A very inspiring video from Jean Luc Doumont on effective graphical displays reminded me how much it would be nice to have a simple tool able to produce them.
After many trial and error with different softwares or languages, I ended up using a script based on Python. This final choice is really thanks to a former colleague and friend Subir Bhaduri. He is now very active in India on various projects.
The result is actually a comprehensive library that I hope will continuously evolve through the feedback I receive.
The library can be downloaded here. It is well documented but here are a few instructions to get you started. As said above, please send me your feedback.
To run the script, you need to install python on your machine. This can be done in various ways depending on your OS. Although, I advise you to use python3 for this script, it can also run on python2. Moreover, you will also need several libraries that you can install following these instructions.
Then open a terminal and type the following:
python YAP_V3.5.py params_V3.5.txt
This should work for the library as downloaded above. You might have different version of python installed on your machine. In this case, you can use pyenv to manage them.
YAP_V3.5.py is the script making the graph. In practice, there is no need to open or modify it but I would be happy to receive suggestions of improvements or new features.
params_V3.5.txt is where you need to indicate the parameters to generate the graphs. This is fully commented and you will indicate there what type of graph you need, where and in what form the data is provided, etc. In the provided example, it includes several graphs but you can make one for each graph you make.
The following examples are generated with the library as delivered.
Special thanks to the following contributors for their comments and suggestions: Mark Runacres, Steven Tipler.
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