Re: [matplotlib-devel] MEP26: Artist-level stylesheets

[R H. <rha...@gm...>]

On 21 July 2014 14:48, jamesramm <jam...@gm...> wrote:

> You've just noted it: Line2D isn't a CSS selector


CSS doesn't define any particular element names - it just operates on
element names in a document tree. So a standard CSS parser will work just
as well with "line2d { ... }" as it would with "h1 { ... }".


On 21 July 2014 14:48, jamesramm <jam...@gm...> wrote:

> ..likewise, the properties we want to call upon (like linewidth) are not
> CSS attributes.


Agreed - not all properties are standard CSS properties, so I was
suggesting borrowing SVG properties to augment the list. NB. That would
make the property controlling line width be called "stroke-width". But
whatever names we choose, a CSS parser doesn't care what the names are.

But really the issue is not so much about CSS and SVG-styling-properties -
it is whether to use existing standards or not. Clearly I'm in favour of
adopting standards. But perhaps there is another standard set of CSS
styling properties which would be a closer match to matplotlib? Perhaps CSS
is not the answer at all, and something like SLD/SE would be better? (I
suspect not! But there could easily be other technologies I'm not aware of!)

    Axes {
>         gid: 'axes1';
>         autoscalex_on: True;
>         ::ylabel {
>                 text: 'Y-Axis';
>                 font-size: 10;
>                   }
>         }
>
> I think this would be easier to parse and slightly clearer to read as it
> can be 'attached' to the artist container it refers to (imagine if there
> were 2 axes in a figure...)


In the case of two Axes, the CSS version would be:

Axes#axes1 {
  border: 1px solid black;
}

Axes#axes2 {
  border: 2px dashed green;
}