Place y-axis on the right

Question

Let's say I want to plot my data:

my.df <- data.frame(mean = c(0.045729661,0.030416531,0.043202944,0.025600973,0.040526913,0.046167044,0.029352414,0.021477789,0.027580529,0.017614864,0.020324659,0.027547972,0.0268722,0.030804717,0.021502093,0.008342398,0.02295506,0.022386184,0.030849534,0.017291356,0.030957321,0.01871551,0.016945678,0.014143042,0.026686185,0.020877973,0.028612298,0.013227244,0.010710895,0.024460647,0.03704981,0.019832982,0.031858501,0.022194059,0.030575241,0.024632496,0.040815748,0.025595652,0.023839083,0.026474704,0.033000706,0.044125751,0.02714219,0.025724641,0.020767752,0.026480009,0.016794441,0.00709195), std.dev = c(0.007455271,0.006120299,0.008243454,0.005552582,0.006871527,0.008920899,0.007137174,0.00582671,0.007439398,0.005265133,0.006180637,0.008312494,0.006628951,0.005956211,0.008532386,0.00613411,0.005741645,0.005876588,0.006640122,0.005339993,0.008842722,0.006246828,0.005532832,0.005594483,0.007268493,0.006634795,0.008287031,0.00588119,0.004479003,0.006333063,0.00803285,0.006226441,0.009681048,0.006457784,0.006045368,0.006293256,0.008062195,0.00857954,0.008160441,0.006830088,0.008095485,0.006665062,0.007437581,0.008599525,0.008242957,0.006379928,0.007168385,0.004643819), parent.origin = c("paternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","maternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","paternal","paternal"), group = c("F1r:M","F1r:M","F1r:M","F1r:M","F1r:M","F1r:M","F1r:M","F1r:M","F1r:M","F1r:M","F1r:M","F1r:M","F1r:F","F1r:F","F1r:F","F1r:F","F1r:F","F1r:F","F1r:F","F1r:F","F1r:F","F1r:F","F1r:F","F1r:F","F1i:M","F1i:M","F1i:M","F1i:M","F1i:M","F1i:M","F1i:M","F1i:M","F1i:M","F1i:M","F1i:M","F1i:M","F1i:F","F1i:F","F1i:F","F1i:F","F1i:F","F1i:F","F1i:F","F1i:F","F1i:F","F1i:F","F1i:F","F1i:F"), replicate = c(1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6))

As follows:

library(ggplot2)

p1 <- ggplot(data = my.df, aes(factor(replicate), color = factor(parent.origin)))
p1 <- p1 + geom_boxplot(aes(fill = factor(parent.origin),lower = mean - std.dev, upper = mean + std.dev, middle = mean, ymin = mean - 3*std.dev, ymax = mean + 3*std.dev), position = position_dodge(width = 0), width = 0.5, alpha = 0.5, stat="identity") + facet_wrap(~group, ncol = 4)+scale_fill_manual(values = c("red","blue"),labels = c("maternal","paternal"),name = "parental allele")+scale_colour_manual(values = c("red","blue"),labels = c("maternal","paternal"),name = "parental allele")
p1 <- p1 + theme(panel.grid.major = element_blank(), panel.grid.minor = element_blank(), panel.background = element_rect(fill = 'white', colour = 'white'), legend.position = "none")+theme(strip.background=element_rect(fill="white"))

This gives:

My question is how can I move the y-axis to be on the right side of the plot? I've seen several posts about it from the past but they seem rather hacky so I was wondering whether anyone knows of a new implementation that makes it easier.

Answer 1

There's still no easy way to do it. There's an issue/feature request open on GitHub, but since moving to ggplot 1.0 and focusing on ggvis, it probably won't be taken care of any time soon. The answers in this question, or this example seem to be the only way to do it for now (and forever, probably).

Answer 2

With ggplot versions above 2.2.0, this should work:

scale_y_continuous(position = "right")

Answer 3

The "cowplot" package with "ggdraw" function can help, as described there: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/cowplot/vignettes/axis_position.html

ggdraw(switch_axis_position(p1 + theme_gray(), axis = 'y'))

Answer 4

Another approach with scale_y_continuous and guides to have y-axis on right side of graph:

library(ggplot2)
ggplot(mtcars, aes(hp, mpg)) +
  geom_point() +
  scale_y_continuous(name = NULL, sec.axis = sec_axis(~., name = "Y-axis Label on right side")) +
  guides(y = "none")

^{Created on 2023-01-27 with reprex v2.0.2}