[Matplotlib-users] using plotting contexts

[Perry G. <pe...@st...>]

I wonder what the recommended way of saving 
and using different plotting defaults is.

Let me give some background first. While many users 
like the current window color defaults (basically black
on white) some prefer white on black for interactive use
(for one thing, colors stand out more). And while they
may be morons for wanting to do so ;-), there is also
a very good reason to use such a color scheme for viewgraphs.
I don't know how many times I've suffered through a presentation
where the presenter showed the plots having a white background
and colored lines or symbols. In that setting, colors just don't
show well. ("well, you could see the yellow points in my version...")
On the other hand such color schemes don't print well (and
the current one does).

I could see someone wanting 2 or 3 different contexts. The 
current rcParams does allow for different save color faces, 
but that isn't quite enough for cases where text needs to be
white or something other than black to show up against black
bacgrounds.

Is there a means of using alternate rcParams dictionaries for 
use with different backends, say as a parameter to the print_figure
method? It doesn't look like it at the moment. I'd guess to do
that now means replacing rcParams temporarily, rendering the
plot to the file, and resetting rcParams to what it was (I haven't
actually tried it), but that seems clumsier than it should be.

Perry