Thread: [matplotlib-devel] mpl_toolkit.axes_grid default axes class should be changed?

Hi,
mpl_toolkit.axes_grid.AxesGrid uses a custom axes type as the default 
type of axes it creates. I think it might be more user-friendly to use 
matplotlib.axes.Axes as the default -- the functionality in basic use 
seems to be the same.
The custom axes handle drawing ticks quite differently from matplotlib's 
usual Axes. I just spent an hour wondering why
	grid[0].xaxis.get_major_ticks()[-1].label.set_horizontalalignment("right")
had no effect -- the answer is that LocatableAxis draws ticks using a 
custom tick artist, and that the correct axis object is in
grid[0].axes["bottom"]. And in fact, it cannot adjust the align of
individual tick labels.
The AxesGrid is really useful, so I'd suggest the following change:
--- lib/mpl_toolkits/axes_grid/axes_grid.py.orig	2009年10月27日 19:51:43.000000000 +0200
+++ lib/mpl_toolkits/axes_grid/axes_grid.py	2009年10月27日 19:52:13.000000000 +0200
@@ -210,10 +210,10 @@
 
 
 if axes_class is None:
- axes_class = LocatableAxes
+ axes_class = maxes.Axes
 axes_class_args = {}
 else:
- if isinstance(axes_class, maxes.Axes):
+ if issubclass(axes_class, maxes.Axes):
 axes_class_args = {}
 else:
 axes_class, axes_class_args = axes_class
-- 
Pauli Virtanen

Thanks for your suggestion and the patch.
However, I'm not very inclined to make such a change any time soon,
since that custom axes class is one of my primary motivation
(supporting the cuvelinear grid) behind the axes_grid toolkit. And
other part of axes_grid toolkit depends on this behavior.
On the other hand, I'm trying to make some reorganization effort of
the axes_grid toolkit in the future, during which I will try to
separate out things that depends on the custom axes.
FYI, note that you can turn off the customized behavior by
 ax.toggle_axisline(False)
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/mpl_toolkits/axes_grid/users/overview.html#axisline
This should bring back the original behavior of the matplotlib axes
(if it does not, it should be considered a bug). Of course this will
disable some of the functionality of the axes_grid.
I'm thinking about issuing a warning (about the different behavior
from the original matplotlib) whenever axes_grid is imported
(optinally turned off using rcparams). This may help others not to
wast their time when something does not work.
Regards,
-JJ
On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Pauli Virtanen <pa...@ik...> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> mpl_toolkit.axes_grid.AxesGrid uses a custom axes type as the default
> type of axes it creates. I think it might be more user-friendly to use
> matplotlib.axes.Axes as the default -- the functionality in basic use
> seems to be the same.
>
> The custom axes handle drawing ticks quite differently from matplotlib's
> usual Axes. I just spent an hour wondering why
>
>    grid[0].xaxis.get_major_ticks()[-1].label.set_horizontalalignment("right")
>
> had no effect -- the answer is that LocatableAxis draws ticks using a
> custom tick artist, and that the correct axis object is in
> grid[0].axes["bottom"]. And in fact, it cannot adjust the align of
> individual tick labels.
>
> The AxesGrid is really useful, so I'd suggest the following change:
>
> --- lib/mpl_toolkits/axes_grid/axes_grid.py.orig    2009年10月27日 19:51:43.000000000 +0200
> +++ lib/mpl_toolkits/axes_grid/axes_grid.py   2009年10月27日 19:52:13.000000000 +0200
> @@ -210,10 +210,10 @@
>
>
>     if axes_class is None:
> -      axes_class = LocatableAxes
> +      axes_class = maxes.Axes
>       axes_class_args = {}
>     else:
> -      if isinstance(axes_class, maxes.Axes):
> +      if issubclass(axes_class, maxes.Axes):
>         axes_class_args = {}
>       else:
>         axes_class, axes_class_args = axes_class
>
> --
> Pauli Virtanen
>
>
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Hi!
ti, 2009年10月27日 kello 15:36 -0400, Jae-Joon Lee kirjoitti:
> Thanks for your suggestion and the patch.
> However, I'm not very inclined to make such a change any time soon,
> since that custom axes class is one of my primary motivation
> (supporting the cuvelinear grid) behind the axes_grid toolkit. And
> other part of axes_grid toolkit depends on this behavior.
> On the other hand, I'm trying to make some reorganization effort of
> the axes_grid toolkit in the future, during which I will try to
> separate out things that depends on the custom axes.
Fair enough.
[clip: toggle_axisline]
Good to know.
Of course, I did not read the fine manual first, which probably explains
why I had trouble :). User error, sorry for the noise.
> I'm thinking about issuing a warning (about the different behavior
> from the original matplotlib) whenever axes_grid is imported
> (optinally turned off using rcparams). This may help others not to
> waste their time when something does not work.
Perhaps it would be enough to explain in the AxisGrid docstring that the
default class is a customized one, and that there are implications.
Everyone hopefully reads that (at least I did).
Thanks,
Pauli