance test now works in edge cases (#297) -feat: chr_table now ignores NA and empty strings. (#296) -fix: serialized_format now actually supports qs, if installed. (#293) -feat: Added default to replace_heading_for_group (#291) -feat: Removed flexi-app (#289) -feat: Removed unnecessary rendering-assistance tools. (#287) -feat: gen_qmd_index has now been refactored (#286) - simplified to gen_qmd_file, which better handles index and report - Also allows separate qmd_snippets at start and end for index and - Extract formats from report_header_yaml which is used to create links -fix: insert_obj_in_qmd now uses conv_to_valid_obj_name() again (#284) -feat: Removed saving png files as it is rarely used. (#283) -fix: crosstable3() now handles character vectors. (#278)

saros 1.0.5

saros 1.0.3

  • Added more arguments for plot text sizes, with more useful defaults for Word and HTML layouts.
  • attach_qualtrics_labels is now more flexible.
  • Minor fix in sanitize_labels.
  • Internal change to accommodate ggplot2 3.5.0.
  • Improved performance for argument validation checks.
  • setup_access_restrictions now accepts NULL password input.
  • setup_access_restrictions now can warn instead of error if rel_parent_path does not exist.
  • sort_by now correctly sorts with descend=TRUE for “.upper”, etc.
  • Fixed list_available_element_types
  • Set one long-running test for draft_report to only run on maintainer’s local computer.
  • sanitize_labels now has option to translate ASCII HTML-escaped characters to unicode.

saros 1.0.1

CRAN release: 2024-01-26

  • Minor fixes for CRAN manual review

saros 1.0.0

  • Submitted to CRAN

saros 0.9.1

  • First version ready