The present NavigationToolbar2 is very nice, but I am thinking about an improvement: adding a button that would rotate a constraint among three possibilities, so that pan/zoom and rectangle select could be set to affect only X, only Y, or be left unconstrained as at present.
The problem with the present system is that often one really wants to pan and zoom in only one direction, or at least one direction at a time. For example, I have a dataset consisting of 10000 profile measurements (increasing with time on the X-axis) with 20 vertical bins. I want to display the whole thing with pcolorfast, and then zoom in on particular sections to the point where the individual profiles can be seen clearly. Doing this with the present pan/zoom and rectangle tools is awkward--I am not coordinated enough to move the cursor perfectly horizontally, or to select a rectangle that goes exactly from top to bottom. I suspect that there are many data analysis applications like this, where one wants to vary only one dimension at a time. Although there might be more elegant ways to do it, I think the simplest way to get this functionality across backends would be to add a single button that rotates a variable among values of 'X', 'Y', and 'XY', and then let that variable constrain the effects of pan/zoom and rectangle-select. It would be nicer, but more work, to have the variable change the rubberband to a span-select in the latter case; I am inclined to start with the easiest implementation I can come up with. I think the simple approach can be done with only a little bit of change in the backends. Comments? Objections? This could also be done by making a NavigationToolbar3, but I think that even with inheritance from NavigationToolbar2, this would require more work. Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100. Use priority code J8TL2D2. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-devel mailing list Matplotlib-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
