handle POSIXct frames

[bhogan-mitre]

plot_ly exhibits strange behavior when trying to loop over a POSIXct variable in an animation. POSIXct variables are handled fine as the axes of a non-animating plot_ly, so I was hoping they would be supported as frames.

It seems the frame is turned into a numeric, which makes sense. However, a POSIXct y axis seems to be mutated beyond use when using a POSIXct frame.

library(plotly)

data <- data.frame(x = 1:100, 
                   t1 = rep(seq.POSIXt(as.POSIXct("2018-04-01"), as.POSIXct("2018-04-10"), length.out = 10), 10),
                   t2 = seq.POSIXt(as.POSIXct("2018-05-01"), as.POSIXct("2018-05-10"), length.out = 100))

data %>%
  plot_ly(x = ~x, y = ~t2, frame = ~t1) %>% 
  add_markers()

Thank you for providing this great capability, and I am excited about the potential for Plotly animations as well!

[bhogan-mitre]

This relates to #1005, with the additional bug of the modified vertical axis.

[bhogan-mitre]

Interestingly, when trying the same approach via ggplotly, the vertical axis looks okay and points render. However the frame does still not correctly subset based on the POSIXct variable.

p <- ggplot(data, aes(x = x, y = t2, frame = t1)) +
  geom_point()

ggplotly()

[jzamalloa1]

Has this issue been resolved yet? I have the same difficulty when framing by a date variable. All the points are shown at once, like in the last figure, and the transition does nothing. The labeling of the transition frame is also shown as numeric rather than Date.

This happens either by using ggplotly() or directly calling plot_ly()