Re: [matplotlib-devel] Proposed Submission: Figure Layout Management

[John H. <jdh...@ac...>]

>>>>> "cfuller" == cfuller  <cf...@th...> writes:

    cfuller> I've been playing with matplotlib a couple of weeks
    cfuller> now. That nasty memory leak was starting to turn me off,
    cfuller> and then got fixed right on cue! I've had a hell of a
    cfuller> time finding a good plotting system to replace BLT, so
    cfuller> that was a relief.

There have been some additional memory leak fixes since 0.54.2.  Glad
we could keep you on board!

    cfuller> Anyhow, I noticed my titles overwriting the x axes of
    cfuller> adjacent subplots, and so I wrote a little function that
    cfuller> shifts subplots around. That's not terribly interesting,
    cfuller> but I have a compulsive habit of making everything I do
    cfuller> as general as possible. The result is a system for
    cfuller> controlling figure layout based on six parameters, three
    cfuller> for each axis. As well as a rather elaborate demo. The
    cfuller> basic demo was done in an hour, but I couldn't leave well
    cfuller> enough alone!

Ahh, just the kind of developer we need....  

    cfuller> I tried to get the docstrings right, but haven't checked
    cfuller> them. I also included a mathematical derivation at the
    cfuller> end of the file, and I don't know what the documentation
    cfuller> scripts will make of that.

    cfuller> There's no error checking. None should be needed, as long
    cfuller> as all the parameters are numeric. Some curious results
    cfuller> are very possible, but nothing breaks.

    cfuller> If you find the documentation and API (and whatever else)
    cfuller> worthy, you can include it in the next release/current
    cfuller> CVS if you think it appropriate.

I really liked your demo.  So much that I think we should include it
into the distribution and incorporate versions of your widgets for
each backend.  I think we should have a button on the standard toolbar
that launches your dialog box.  I can do the one for GTK - perhaps you
or Todd would like to incorporate your changes into backend_tkagg so
that a toolbar button launches the dialog box you wrote.

It would also be nice to add checkboxes for turning off y tick labels
for all but the first column and turning off x tick labels for all but
the last row.

Any takers for doing the wx version?

Another question: what would happen if your code were run on non
subplot axes, eg with those examples/axes_demo.py?

A word of warning: in your demo code, you define a function set.
There is a matplotlib.matlab function with the same name...

    cfuller> Oh, and if the user wants to shift individual subplots
    cfuller> around, that function is still present.