PlotEverything

Nature-style plots without expertise. No-code scientific visualization, crystal structure rendering, and XRD simulation.

Manual · 中文 · 日本語 · 한국어 · Deutsch

Overview

PlotEverything is a lightweight scientific figure workspace. It helps users create publication-style figures from spreadsheet data, display crystal structures, simulate XRD patterns, arrange multi-panel figures, and export final images without writing plotting code.

Main Features

• Spreadsheet plotting from CSV and Excel data.
• Example datasets for scatter, line, bar, box, violin, histogram, heatmap, contour, ternary, 3D, surface, and forest plots.
• Crystal file import for CIF, POSCAR/CONTCAR, VASP, XYZ, JSON, and CSV.
• Crystal display controls for atom size, bond size, repeats, color schemes, materials, zoom, and export crop.
• XRD simulation with peak table export.
• Multi-panel figure layout with editable subplot settings.
• Project snapshots for saving and reopening editable work.
• English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and German interface/documentation.

How to Use

1. Download the Windows or macOS App

For normal use, download the packaged desktop app from:

https://github.com/Bin-Cao/PlotEverything/releases

Download the package for your operating system, unzip it, and open the app directly. This is the recommended path for users who do not want to install developer tools.

For Windows, unzip the package and keep the top-level PlotEverything.exe together with the app/ folder. Start the software from the top-level PlotEverything.exe.

For macOS, if the app is blocked the first time you open it:

1. Double-click the app once, then close the warning dialog.
2. Open System Settings -> Privacy & Security.
3. Find PlotEverything.app was blocked... in the Security section.
4. Click Open Anyway.
5. Confirm again to open the app.

If macOS says the app is damaged and no Open Anyway option appears, clear the quarantine flag and open it again:

The example below assumes the app is in ~/Downloads/PlotEverything.app. If your app is elsewhere, replace it with the real app location:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine ~/Downloads/PlotEverything.app
open ~/Downloads/PlotEverything.app

2. Download the Source Code and Run Locally

Use this path if you want to inspect the code, modify the software, or run from source.

./start-crystal-workspace.sh

The launcher starts the local PlotEverything page and the crystal/XRD backend.

Important Files

Path	Purpose
index.html	Main PlotEverything application.
data/	Built-in spreadsheet examples.
data/crystals/	Built-in crystal examples, including NaCl and POSCAR.
crystal-viewer/	Main-page crystal viewer assets.
crystal-workspace/	Python crystal/XRD backend source.
desktop/	Electron desktop packaging launcher and backend entry.
.github/workflows/package-desktop.yml	Manual Windows/macOS desktop packaging workflow.
.github/workflows/deploy-docs.yml	GitHub Pages documentation deployment workflow.
docs/index.html	Full multilingual user manual.
docs/readme.*.md	Multilingual README Markdown files.
LICENSE	MIT license.
CITATION.cff	Repository citation metadata.

Citation

Cao B. PlotEverything, Version V1.0.0, GitHub repository, https://github.com/Bin-Cao/PlotEverything, 2026.