matplotlib-devel Mailing List for matplotlib

Jeff Klukas wrote:
> When plotting multiple data with one Axes.hist call, the method's
> interface allows you to specify a list of labels to the 'label' kwarg
> to distinguish between the datasets. To get different colors,
> however, you cannot give a list of colors to 'color'; instead, you
> have to leave out the 'color' kwarg and change the color cycle.
> 
> Is there any reason why the color kwarg can't work like label? I
> spent an hour or two trying to debug a script before I realized that
> 'color' wasn't being interpreted as I expected. I realize that there
> is some ambiguity since a color argument can be an rgb or rgba
> sequence. My proposal would be that 'color' would be interpreted as a
> list of distinct colors only when multiple datasets are given as input
> and len(color) equals the number of datasets.
> 
> I find it hard to imagine a case where you would want to set all
> datasets to be the same color, so I don't think the ambiguity would be
> a major issue. I would be happy to write and submit an implementation
> if others think this is a reasonable idea.
Sounds good to me. I agree that it makes no sense to have to set the 
color cycle for hist (although using the color cycle as a default is 
reasonable), and I think it is just an artifact of the way hist has evolved.
Eric
> 
> Cheers,
> Jeff
> 
> || Jeff Klukas, Research Assistant, Physics
> || University of Wisconsin -- Madison
> || jeff.klukas@gmail | jeffyklukas@aim | jeffklukas@skype
> || http://www.hep.wisc.edu/~jklukas/
> 

When plotting multiple data with one Axes.hist call, the method's
interface allows you to specify a list of labels to the 'label' kwarg
to distinguish between the datasets. To get different colors,
however, you cannot give a list of colors to 'color'; instead, you
have to leave out the 'color' kwarg and change the color cycle.
Is there any reason why the color kwarg can't work like label? I
spent an hour or two trying to debug a script before I realized that
'color' wasn't being interpreted as I expected. I realize that there
is some ambiguity since a color argument can be an rgb or rgba
sequence. My proposal would be that 'color' would be interpreted as a
list of distinct colors only when multiple datasets are given as input
and len(color) equals the number of datasets.
I find it hard to imagine a case where you would want to set all
datasets to be the same color, so I don't think the ambiguity would be
a major issue. I would be happy to write and submit an implementation
if others think this is a reasonable idea.
Cheers,
Jeff
|| Jeff Klukas, Research Assistant, Physics
|| University of Wisconsin -- Madison
|| jeff.klukas@gmail | jeffyklukas@aim | jeffklukas@skype
|| http://www.hep.wisc.edu/~jklukas/

Just wanted to let you all know that Packt Publishing just sent us
their first donation for Sandro Tosi's Matplotlib for Python
Developers, which is part of their quarterly revenue sharing program
-- the first quarter amount was 320ドル after paypal fees
 http://www.packtpub.com/matplotlib-python-development/book?utm_source=matplotlib.sourceforge.net&utm_medium=link&utm_content=pod&utm_campaign=mdb_002124
This brings our current donations total to 975,ドル which is not yet
enough for a sprint but is starting to be enough to sponsor conference
travel, a developer laptop or build machine, educational materials or
something along those lines. My preference is to save for a sprint,
but if you have a need or an idea float it by us.
JDH