RE: [Matplotlib-users] Windows defaults and the first example in the tutorial

[Perry G. <pe...@st...>]

>     Darren> I was thinking about the first example in the tutorial. On
>     Darren> windows, TkAgg is the default backend, at least for the
>     Darren> precompiled windows version. If Idle is run with -n, the
>     Darren> show() command must be omitted, or the window will not
>     Darren> render. Interactive2.py will try to render the window and
>     Darren> then hang, as will pycrust. I think the first thing a
>     Darren> newbie to matplotlib wants to do is open their favorite
>     Darren> shell interface and make sure they can reproduce the first
>     Darren> example in the tutorial.
> 
> Hi Darren,
> 
> This is a problem.  It may be time to look into Pearu Peterson's
> gui_thread which was developed for chaco but is easily decoupled from
> scipy.  It would be nice if the various backends played nicely with
> the various IDEs.  (One for the priorities list, Perry?)
> 
Sure. But my recollection was that gui_thread needed a lot of work
(Eric Jones told me at least a month!), and it could well be that
one is needed for each gui (it does mapping of gui requests from
one thread to another or something like that so that a thread
running the mainloop allows the python interactive loop to run
separately. It would be nice if gui's played well with each other,
but I don't know if that is easy to do (or even workable for
all combinations). If someone knows how to do this sort of thing
that would be great, but we don't (neither the resources or expertise).
At the moment I take the position that it is simplest not to mix
gui's. The current rule of thumb should be that if you want to
use a shell that runs under a gui, you need the back end in matplotlib
to go with that gui.

I hope someone can make me a liar on that.

Perry