linkaxes! works only when changing the limits of the most recently created axis

[egavazzi]

When linkaxes! (or its variants linkxaxes! and linkyaxes!) is used, changing the limits of the axis seems to work only if applied to the most recently created axis.

In this MWE, changing the limits of ax1 has no effect (tested with GLMakie and CairoMakie).

using GLMakie

x = 1:10
y = rand(10)
## Does not work
f = Figure()
ax1 = Axis(f[1, 1])
sc1 = scatter!(ax1, x, y)
ax2 = Axis(f[2, 1])
sc2 = scatter!(ax2, x, y)
linkaxes!(ax1, ax2)
xlims!(ax1, 4, 8)
display(f)

Note: when executing the code line by line, xlims!(ax1, 4, 8) does update correctly all the axis, but then display(f) resets the limits.

If xlims! is applied to ax2 instead, everything works fine

## Does work
f = Figure()
ax1 = Axis(f[1, 1])
sc1 = scatter!(ax1, x, y)
ax2 = Axis(f[2, 1])
sc2 = scatter!(ax2, x, y)
linkaxes!(ax1, ax2)
xlims!(ax2, 4, 8)
display(f)

Changing the order of ax1, ax2 in linkaxes! (i.e. trying linkaxes!(ax2, ax1) instead of linkaxes!(ax1, ax2)) does not change the results.

From my testing (including trying to link more than two axis), xlims!/ylims! seems to work only if applied to the last one that was created.

Same behavior is seen when setting the limits directly with the limits attribute when creating the axis.

• what version of Makie are you running? (]st -m Makie)
  ➡ [ee78f7c6] Makie v0.22.2
• can you reproduce the bug with a fresh environment ? (]activate --temp; add Makie)
• What platform + GPU are you on?
  ➡ Linux, Nvidia RTX A2000

[egavazzi]

I also noticed something which I think is related (not sure if it should have its own issue). After linking some axis, if one resets the limits with ctrl + leftclick or reset_limits!(ax), the behavior is different depending on the axis:

• the axis that had its limits explicitly set with xlims!/ylims! will reset to those values (and update the other axis limits)
• the axis that had their limits changed through the linkaxes! will ignore the limits from xlims!/ylims! and reset to their original limits (and update the other axis limits)

using GLMakie

x = 1:10
y = rand(10)
## Does work
f = Figure()
ax1 = Axis(f[1, 1])
sc1 = scatter!(ax1, x, y)
ax2 = Axis(f[2, 1])
sc2 = scatter!(ax2, x, y)
linkaxes!(ax1, ax2)
xlims!(ax2, 4, 8)
display(f)

reset_limits!(ax1)

Additional fun! Saving the figure with save or executing display(f) will actually reset the limits of both axis to the ones set with xlims!, which is more the expected behavior.

So here is a screenshot instead

➡ the limits are reset to the original ones of ax1, ignoring xlims!.

And here after using save

➡ the limits are reset to the ones given with xlims!.