# What are the default Frame / Axes styles and how can I find them?

I'm sure this must have been asked before but I am unable to find anything here on SE or on Google in general.

I simply want to know what the default color and thickness are for a Frame on a Plot and for the Axes.

Looking in the help seems to send me down a rabbit hole of,

The default style of axes is specified by the option DefaultAxesStyle.

For Graphics, the default setting is DefaultAxesStyle->"GraphicsAxes"

And although I can use GraphicsAxes as an option value, eg FrameStyle->"GraphicsAxes" I still can't discover what the actual shade of gray and line thickness that is. Are these deliberately hidden somewhere, or I am not looking hard enough?

Many thanks,

• Have a look here Is there a method to look inside at the internal code of Built-In functions?, is this helpful? – user9660 Jan 28 '16 at 16:18
• Good question. If you look at FullForm[Plot[Sin[x], {x, 0, 1}, Frame->True] or leave the Frame off, no head contains AxesStyle or FrameStyle so I also am stuck pondering what are the color and thickness of for the defaults "GraphicsAxes" and "GraphicsFrame". – Jack LaVigne Jan 28 '16 at 17:03

Hunting through the stylesheets is effective, but does not necessarily give you the current value being used if it has been modified. Instead, use

CurrentValue[{StyleDefinitions , "GraphicsAxes"}]
(* {Arrowheads -> {}, LineColor -> GrayLevel[0.4], Thickness -> Absolute[0.2]} *)

CurrentValue[{StyleDefinitions , "GraphicsFrame"}]
(* {LineColor -> GrayLevel[0.4], Thickness -> Absolute[0.5]} *)

• Nice code! I just tried to help myself and applied CurrentValue[{StyleDefinitions, "FrameTicksStyle"}] to get the values from a ListDensityPlotit brings {} What am I doing wrong? – Kay Apr 11 '16 at 13:30
• @Kay if you notice, the query is not "AxesStyle" or "FrameStyle", but "GraphicsAxes" and "GraphicsFrame". Extrapolating from that, you're looking for "GraphicsFrameTicks", not "FrameTicksStyle", and you get {ScriptLevel -> 1, LineColor -> GrayLevel[0.4]}, in 10.4. – rcollyer Apr 11 '16 at 13:50
• right! thank you! – Kay Apr 11 '16 at 14:28

The styles "GraphicsAxes" and "GraphicsFrame" are defined in the stylesheet "Core.nb".

Cell[StyleData["GraphicsAxes"], Arrowheads->{}, LineColor->GrayLevel[0.4], Thickness->Absolute[0.2]]