Re: [Matplotlib-users] horizontal alignment of a secondary y-axis

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Again I did this padding manually by introducing yet another magic
constant. Thank you to you and Erik for your help. After using a lot
of hacks and magic constants here are the final plots:
http://www.tommycarstensen.com/matplotlib1.png
http://www.tommycarstensen.com/matplotlib2.png

Notice 1) the right aligned secondary y-axis labels, 2) the
non-overlapping ticks, 3) the padded secondary y-axis labels. I'm
satisfied with this plot / not willing to spend any more time on it.
Thank you for your help.

On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 7:54 PM, Tommy Carstensen
<tom...@gm...> wrote:
> Ryan, do you know, if there is any way I can make the padding
> dependent on the tick label sizes?
> for label in ax2.yaxis.get_ticklabels():
>     label.set_horizontalalignment('right')
> ax2.tick_params(pad=20)
>
> When the numbers are large, then they are glued to the secondary
> y-axis. When they are small, then they are hovering far away from it.
>
> On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 7:20 PM, Ryan Nelson <rne...@gm...> wrote:
>> You're welcome, Tommy. I used gnuplot many years ago, but I've been much
>> happier now that I know MPL.
>>
>> A gnuplot->MPL Rosetta Stone might be a useful blog post for someone. I
>> haven't used gnuplot in so long that I don't think I could do this myself.
>>
>> R
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 12:28 PM, Tommy Carstensen
>> <tom...@gm...> wrote:
>>>
>>> Whoa, thanks for a great answer Ryan. I can see, why the level of
>>> control MPL gives you is a great sales pitch. It's one of the reasons,
>>> why I switched from gnuplot after using it for many years and making
>>> many cool plots. The MPL learning curve has just been a bit steep,
>>> when you are used to plot whatever you want.
>>>
>>> On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 5:06 PM, Ryan Nelson <rne...@gm...>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Tommy,
>>> >
>>> > I'll try to answer your points in order:
>>> >
>>> > 1) Oops. That should have been "xticks".
>>> > import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
>>> > plt.plot([1,3,2])
>>> > ticks, labels = plt.xticks()
>>> > plt.xticks(ticks, horizontalalignment='left')
>>> > plt.show()
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > 2) Sorry for the ambiguity. "OO" is short for object-oriented. There are
>>> > two
>>> > different approaches that people tend to use to make plots (although
>>> > they
>>> > can be mixed): 1) the "pyplot" way, which uses the pyplot wrapper
>>> > functions
>>> > and 2) the object-oriented way, which modifies the objects directly.
>>> > This is
>>> > what you did in your example where you snag the axes objects and operate
>>> > on
>>> > them directly. The "OO" way is ultimately more powerful, because the
>>> > pyplot
>>> > wrapper functions override some of your control. For example, because
>>> > you
>>> > want twin axes, you might not be able to use the pyplot.xticks function
>>> > (Others, correct me if I'm wrong.), and you lose some fine control. See
>>> > next
>>> > example.
>>> >
>>> > 3) I know it *seems* like the for loop is an "ugly hack". However, you
>>> > have
>>> > to realize that this ultimately gives you a TON of control. Let's say,
>>> > for
>>> > example, that you wanted only one of the labels to be large and red to
>>> > highlight a certain value. Using a modified version of your example, we
>>> > get
>>> > this:
>>> > ______________
>>> > import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
>>> > fig = plt.figure()
>>> > ax1 = fig.add_subplot(111)
>>> > ax2 = ax1.twinx()
>>> > labels = ax2.yaxis.get_ticklabels()
>>> > [l.set_horizontalalignment('right') for l in labels]
>>> > labels[2].set_color('red')
>>> > labels[2].set_fontsize(20)
>>> > ax2.tick_params(pad=20)
>>> > ax1.plot(list(range(11)))
>>> > ax1.set_xlim(0,10)
>>> > ax2.set_ylim(0,10)
>>> > plt.show()
>>> > ____________
>>> > I personally think that this level of control is very, very cool and one
>>> > of
>>> > the big selling points for MPL in general.
>>> >
>>> > Okay. If you want to set the alignment all the time, there might be a
>>> > way to
>>> > control this with matplotlibrc or style sheets:
>>> > http://matplotlib.org/users/customizing.html
>>> > http://matplotlib.org/users/style_sheets.html
>>> > However, I'm not the biggest fan of changing matplotlibrc. Mostly
>>> > because if
>>> > others try to reproduce your plots, they also need your rc file as well.
>>> > I
>>> > haven't used style sheets yet, but that might be a fix to this issue
>>> > (for me
>>> > at least).
>>> >
>>> > Hope that helps.
>>> >
>>> > Ryan
>>> >
>>> > On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 10:30 AM, Tommy Carstensen
>>> > <tom...@gm...> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Hi Ryan,
>>> >>
>>> >> Thanks for your answer. Sorry for not replying sooner. I fell asleep
>>> >> shortly after sending my question.
>>> >>
>>> >> What is "the OO way"?
>>> >>
>>> >> Your 1st solution gives:
>>> >> AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'ticks'
>>> >>
>>> >> I modified your 2nd solution to accommodate my wishes and needs:
>>> >> import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
>>> >> fig = plt.figure()
>>> >> ax1 = fig.add_subplot(111)
>>> >> ax2 = ax1.twinx()
>>> >> for label in ax2.yaxis.get_ticklabels():
>>> >>     label.set_horizontalalignment('right')
>>> >> ax2.tick_params(pad=20)
>>> >> ax1.plot(list(range(11)))
>>> >> ax1.set_xlim(0,10)
>>> >> ax2.set_ylim(0,10)
>>> >> plt.show()
>>> >>
>>> >> It seems like an awful hack with that for loop, but it works. I'm not
>>> >> sure, why the secondary right hand side axis don't have right aligned
>>> >> labels by default. That would make a lot of sense. It would be great,
>>> >> if I could set the horizontal alignment without having to use a for
>>> >> loop. It's just plain ugly. In gnuplot it's as simple as this:
>>> >> set ytics right
>>> >>
>>> >> Thanks for your help and providing me with a solution.
>>> >>
>>> >> Tommy
>>> >>
>>> >> On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 1:31 AM, Ryan Nelson <rne...@gm...>
>>> >> wrote:
>>> >> > Tommy,
>>> >> >
>>> >> > You are probably looking for pyplot.xticks. For example, you might
>>> >> > want
>>> >> > something along these lines:
>>> >> >
>>> >> > import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
>>> >> > plt.plot([1,3,2])
>>> >> > # We'll do this to get the autogenerated positions
>>> >> > ticks, labels = plt.xticks()
>>> >> > plt.ticks(ticks, horizontalalignment='left')
>>> >> > plt.show()
>>> >> >
>>> >> > Or if your using the OO way:
>>> >> >
>>> >> > import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
>>> >> > fig = plt.figure()
>>> >> > ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
>>> >> > ax.plot([1,3,2])
>>> >> > labels = ax.get_xticklabels()
>>> >> > [l.set_horizontalalignment('left') for l in labels]
>>> >> > plt.show()
>>> >> >
>>> >> > I think that's the best way. Hope it helps.
>>> >> >
>>> >> > Ryan
>>> >> >
>>> >> >
>>> >> >
>>> >> > On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 7:29 PM, Tommy Carstensen
>>> >> > <tom...@gm...> wrote:
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> How can I set the horizontal alignment of a secondary y-axis to
>>> >> >> 'right'? Currently the numbers are glued to the axis. I want the
>>> >> >> axis
>>> >> >> values to be right aligned integers. Thanks.
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >>
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>>> >>
>>> >>
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>>> hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought
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>>