# Manually customize colorbar - scatter python

**URL:** <https://community.plotly.com/t/manually-customize-colorbar-scatter-python/18520>\
**Category:** 📊 Plotly Python\
**Created:** [January 24, 2019, 6:57am UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/manually-customize-colorbar-scatter-python/18520 "2019-01-24T06:57:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![spencerchad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@spencerchad](https://community.plotly.com/u/spencerchad)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 6:57am UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/manually-customize-colorbar-scatter-python/18520/1 "2019-01-24T06:57:56Z")

</div>

I have data sorted by month of collection. I am trying to assign a varying color range specifically to season as well (ie. cooler months have cooler colors - light blue for October and gets darker towards January). I have been working from [Continuous color scales and color bars in Python](https://plot.ly/python/colorscales/#custom-colorbar) and this example [Create colorbar from a source label (string) rather than integer? Python - #3 by spencerchad](https://community.plotly.com/t/create-colorbar-from-a-source-label-string-rather-than-integer-python/16576/3).

I cannot figure out how to prevent each section in colorscale from blending together – I would like it to look more categorical like in the example [Create colorbar from a source label (string) rather than integer? Python - #3 by spencerchad](https://community.plotly.com/t/create-colorbar-from-a-source-label-string-rather-than-integer-python/16576/3).

Also if all of my months are categorized by number (Jan =1, Feb=2… Dec =12) in the dataset is there a way to just assign color to the month number rather than assigning to each ‘fraction’ of colorscale?

Below is my code and current figure.

> color\_names = [‘Jan’, ‘Feb’, ‘Mar’, ‘Apr’, ‘May’, ‘June’, ‘July’, ‘Aug’, ‘Sept’, ‘Oct’, ‘Nov’, ‘Dec’]  
> color\_vals = list(range(len(color\_names)))  
> num\_colors = len(color\_vals)  
> colorscale = [  
> [0, ‘rgb(0,25,51)’], #jan  
> [0.083333, ‘rgb(0,102,102)’], #feb  
> [0.16666, ‘rgb(0,204,204)’], #mar  
> [0.24999, ‘rgb(0,255,255)’], #apr  
> [0.3333, ‘rgb(255,255,102)’], #may  
> [0.4166, ‘rgb(255,153,51)’], #june  
> [0.4999, ‘rgb(255,153,51)’], #jul  
> [0.58329, ‘rgb(255,0,0)’], #aug  
> [0.6666, ‘rgb(204,0,0)’], #sept  
> [0.74995, ‘rgb(204,229,255)’], #oct  
> [0.83328, ‘rgb(102,178,255)’], #nov  
> [0.9166, ‘rgb(0,128,255)’], #dec  
> [1, ‘rgb(0,76,153)’]  
> ]
> 
> cmin = -0.5  
> cmax = num\_colors-0.5
> 
> trace0=go.Scatter(x=O18, y=H2, mode=‘lines’, name=‘LMWL’, marker=dict(color=‘#000000’))  
> trace1=go.Scatter(x=df\_upgrading.del18, y=df\_upgrading.del2, marker = dict(size=7,  
> line=dict(width=1),  
> colorbar=dict(title=‘Month’,  
> tickvals= color\_vals,  
> ticktext= color\_names),  
> colorscale = colorscale,  
> cmin=cmin,  
> cmax=cmax,  
> color = df\_upgrading.month),  
> mode=‘markers’, name=‘CT\_all’)
> 
> layout = go.Layout(xaxis=dict(range=[-18, -10]),  
> yaxis=dict(range=[-140,-100]),  
> showlegend=False)
> 
> data = [trace0, trace1]  
> fig=go.Figure(data=data, layout=layout)
> 
> plotly.offline.iplot(fig)

 ![newplot%20(1)](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/uploads/plot/original/2X/1/18362c1b644fa74292c70ce296507ed42fbb5883.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![empet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@empet](https://community.plotly.com/u/empet)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 10:43am UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/manually-customize-colorbar-scatter-python/18520/2 "2019-01-24T10:43:52Z")

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@spencerchad, What you want is a discrete colorscale. Here [https://community.plotly.com/t/colors-for-discrete-ranges-in-heatmaps/](https://community.plotly.com/t/colors-for-discrete-ranges-in-heatmaps/) is an example that can suggest how to change your colorscale to get a discrete one.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![spencerchad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@spencerchad](https://community.plotly.com/u/spencerchad)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 7:14pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/manually-customize-colorbar-scatter-python/18520/3 "2019-01-24T19:14:45Z")

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That helps - but raises another issue. Since I am using my colorbar to show the month the sample was collected and my months are categorized in the data set by number (Jan=1… Dec=12) I have to leave the first section blank because Jan is not referenced by 0. Is there a way to leave out this section when plotting the colorbar?

> color\_names = [‘’, ‘Jan’, ‘Feb’, ‘Mar’, ‘Apr’, ‘May’, ‘June’, ‘July’, ‘Aug’, ‘Sept’, ‘Oct’, ‘Nov’, ‘Dec’]  
> color\_vals = list(range(len(color\_names)))  
> num\_colors = len(color\_vals)  
> colorscale = [  
> [0, ‘rgb(255,255,255)’], #Leave blank - no months are equal to 0.  
> [0.07692, ‘rgb(255,255,255)’],  
> [0.07692, ‘rgb(0,25,51)’], #Jan  
> [0.15385, ‘rgb(0,25,51)’],  
> [0.15385, ‘rgb(0,102,102)’], #Feb  
> [0.23077, ‘rgb(0,102,102)’],  
> [0.23077, ‘rgb(0,204,204)’], #Mar  
> [0.30769, ‘rgb(0,204,204)’],  
> [0.30769, ‘rgb(0,255,255)’], #Apr  
> [0.38462, ‘rgb(0,255,255)’],  
> [0.38462, ‘rgb(255,247,0)’], #May  
> [0.46154, ‘rgb(255,247,0)’],  
> [0.46154, ‘rgb(255,196,0)’], #June  
> [0.53846, ‘rgb(255,196,0)’],  
> [0.53846, ‘rgb(255,145,0)’], #July  
> [0.61538, ‘rgb(255,145,0)’],  
> [0.61538, ‘rgb(255,85,0)’], #Aug  
> [0.69231, ‘rgb(255,85,0)’],  
> [0.69231, ‘rgb(255,0,0)’], #Sept  
> [0.76923, ‘rgb(255,0,20)’],  
> [0.76923, ‘rgb(102,178,255)’], #Oct  
> [0.84615, ‘rgb(102,178,255)’],  
> [0.84615, ‘rgb(0,128,255)’], #Nov  
> [0.92308, ‘rgb(0,128,255)’],  
> [0.92308, ‘rgb(0,0,153)’], #Dec  
> [1, ‘rgb(0,0,153)’]  
> ]
> 
> cmin = -0.5  
> cmax = num\_colors-0.5
> 
> trace0=go.Scatter(x=O18, y=H2, mode=‘lines’, name=‘LMWL’, marker=dict(color=‘#000000’))  
> trace1=go.Scatter(x=df\_upgrading.del18, y=df\_upgrading.del2, marker = dict(size=7,  
> line=dict(width=1),  
> colorbar=dict(title=‘Month’,  
> tickvals= color\_vals,  
> ticktext= color\_names),  
> colorscale = colorscale,  
> cmin=cmin,  
> cmax=cmax,  
> color = df\_upgrading.month),  
> mode=‘markers’, name=‘CT\_all’)
> 
> layout = go.Layout(xaxis=dict(range=[-18, -10]),  
> yaxis=dict(range=[-140,-100]),  
> showlegend=False)
> 
> data = [trace0, trace1]  
> fig=go.Figure(data=data, layout=layout)
> 
> plotly.offline.iplot(fig)

 ![newplot%20(2)](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/uploads/plot/original/2X/9/9e1e5891a207daa6e22e778e322279680dfa94f8.png)

I would like the little white block below January to not be included as this is essentially month=0.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jmmease](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/user_avatar/community.plotly.com/jmmease/32/3706_2.png) [@jmmease](https://community.plotly.com/u/jmmease)\
**Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 11:31am UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/manually-customize-colorbar-scatter-python/18520/4 "2019-01-25T11:31:02Z")

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Hi @spencerchad,

You’ll want to update your colorscale to include 12 (rather than 13) discrete regions. So your boundaries should be at:

```python
import numpy as np
np.linspace(0, 1, 12 + 1)

```

```nohighlight
array([0. , 0.08333333, 0.16666667, 0.25 , 0.33333333,
       0.41666667, 0.5 , 0.58333333, 0.66666667, 0.75 ,
       0.83333333, 0.91666667, 1. ])

```

rather than

```python
np.linspace(0, 1, 13 + 1)

```

```nohighlight
array([0. , 0.07692308, 0.15384615, 0.23076923, 0.30769231,
       0.38461538, 0.46153846, 0.53846154, 0.61538462, 0.69230769,
       0.76923077, 0.84615385, 0.92307692, 1. ])

```

Then set `cmin` to 0.5 (rather than -0.5) and `cmax` to 12.5.

Hope that helps!  
-Jon