Missing executeAPICommand in `exports.Plots`

[cid8600]

Bug: I Upgraded Plotly to v2.2.0 and noticed the Plotly.Plots.executeAPICommand handler was no longer in the latest version.

As a User I'd like to see executeAPICommand returned to exports.Plots. This allows one to control multiple plots via a single Event.

File: dist/plotly.js
Line: 155701

Is:

exports.Plots = {
    resize: Plots.resize,
    graphJson: Plots.graphJson,
    sendDataToCloud: Plots.sendDataToCloud,
};

Fix:

exports.Plots = {
    resize: Plots.resize,
    graphJson: Plots.graphJson,
    sendDataToCloud: Plots.sendDataToCloud,
    executeAPICommand: Plots.executeAPICommand
};

Example: try to execute Plotly.Plots.executeAPICommand(gd, method, args) to control a sibling Plot and notice the function is missing from the exports.Plots Object.

[alexcjohnson]

@cid8600 Can you give a full example of how you use this function? We intentionally removed a lot from Plotly.Plots, to minimize the surface area we need to maintain - see https://github.com/plotly/plotly.js/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md#removed, specifically:

Reduce the number of exported methods from Plotly.Fx and Plotly.Plots in the API [#5420]

I'm not inherently opposed to bringing this one back, just want to understand the use cases better before we do.

[cid8600]

@alexcjohnson, Indeed:

Let say I have two contour plots rendered on a page. Each Plot has a slider to stream through 3D data. The plot steps are synced. If I move the slider from Plot1, I expect the slider from Plot2 to follow and display the same frame.

React Pseudo code would look like:

const [startingSlice, setstartingSlice] = useState(1)
const Plot1 = useRef()
const Plot2 = useRef()

 const onSliderChange = (event) => {
    if (Plot1.current && Plot2.current) {
      const { slider, step } = event;
      if (slider._gd === Plot1.current.el) {
        // if from Plot1, update Plot2
        Plotly.Plots.executeAPICommand(Plot2.current.el, step.method, step.args);
      } else if (slider._gd === Plot2.current.el) {
        // if from Plot2, update Plot1
        Plotly.Plots.executeAPICommand(Plot1.current.el, step.method, step.args);
      }
      setstartingSlice(slider.active);
    }
  };

<Plot ref={Plot1} onSliderChange={onSliderChange}>
<Plot ref={Plot2} onSliderChange={onSliderChange}>

[cid8600]

[alexcjohnson]

I see. If you're explicitly calling executeAPICommand like that, can you call the method directly? ie change:

Plotly.Plots.executeAPICommand(Plot2.current.el, step.method, step.args);

to:

Plotly[step.method](Plot2.current.el, ...step.args);

[cid8600]

Great call. That works the same. I appreciate you looking into it.