And even beyond that, there's Observable Framework[2], a static site generator for building visualization dashboards (that supports Plot, D3 and lots of other libraries).
These days I kinda want the opposite. Most of the time I know exactly what I want my output to look like. But frameworks inherently provide a large bag of presets and if you want something slightly different from the preset it's a pain in the ass.
For many types of plots I find it's actually kinda easier to just manipulate SVG data directly. It's not that hard!
I'd like to see a library/framework that focuses on making it easier to manipulate SVG or canvas output. It should be trivial to make tweaks. But the higher level a framework goes the harder it is to step off the golden path.
But I've found lots of value in using Plot to explore data, and quickly throw something together and look at it, and decide if it's a good way to present the data or not.
Although I will say that you can "drop down" to the SVG pretty easily with Plot. Lots of examples even on their site where they start with Plot marks and then heavily customize the SVG directly.
The docs are pretty OK, the only thing missing is a usable API reference section, so discoverability is not great.
I try to avoid graphs with html5 canvas like the plague maybe a new way to design them would be nice.
Anything else would be unwise to invest time in learning.
Never had a problem, never felt the need to upgrade. Still have a bunch of stuff that just works.
Thank you for your effort.
Of course sometimes you just want to make a damn histogram without reinventing the wheel which is where some of the niceties discussed above come in.
Sure you have to write code, but it does a lot of things in the background that would take you s lot longer to do yourself. High level is not just "here's a library on top of D3 that you just give data to and you're done, but then you have to cry for days because you need to do something it didn't think of - 80% of use cases". When I used it I didn't get it, but then I took some time, a couple days, to actually understand it and I got a lot more productive. It's a great feeling when instead of thinking in workarounds for a missing configuration option you can think in solutions for the actual task. A lot quicker and more rewarding.
I didn't do much computer graphics in my life, some mandatory university classes, but I'd say doing it on the simplest beginner level it was a much different experience.
It’s hard to think of a lower level abstraction for that purpose.
The community also has helped with some bizarre integrations I was trying to do, into libraries like highcharts for strange reasons etc.
Yes? I guess I didn't think it needed to be said so explicitly, but if you are opting into Plot and Framework, you are accepting convention over configuration as they say.
And for some situations, that is what you want.
If you value flexibility and control above all else, then I agree they may not be for you.
But if you value other things, like speed of iteration, or just getting some good data visualizations built without a deep investment in learning underlying concepts, then Plot and/or Framework have definite advantages over doing it all with D3.
edit: nvm, turned on hardware acceleration. Smoother, but still jankier than I'd like on a Ryzen 9.