[Tex/LaTex] What exactly are the ‘unsuitable tick labels’ mentioned in pgfplots’ compatibility warning

pgfplotstikz-pgf

When I use pgfplots, I get the following warning:

Package pgfplots Warning: running in backwards compatibility mode
(unsuitable tick labels; missing features). Consider writing
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.11} into your preamble.

I have learned that this is normal, and that the warning is there for good reasons. However, I'm now facing some problems related to tick labels, and I wonder if it can be related to this warning. (Other question Single year interval on dateplot x axis, any help still appreciated).

Does anyone know what the actual problem with the tick labels is? When was it fixed? How can I get access to the missing features and more suitable tick labels?

Best Answer

Over time Christian fixed a lot of things regarding the tick labels, some originating from questions asked here, some from constant abusers like myself and other users here.

There is not only one tick label related issue here. In every version loads of tiny changes are introduced however if you don't use the latest set of features, there might be discrepancies. Examples of such entries can be found in changelog file.

2010-09-08 Christian Feuersaenger <ludewich@users.sourceforge.net>
- added 'table/every nth row' key
- fixed bug: now, extra tick labels can have a different 'ticklabel pos'
than the original axes (it was broken since 1.2.2)
- fixed bug: it is now allowed to provide '#' (hash sign) in \addplot
option arguments (for example to define 'x filter/.code={...#1...}')
- added support for \pgfplotsforeachungrouped \a/\b in {...} syntax


..........................

2010-07-09 Christian Feuersaenger <ludewich@users.sourceforge.net>
- fixed bug: the check whether lists are terminated by '\\' failed if '\\'
occured within the list. This affected mainly legends and tick label
lists.
- improved and documented customized legends, including optional
appearance keys for specific legend texts
|\addlegendentry[<options>]{<text>}| and documentation for multiline
legend entries.

.........................

2009-12-02 Christian Feuersaenger <ludewich@users.sourceforge.net>
- found and fixed bug: tick labels could penetrate the axis. This should
no longer happen.

etc. And probably it is much more involved than these items that made it to the changelog. Thus, it is very unlikely that you have something regarding that warning.

There is a great effort for keeping the backwards compatibility but there is always one archaic distro that still has pre 1.3 version and in my opinion they should be updated instead keeping this much of effort to maintain backwards compatibility.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Basic bar chart with text as x axis labels

The version of pgfplots that is included in Ubuntu 10.10 is 1.2.2. Apparently the feature that you are using was added between then and version 1.4.1 (which is the current version).

Unless someone comes up with a workaround to add text coordinates in pgfplot 1.2, the easiest option for you is probably to upgrade to TeX Live 2010. Installing it manually isn't too hard and you will get all the newest versions. PGF related packages changed a lot since the TeX Live version that is included in Ubuntu. Also, you will be able to run tlmgr update --self --all to update your TeX installation at any time.

Here is a proof-of-concept with version 1.4 (I don't know pgfplots well, so there might be a better way to do this):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pgfplots}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
    symbolic x coords={a small bar,a medium bar,a large bar},
    xtick=data]
    \addplot[ybar,fill=blue] coordinates {
        (a small bar,42)
        (a medium bar,50)
        (a large bar,80)
    };
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

example

[Tex/LaTex] What does “running in backwards compatibility mode” mean and what should I fix to get rid of it

One of the principles which the LaTeX kernel, and many of the packages outside the kernel, attempt to follow is that documents should look the same (even up to spacing behaviour) when they recompiled on different machines with different package versions, even decades apart.

pgfplots is a regularly updated package that frequently adds new features and fixes bugs. This also means that some old documents might look different if recompiled with those new features/bug fixes enabled. Hence pgfplots provides a feature whereby you have to explicitly request which version of the package you want to use (or at least essentially, as the package provides backwards compatibility emulation for older versions), and hence which new features and bug fixes you want access to.

This is a "good thing", but it explains your warning - you are not using all the features and bug fixes available to you. Some of the fixes include better placement of tick labels, as mentioned in the warning. This is not enabled by default as it would clearly change how existing documents appear.

Section 2.2 "Upgrade remarks" of the pgfplots manual discusses this.

For completeness, I provide information on selecting the version:

Requesting a specific version

To request a specific version, just use the compat option:
```
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.7}
```
The bleeding edge (discouraged)

You may be happy to live on "the bleeding edge" and to always use the most recent bug fixes etc that pgfplots provides. pgfplots also allows you to specify this, but encourages you not to as your document may compile differently before/after updating the package at certain times, and you may not be explicitly aware of the changes or what has caused them.

Hence, if you choose to select the newest version with
```
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=newest}
```
then pgfplots still issues a message (not a warning) to remind you, which you might miss:
```
Package pgfplots notification 'compat/show suggested version=true': document has been generated with the most recent feature set (\pgfplotsset{compat=1.7}).
```
This notification can also be disabled:
```
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=newest,compat/show suggested version=false}
```
Remember though that the pgfplots author discourages this! Again, see the manual for the offical information.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Basic bar chart with text as x axis labels

[Tex/LaTex] What does “running in backwards compatibility mode” mean and what should I fix to get rid of it

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