R: Creating and Controlling Multiple Screens on a Single Device

screen {base} | R Documentation

## Creating and Controlling Multiple Screens on a Single Device

### Description

`split.screen` defines a number of regions within the current device which can, to some extent, be treated as separate graphics devices. It is useful for generating multiple plots on a single device. Screens can themselves be split, allowing for quite complex arrangements of plots.

`screen` is used to select which screen to draw in.

`erase.screen` is used to clear a single screen.

`close.screen` removes the specified screen definition(s).

### Usage

    split.screen(figs, screen, erase = TRUE)
    screen(n, new = TRUE)
    erase.screen(n)
    close.screen(n, all.screens = FALSE)

### Arguments

`figs` | A two-element vector describing the number of rows and the number of columns in a screen matrix or a matrix with 4 columns. If a matrix, then each row describes a screen with values for the left, right, bottom, and top of the screen (in that order) in NDC units.
`screen` | A number giving the screen to be split.
`erase` | logical: should be selected screen be cleared?
`n` | A number indicating which screen to prepare for drawing (`screen`), erase (`erase.screen`), or close (`close.screen`).
`new` | A logical value indicating whether the screen should be erased as part of the preparation for drawing in the screen.
`all.screens` | A logical value indicating whether all of the screens should be closed.

### Details

The first call to `split.screen` places R into split-screen mode. The other split-screen functions only work within this mode. While in this mode, certain other commands should be avoided (see WARNINGS below). Split-screen mode is exited by the command `close.screen(all = TRUE)`

### Value

`split.screen` returns a vector of screen numbers for the newly-created screens. With no arguments, `split.screen` returns a vector of valid screen numbers.
`screen` invisibly returns the number of the selected screen. With no arguments, `screen` returns the number of the current screen.
`close.screen` returns a vector of valid screen numbers.
`screen`, `erase.screen`, and `close.screen` all return `FALSE` if R is not in split-screen mode.

### Warning

These functions are totally incompatible with the other mechanisms for arranging plots on a device: `par(mfrow)`, `par(mfcol)`, and `layout()`.

The functions are also incompatible with some plotting functions, such as `coplot`, which make use of these other mechanisms.

The functions should not be used with multiple devices.

### See Also

`par`, `layout`, `Devices`, `dev.*`

### Examples

    if (interactive()) {
    split.screen(c(2,1))             # split display into two screens
    split.screen(c(1,3), screen = 2) # now split the bottom half into 3
    screen(1) # prepare screen 1 for output
    plot(10:1)
    screen(4) # prepare screen 4 for output
    plot(10:1)
    close.screen(all = TRUE) # exit split-screen mode

    split.screen(c(2,1))        # split display into two screens
    split.screen(c(1,2),2)      # split bottom half in two
    plot(1:10)                  # screen 3 is active, draw plot
    erase.screen()              #forgot label, erase and redraw
    plot(1:10, ylab= "ylab 3")
    screen(1)                 # prepare screen 1 for output
    plot(1:10)
    screen(4)                 # prepare screen 4 for output
    plot(1:10, ylab="ylab 4")
    screen(1, FALSE)              #return to screen 1, but do not clear
    plot(10:1, axes=FALSE, lty=2, ylab="")  # overlay second plot
    axis(4)                   # add tic marks to right-hand axis
    title("Plot 1")
    close.screen(all = TRUE) # exit split-screen mode
    }

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