update_xaxes(categoryorder="total descending") does not work correctly on px.histogram

Hello, When using update_xaxes(categoryorder="total descending") on a histogram, I expect the bars to be reordered by size. The following example, tested in a Notebook, will not work according to my expectation:

import pandas as pd
import plotly.express as px

data =[['A','left'],['B','left'],['C','right'],['D','up'],['E','right'],['F','down'],
       ['A','right'],['B','righ'],['B','right'],['B','up'],['A','left'],['F','up'],
       ['B','left'],['F','left'],['B','right'],['A','up'],['A','right'],['F','down'],
      ]
df = pd.DataFrame(data, columns=['letter','direction'])
px.histogram(df, x='letter', color='direction').update_xaxes(categoryorder="total descending")

Note that the behavior is unclear to me. In certain condition, the order might be correct. For instance, if you change the last row to ['E','down'], then the order of the plot is correct.

In any case, I would expect the same result than the following:

import pandas as pd
import plotly.express as px

data =[['A','left'],['B','left'],['C','right'],['D','up'],['E','right'],['F','down'],
       ['A','right'],['B','righ'],['B','right'],['B','up'],['A','left'],['F','up'],
       ['B','left'],['F','left'],['B','right'],['A','up'],['A','right'],['E','down'],
      ]

df = pd.DataFrame(data, columns=['letter','direction'])
df['count'] = 1
df = df.groupby(['letter','direction'])['count'].sum().reset_index()
px.bar(df, x='letter', y='count', color='direction').update_xaxes(categoryorder="total descending")

[audelorAd]

@nicolaskruchten I’m testing in a Dash App and with Terminal with same result.

I’m working with data in this attach file ( test_dataframe.txt ) and running the following exmeple :

col = ['lib','type','year','sup']

# Get data with attach file
df = pd.DataFrame(data, columns=col)

fig1 = px.histogram(df, x='year', y='sup', color='type').update_xaxes(type="category", categoryorder="total descending")

fig1.show()

fig2 = px.histogram(df, x='lib', y='sup', color='type').update_xaxes(type="category", categoryorder="total descending")

fig2.show()

fig1 is always displaying in the right order and fig2 always displaying in the wrong order

[nicolaskruchten]

I released Plotly.py 4.14 this morning and it includes this fix. Note that if you’re using JupyterLab you’ll need to update your extensions, and if you’re using VSCode Python you’ll need to wait for the vscode-jupyter extension to incorporate Plotly.js 1.58.1 in a release (which should happen next month).