Re: [matplotlib-devel] New font manager.

[Paul B. <ba...@st...>]

John Hunter wrote:
> 
> How about this:
> 
> What if all the family lists from font_manager are moved to
> matplotlib.__init__.defaultParams and hence .matplotlibrc 
> 
> 
>     font.family       : sans-serif   
>     font.style        : normal
>     font.variant      : normal
>     font.weight       : normal
>     font.size         : small
>     font.sans_serif   : Lucida Grande, Verdana, Geneva, Lucida, Arial, Helvetica, Bitstream Vera Sans, sans-serif
>     font.monospace    : Andale Mono, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, Nimbus Mono L, Courier New, Courier, Fixed, Terminal, monospace
>     and so on
> 
> (we'll need a new converter func in matplotlib.__init__: comma_sep_strs)
> 
> Users can then order them as they see fit.
> 
> We *require* that font.family be one of serif, sans_serif, cursive,
> fantasy, or monospace.  (Is this overly restrictive?)

Seems reasonable to me.

> Thus users who want courier move courier up higher in font.monospace
> in their rc file; ditto for vera.
> 
> Does this work?  I think I was a little slow to catch on because you
> intended font family lists to be user configurable but the
> configuration interface doesn't exist yet - it's essentially hardcoded
> in font_manager (is this right, or am I still confused?)

Yes, that's correct.  You can modify the family lists via 
text.set_font_properties(), but that's probably not very easy for a user to do 
at this point.

> As for deprecation, we can build a reverse dictionary mapping names to
> one of the allowed font families.  On calls to text.set_fontname, we
> issue a deprecation warning and then set the appropriate font family
> where possible.  In due time, we remove fontname.

I was thinking that we might want to use set_fontname() to find the font family 
and also add the specified font to the beginning of the list, so that it will 
all certainly be used.  Otherwise, that font may be near the bottom of the list 
and not actually get used.

  -- Paul

-- 
Paul Barrett, PhD      Space Telescope Science Institute
Phone: 410-338-4475    ESS/Science Software Branch
FAX:   410-338-4767    Baltimore, MD 21218