Manually position legend in Patchwork-CodePudding

I want to position a legend (common to all plots) in a blank space in a patchwork layout. From what I can find online I cannot manually position a legend using legend.position if I also use guides="collect" (but can use left, right etc.).

I have tried to use l <- get.legend and then inset_element(l, 0.6, 0.6, 1, 1) however it doesn't understand l. I also tried mixing in inset_element(gridExtra::tableGrob(l)) without luck.

My goal is to place the legend in the blank space. My actual patchwork plot is more complicated but has two blank spaces I want the legend to sit in.

MWE

library(patchwork)    
library(ggplot2)
p1 <- ggplot(mtcars)   
  geom_point(aes(mpg, disp, color = mpg))   
  ggtitle('Plot 1')

p2 <- ggplot(mtcars)   
  geom_boxplot(aes(gear, disp, group = gear))   
  ggtitle('Plot 2')

p3 <- ggplot(mtcars)   
  geom_point(aes(hp, wt, colour = mpg))   
  ggtitle('Plot 3')    

design <- "
1111
223#
"    
p1   p2   p3    plot_layout(guides = 'collect')   plot_layout(design=design, guides = "collect")  &
  theme(legend.position = 'right',
        legend.direction = 'vertical')

CodePudding user response：

Alter your design object to include a fourth element and use guide_area() to place the guide.

library(patchwork)    
library(ggplot2)

design <- "
1111
2234
"    
p1   p2   p3   guide_area()   plot_layout(design=design, guides = "collect")