[matplotlib-devel] [Matplotlib-users] define color cycle in matplotlibrc
http://www.mail-archive.com/matplotlib-us...@lists.sourceforge.net/msg14772.html The above thread includes two reasonable requests: 1) add color cycle as an rcParam 2) add a line style cycle as well The first of these is easier to implement, although it requires a bit more than the patch provided. Questions: 1) Should the the color_cycle be in the axes group? Although it affects lines, it is defined only at the Axes level, and affects only lines drawn by plot. Alternative: since it affects only plot, should there be a new plot group to make that explicit, so it would be rcParams['plot.color_cycle']? 2) It was pointed out that there is a strange connection between the color cycle and the lines.color rcParam. This connection looks to me like a bit of legacy that can be dropped with little risk of pain in user land, since the default would still be to have the initial color in the cycle (blue) be the same as the default lines.color (blue). The proposed difference is that setting lines.color would have no effect on the color_cycle, and vice-versa. John, I think the present connection dates all the way back to your work around svn r500 or so; please tell me if there is some compelling reason to keep it. It appears to me that breaking the connection would make both the code and the actual mpl behavior simpler and less surprising, with no loss of useful functionality. 3) Would it make sense to add color_cycle to the Axes API, so that it can be set directly for a given axes as an alternative to going through the rc mechanism? Right now it can be set via a function, but must be set before Axes creation; this doesn't make sense to me. It would make more sense as an Axes property that could be set at any time, and would apply to subsequent calls to plot. My sense is that as a matter of design strategy, whenever possible, one should be able to use the API, via properties, methods, or functions, to locally set any options for which rcParams gives the global default values. Eric -- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Verizon Developer Community Take advantage of Verizon's best-in-class app development support A streamlined, 14 day to market process makes app distribution fast and easy Join now and get one step closer to millions of Verizon customers http://p.sf.net/sfu/verizon-dev2dev ___ Matplotlib-devel mailing list Matplotlib-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
Re: [matplotlib-devel] [Matplotlib-users] define color cycle in matplotlibrc
On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 2:39 PM, Eric Firing efir...@hawaii.edu wrote: 1) Should the the color_cycle be in the axes group? Although it affects lines, it is defined only at the Axes level, and affects only lines drawn by plot. Alternative: since it affects only plot, should there be a new plot group to make that explicit, so it would be rcParams['plot.color_cycle']? I think it is better to do at the Axes level, because even if plot is the only command to do this now, I could imagine others commands wanting to use it (fill_between, bar?). I have had people asking me just for access to the list so they could use it for some purpose or another, so having the list easily accessible is desirable. 2) It was pointed out that there is a strange connection between the color cycle and the lines.color rcParam. This connection looks to me like a bit of legacy that can be dropped with little risk of pain in user land, since the default would still be to have the initial color in the cycle (blue) be the same as the default lines.color (blue). The proposed difference is that setting lines.color would have no effect on the color_cycle, and vice-versa. John, I think the present connection dates all the way back to your work around svn r500 or so; please tell me if there is some compelling reason to keep it. It appears to me that breaking the connection would make both the code and the actual mpl behavior simpler and less surprising, with no loss of useful functionality. I think deprecating lines.color and making the first element of the cycle be the default color makes the most sense. 3) Would it make sense to add color_cycle to the Axes API, so that it can be set directly for a given axes as an alternative to going through the rc mechanism? Right now it can be set via a function, but must be set before Axes creation; this doesn't make sense to me. It would make more sense as an Axes property that could be set at any time, and would apply to subsequent calls to plot. It might be best to make this a class level attribute, that way people can tweak it globally or at the instance level, and have access to the list *before* the Axes instance is created. The downside of this is it falls outside of the usual properties pattern that people can access via the normal introspection facilities. The linestyles cycle question is as you say a good bit harder, and would best be served by having some sort of configurable color scheme, where one could set grayscale or something like that to get default black/white/gray colors and styles for the cycle. JDH -- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Verizon Developer Community Take advantage of Verizon's best-in-class app development support A streamlined, 14 day to market process makes app distribution fast and easy Join now and get one step closer to millions of Verizon customers http://p.sf.net/sfu/verizon-dev2dev ___ Matplotlib-devel mailing list Matplotlib-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
Re: [matplotlib-devel] [Matplotlib-users] define color cycle in matplotlibrc
2) It was pointed out that there is a strange connection between the color cycle and the lines.color rcParam. This connection looks to me like a bit of legacy that can be dropped with little risk of pain in user land, since the default would still be to have the initial color in the cycle (blue) be the same as the default lines.color (blue). The proposed difference is that setting lines.color would have no effect on the color_cycle, and vice-versa. John, I think the present connection dates all the way back to your work around svn r500 or so; please tell me if there is some compelling reason to keep it. It appears to me that breaking the connection would make both the code and the actual mpl behavior simpler and less surprising, with no loss of useful functionality. I think deprecating lines.color and making the first element of the cycle be the default color makes the most sense. The only problem is that lines.color is the default for LineCollection and Line2D, both of which are fairly separate from Axes, so having them default to rcParams['axes.color_cycle'][0] seems a little odd. Eric -- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Verizon Developer Community Take advantage of Verizon's best-in-class app development support A streamlined, 14 day to market process makes app distribution fast and easy Join now and get one step closer to millions of Verizon customers http://p.sf.net/sfu/verizon-dev2dev ___ Matplotlib-devel mailing list Matplotlib-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
Re: [matplotlib-devel] [Matplotlib-users] define color cycle in matplotlibrc
On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 3:54 PM, Eric Firing efir...@hawaii.edu wrote: The only problem is that lines.color is the default for LineCollection and Line2D, both of which are fairly separate from Axes, so having them default to rcParams['axes.color_cycle'][0] seems a little odd. Yes, I was worrying about the same thing while cooking dinner :-) A line can be added to a Figure or an Axes, so perhaps the default color should not come from there. What about a module level attribute matplotlib.colors.cycle by an rc param colors.cycle and then the default Line2D and LineCollection color can default to matplotlib.colors.cycle[0]. -- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Verizon Developer Community Take advantage of Verizon's best-in-class app development support A streamlined, 14 day to market process makes app distribution fast and easy Join now and get one step closer to millions of Verizon customers http://p.sf.net/sfu/verizon-dev2dev ___ Matplotlib-devel mailing list Matplotlib-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
