title: Saving plot annotations
body: <p>Yesterday, while adding some timing plots to the <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5645342/optimally-picking-one-element-from-each-list/5730495#5730495">"Optimally picking one element from each list"</a> question I was once more remembered of a mathgroup posting I did a couple of years ago (<a href="http://groups.google.com/group/comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica/browse_frm/thread/e2022dc734fb2ff0" rel="nofollow noreferrer">"Keeping plot annotations after regenerating a plot"</a>).  </p>
  
  <p>I was happily annotating my plots (manually) when I thought that some axis labels would be nice. Problem is, regenerating the plots with the axis labels in place will destroy your manual annotations.  </p>
  
  <p>It appears you can find user additions in a plot named pic here: <code>Rest[pic[[1, 1]]]</code>, so if you regenerate the plot as pic2 you can get your annotations back if you use: </p>
  
  <pre><code>Insert[pic2, Rest[pic[[1, 1]]], {1, 1}]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I remember David Park (author of the Presentations package) being vehemently opposed to manual annotations. I have done quite some programmatic labeling myself, but sometimes placing labels under program control is just too difficult, like here (note that I don't like <code>PlotLegends</code> much, especially because some of the colors are close to each other):</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Egsqt.png" alt="top-answerers"></p>
  
  <p>It was already too late for my kludge, having thrown away the plot originals, but I wonder what the current state of thinking on this issue is. </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Are there better ways to do this? </li>
  <li>How general is this method? Does it work in all plot and chart types?</li>
  <li>Does it work in all versions? (above 5.2)</li>
  <li>Any WRI plans to improve handling of user additions in plots?</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>BTW The trick in my mathgroup posting differed slightly from the one shown above and used in the top-10 plot. The principle is the same, though.</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT</strong></p>
  
  <p>I placed the code to make SO data plots like the one above in the <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4198961/what-is-in-your-mathematica-tool-bag/5744972#5744972">Mathematica Toolbag</a>.</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT</strong>  </p>
  
  <p>The code is now moved to the more appropriate question by Brett Champion: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/q/5745298/615464">How do I access the StackOverflow API from Mathematica</a></p>