Re: [Matplotlib-users] Using legend with a stem plot

[Jae-Joon L. <lee...@gm...>]

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 1:24 PM, Benjamin Root <ben...@ou...> wrote:
> I apologize for how long it has taken to get back to you.  I can confirm
> your bug, and it is indeed a bug.  However, I am not sure how exactly it
> should be dealt with.  To prevent it from getting lost, could you please
> file a report on our bug tracker?

I think this should be more like a feature request (rather than a
bug). Legend only support simple artists such as
lines/patches/collections. This is mentioned in the documentation
(http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/api/pyplot_api.html#matplotlib.pyplot.legend)
but may be not explicit enough.

Implementing legend for stem command is not very straight forward as
command like stem create multiple artists. I prefer commands like stem
to return a single container artist, but this has potential to  break
the old code.

For the original question, you may use proxy artist
(http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/users/legend_guide.html#using-proxy-artist).
However, I'm afraid none of the currently supported artists is close
to what you want. And it is not easy (for a normal user) to create a
customized legend unfortunately.

Regards,

-JJ