[matplotlib-devel] mpl_toolkit.axes_grid default axes class should be changed?

[Pauli V. <pa...@ik...>]

Hi,

mpl_toolkit.axes_grid.AxesGrid uses a custom axes type as the default 
type of axes it creates. I think it might be more user-friendly to use 
matplotlib.axes.Axes as the default -- the functionality in basic use 
seems to be the same.

The custom axes handle drawing ticks quite differently from matplotlib's 
usual Axes. I just spent an hour wondering why

	grid[0].xaxis.get_major_ticks()[-1].label.set_horizontalalignment("right")

had no effect -- the answer is that LocatableAxis draws ticks using a 
custom tick artist, and that the correct axis object is in
grid[0].axes["bottom"]. And in fact, it cannot adjust the align of
individual tick labels.

The AxesGrid is really useful, so I'd suggest the following change:

--- lib/mpl_toolkits/axes_grid/axes_grid.py.orig	2009-10-27 19:51:43.000000000 +0200
+++ lib/mpl_toolkits/axes_grid/axes_grid.py	2009-10-27 19:52:13.000000000 +0200
@@ -210,10 +210,10 @@
 
 
         if axes_class is None:
-            axes_class = LocatableAxes
+            axes_class = maxes.Axes
             axes_class_args = {}
         else:
-            if isinstance(axes_class, maxes.Axes):
+            if issubclass(axes_class, maxes.Axes):
                 axes_class_args = {}
             else:
                 axes_class, axes_class_args = axes_class

-- 
Pauli Virtanen