matplotlib-devel Mailing List for matplotlib

What's new in matplotlib 0.50
Antigrain backend: Agg
 Adding to the growing list of image backends is Antigrain --
 http://antigrain.com. This is a backend written mostly in extension
 code and is the fastest of all the image backends. Agg supports
 freetype fonts, antialiased drawing, alpha blending, and much
 more. The windows installer contains everything you need except
 Numeric to use the agg backend out of the box; for other platforms
 see http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/backends.html#Agg
Paint/libart backend
 David Moore wrote a backend for pypaint, a libart wrapper. libart is
 a high quality, cross platform image renderer that supports
 antialiased lines, freetype fonts, and other capabilities to soon be
 exploited. Thanks David! See
 http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/backends.html#Paint for more
 information and install instructions
The Matplotlib FAQ
 Matplotlib now has a FAQ -- http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/faq.html
Alpha channel attribute
 All the figure elements now have an alpha attribute to allow
 blending and translucency. Not all backends are currenly capable of
 supporting alpha - currently only Agg, but Paint should be able to
 support this soon - see the scatter screenshot for an example of
 alpha at work
 http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html#scatter_demo2
Table class added
 John Gill has developed a very nice Table class and table function
 that plays well with bar charts and stacked bar charts. See example
 code and screenshot table_demo at
 http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html#table_demo
New plot commands cla and clf
 Clear the current axes or figure. Useful in interactive plotting
 from a python shell
GD module on win32
 With much weeping and gnashing of teeth and help from half the
 people on this globe, built a gdmodule win32 installer. Special
 thanks to Stefan Kuzminski for putting up with my endless windows
 confusions. See the win32 quickstart at installing the GD backend -
 http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/backends.html#GDWIN32
GD supports clipping and antialiased line drawing
 See instructions about upgrading gd and gdmodule at Installing the
 GD backend. The line object has a new 'antialiased' property, that
 if True, the backend will render the line antialiased if
 supported. Note antialiased drawing under GD is slow, so be sure to
 turn the property off set(lines, 'antialiased', False) if you
 experience performance problems. If you need performance and
 antialiasing, use the agg backend.
Wild and wonderful bar charts
 You can provide an optional argument bottom to the bar command to
 determine where the bottom of each bar is, default 0 for all. This
 enables stacked bar plots and candelstick plots --
 examples/bar_stacked.py. Thanks to David Moore and John Gill for
 suggestions and code.
Figure backend refactored
 The figure functionality was split into a backend independent
 component Figure and a backend dependent component
 FigureCanvasBase. This completes the transition to a totally
 abstract figure interface and improves the ability the switch
 backends and a figure to multiple backends. See API_CHANGES for
 information on migrating applications to the new API at
 http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/API_CHANGES
Tons of bug fixes and optimizations detailed at
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/whats_new.html