[R] Need to study and learn about better plots

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   So far my plotting needs have been sort of ignored as I got
acquainted with R this week, but now that I have the basics in place
for the program I wanted to write  it's time for me to start learning
about how to make output that better suits my needs. I think I have
two sort of charts I need to concentrate on learning how to produce:

1) Probably a trivial request - a single chart that has multiple lines
on it in different colors. I might have 500 to 1000 lines, all
starting at 0,0 on the left  and proceeding to the right where they
end either above 0 or below 0. There will groups of colors depending
on the group they are part of. I'd like a legend on the right or
bottom that explains the colors. I should be able to add or remove
lines at any time.

2) The closest example of the second would be a multi-study chart sort
of like is typical in a lot of stock charting programs. Here's (I
hope) a simple example:

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=BAC

I'm not going to plot stock price data, or don't plan to anyway, but
the thing I need in a chart is this multi-study aspect - essentially 3
charts in the example, all sitting on top of each other, with their
own axises. It might not be immediately clear that the link shows an
upper chart with two parts - the price data (with volume and moving
averages) and the uppoer portion that has an RSI indicator - in
separate studies on the same chart, with a second chart immediately
below it that has the MACD indicator.

   With all the great plots I've seen so far I suspect these requests
are pretty easy for the experts so I'm hoping for a few good ideas and
maybe a few examples somewhere to help me get started will be all I
need.

   Keep in mind I've not used any command other than plot() and par()
so far. I *very* new to this. I started looking at ggplot2 last night.
I haven't looked at Lattice.

   Any recommendations on where I should look next are warmly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark