Thoughts/Updates for {gtsummary} themes about gtsummary HOT 2 OPEN

If I may, some additional thoughts.

If the "theme env" is saved with the tbl object, you could consider two different options: set_gtsummary_theme() to change overall the theme elements for the future gtsummary objects that will be created, and a modify_gtsummary_theme() that could be applied on an existing table, e.g. tbl %>% modify_gtsummary_theme().

Another thought is the question of inheritance of theme elements. It exists in the code in many places, without being explicit. An example:

We could think about a better naming of the theme elements, showing the inheritance. An example:

• pvalue_fun (overall default)
  • pvalue_fun.regression (value for tbl_regression())
  • pvalue_fun.summary (value for all summary functions)
    • pvalue_fun.summary.regular (value for tbl_summary() only)
    • pvalue_fun.summary.survey (value for tbl_svysummary() only)
    • pvalue_fun.summary.custom (value for tbl_custom_summary() only)

Then the code could be simplify in many places. We could simply call get_theme_element("pvalue_fun.summary.custom"). If this element is not defined (i.e. NULL) then get_theme_element() will look at "pvalue_fun.summary" and eventually at "pvalue_fun". With such naming (also used by ggplot2), inheritance will be explicit.

Another thought coming from ggplot::theme(): each theme element should be a named argument of set_gtsummary_theme() and modify_gtsummary_theme(). It would allow to use autocompletion to easily identify the name of a theme element, and improve the documentation of all of them.

from gtsummary.

Also, an internal function called when package is loaded to fix the default values at once would be relevant, to avoid indicating default values within each function.

from gtsummary.