matplotlib-users Mailing List for matplotlib

On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 2:35 PM, John Hunter <jd...@gm...> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 3:09 PM, Barry Wark <bar...@gm...> wrote:
>> Work is currently going in the wrong direction for me to be able to
>> implement toolbars etc. in a timely manner. Would you be willing to
>> add the rc parameter you discussed so that backend could be defined in
>> a separate package? This would allow me to continue working on (and
>> deploying internally) the Cocoa native backend. As soon as it meets
>> the requirements, I will be happy to resubmit it for inclusion with
>> the matplotlib distribution (including supporting it going forward).
>
> I just committed some changes to svn to support the syntax
> module://some_backend to load the backend from a module in the
> pythonpath. Give it a test drive and see if it works in your use
> cases. The matplotlibrc file, the use directive and the -d argument
> to pylab will all respect this syntax, eg
>
> matplotlib.use('module://backend_cocoa')
>
> or
>
> > python simple_plot.py -dmodule://my_backend
>
> but backend_cocoa doesn't currently work with pylab...
>
> Outside of of pylab, it doesn't matter much because you could already
> import directly from your own modules if you are building apps, but at
> least the backend validation machinery won't complain if it sees
> something starting with 'module://'
>
> Let me know if you had something different in mind....
This looks like exactly what I had in mind. Thanks! A quick test seems
to work and I will ping you if I find issues upon digging deeper.
Thanks!
Barry

On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 3:09 PM, Barry Wark <bar...@gm...> wrote:
> Work is currently going in the wrong direction for me to be able to
> implement toolbars etc. in a timely manner. Would you be willing to
> add the rc parameter you discussed so that backend could be defined in
> a separate package? This would allow me to continue working on (and
> deploying internally) the Cocoa native backend. As soon as it meets
> the requirements, I will be happy to resubmit it for inclusion with
> the matplotlib distribution (including supporting it going forward).
I just committed some changes to svn to support the syntax
module://some_backend to load the backend from a module in the
pythonpath. Give it a test drive and see if it works in your use
cases. The matplotlibrc file, the use directive and the -d argument
to pylab will all respect this syntax, eg
 matplotlib.use('module://backend_cocoa')
or
 > python simple_plot.py -dmodule://my_backend
but backend_cocoa doesn't currently work with pylab...
Outside of of pylab, it doesn't matter much because you could already
import directly from your own modules if you are building apps, but at
least the backend validation machinery won't complain if it sees
something starting with 'module://'
Let me know if you had something different in mind....
JDH

Tony S Yu wrote:
> On Jul 12, 2008, at 1:50 PM, Alan wrote:
> 
>> Hi List,
>>
>> I use Fink for Mac OSX, tiger 10.4.11.
>>
>> So with MPL 0.90.1, this script works fine:
>>
>> from matplotlib.pylab import *
>> import matplotlib, numpy
>> print matplotlib.__version, numpy.__version__
>> att1 = {'color': 'black', 'markerfacecolor': 'red', 'markersize':
>> 80.0, 'markeredgewidth': 1.0, 'alpha': 1.0, 'marker': 's',
>> 'markeredgecolor': 'blue'}
>> att2 = {'color': 'black', 'markerfacecolor': None, 'markersize': 8.0,
>> 'markeredgewidth': 1.0, 'alpha': 1.0, 'marker': 'o',
>> 'markeredgecolor': 'blue'}
>> plot([0],[0], **att1)
>> plot([0],[0], **att2)
>> show()
>>
>> I got just a blue circle line (not filled) over a red square. However,
>> trying the same script with updated MPL 0.91.3, I got:
>>
>> [snip]
>> File "/sw/lib/python2.5/site-packages/matplotlib/colors.py", line
>> 279, in to_rgb
>> raise ValueError('to_rgb: Invalid rgb arg "%s"\n%s' % (str(arg), 
>> exc))
>> ValueError: to_rgb: Invalid rgb arg "None"
>> cannot convert argument to rgb sequence
The error message is somewhat misleading in this case because of the 
quotes; it is failing on the Python object None, not the string "None".
>>
>> Bottom line, version 0.91.3 simply doesn't like 'markerfacecolor':
>> None anymore.
> 
> Could you try setting 'markerfacecolor' to 'none' (Note that this is 
> the string, not the keyword). I'm on version 0.98.2, but I think this 
> worked when I was using 0.91.3. I'm not sure why this change was made, 
> though.
We have been trying to move to the following standard for kwargs:
None (the Python object) means "use the default", usually an rcParams 
setting. (In the case of markerfacecolor, it is not an rcParams value, 
it is the 'color' value.)
'none' or 'None' means "no color".
There is indeed a bug in the present code: 'markerfacecolor': None is 
raising an error because it is supposed to be converted to the default, 
which is 'auto', but when it is input as a plot kwarg, it isn't. I will 
have that fixed shortly in the two svn branches.
Eric
> 
> Best,
> -Tony
> 
>>
>> So, is it a bug, or there's another way of getting a simple circle 
>> not filled?
>>
>> Many thanks in advance,
>> Alan

Work is currently going in the wrong direction for me to be able to
implement toolbars etc. in a timely manner. Would you be willing to
add the rc parameter you discussed so that backend could be defined in
a separate package? This would allow me to continue working on (and
deploying internally) the Cocoa native backend. As soon as it meets
the requirements, I will be happy to resubmit it for inclusion with
the matplotlib distribution (including supporting it going forward).
Barry
On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 12:14 PM, Barry Wark <bar...@gm...> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 8:41 AM, John Hunter <jd...@gm...> wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 3:41 PM, Barry Wark <bar...@gm...> wrote:
>>> I've written the start of a Cocoa-native backend for matplotlib and
>>> would like to submit feedback on the code and on the possibility of
>>> including it in the standard matplotlib distribution. The backend
>>
>> Hey Barry,
>>
>> This is great and it is something we are interested in. I haven't had
>> a chance to test it and will be away next week but I can give you some
>> initial thoughts. In general, we want to pare down the number of
>> backends but OS X is an important platform and there are certainly
>> some advantages to doing native rendering. For us to accept a new
>> backend, we need to meet the following criteria:
>>
>> - someone volunteers to support it. This is a multi-year
>> commitment. Presumably this would be you.
>
> Yes.
>
>>
>> - feature complete - images, mathtext, rotated text, etc... It
>> sounds like the only part you are unsure about is mathtext so perhaps
>> Michael can advise. I don't think it will be too hard since Michael
>> has designed this to work with unicode fonts if requested.
>
> Using unicode fonts should make it easy.
>
>>
>> - gui backends: toolbar support
>
> Currently not implemented, but not a problem.
>
>>
>> If you think these are doable, that would be great. If not, I think
>> we can rework the backend infrastructure a bit to support external
>> backend, eg an rc backend setting which points to a file that contains
>> the backend implementation. This latter is worth doing in any case,
>> so if you want to have a look at it....
>
> This would be _very_ useful, whether or not you decide to include a
> Cocoa native backend in the distribution. Perhaps also making it
> possible to delegate to an other package instead of just a file so
> that backends could be installed as separate eggs would be useuful
> (e.g. delegate the backend to my.package.backend).
>
>>
>>> implementation is not complete (image rendering and mathtext rendering
>>> are currently no implemented, nor are the print_* methods of the
>>> FigureCanvas). Image rendering is trivial once I figure out how to get
>>> the pixel data out of a matplotlib image (I just haven't investigated
>>> the API yet). The print_* methods are also trivial (see point 1
>>> below). I'm not sure how to handle mathtext yet. This backend has two
>>> major feature differences from CocoaAgg:
>>
>>> 2. The reason I wrote the backend was so that matplotlib could be used
>>> seemlesslly from within a Cocoa application. Thus this backend *will
>>> not work* without an existing NSRunLoop. It won't work from the
>>> terminal or an IPython session. It will work from the in-progress
>>> Cocoa frontend for IPython or from any other Cocoa application. Again
>>> there are tradeoffs. On the positive side, figure windows are treated
>>> like any other application window, selectable from the Window menu
>>> etc. and matplotlib becomes a seemless part of the application.
>>> Existing backends designed to create their own runloop (e.g. CocoaAgg
>>> or TkAgg) cause menubar and run loop problems when used from within an
>>> existing application. It would be possible to merge the CocoaAgg and
>>> Cocoa backends in this regard to use the existing run loop if present.
>>
>> I know nothing about cocoa apps, but from the way you describe this I
>> think there may be some confusion in how the backends should work. I
>> will speak in terms of gtk since this is the toolkit I know best. The
>> FigureCanvas should be a widget which is embeddable in an app (in a
>> container or window, etc) -- the gtk figure canvas is such a widget
>> and can be used in a gtk app and mpl knows nothing about the
>> application or mainloop -- that part is up to the application
>> developer. The FigureManager is basically a pylab helper class and is
>> not meant to be used by the application developer, though I think some
>> backends may have been designed differently (eg wx). The
>> FigureManager creates a canvas, a toolbar and a window, and puts all
>> the pieces together. "show" is a pylab construct that raises the
>> active windows and starts the mainloop.
>
> No, in fact you've done a very good job of communicating the
> architecture and it appears that it was my mistake in explaining my
> work that's led to confusion. backend_cocoa.FigureCanvasView (a
> FigureCanvas subclass) is an NSView subclass that can be embedded in a
> Cocoa application to render matplotlib figures.
>
> We have a special use case in mind for the
> backend_cocoa.FigureManagerCocoa (the FigureManager subclass),
> however. I'm not sure if you've been following discussions on the
> ipython-dev regarding GUI frontends for IPython, so let me briefly
> recap. The new Twisted-based architecture of IPython now allows easy
> development of GUI frontends for the IPython engine because the engine
> is decoupled from readline. Thus a Cocoa-based frontend for IPython
> might behave like a terminal but be implemented as a native Cocoa
> widget that can be embedded in other applications. We want the user of
> this GUI IPython frontend to be able to use matplotlib as if in a
> pylab session at the terminal. Because there's already an NSRunLoop
> running, however, the existing backends that attempt to start their on
> run loop cause problems. I imagine GUI frontends (on OS X) doing a
> matplotlib.use('Cocoa') at startup but the user keeping their existing
> backend for terminal usage. I haven't yet explored the
> FigureManagerCocoa creating its own runloop if none exists. If you
> want to try the new IPython frontend (still very much a work in
> progress), have a look in the IPython/frontend/cocoa/examples
> directory of IPython trunk (launchpad.net/ipython).
>
> Thus there are really two different aspects to consider for backend_cocoa
> 1. Native rendering. this may or may not be valuable. If valuable, we
> could merge this renderer into the existing CocoaAgg backend,
> replacing the FiureCanvas that blits from the Agg renderer.
> 2. A FigureManager for use *within* a running cocoa application. I
> will investigate using the FigureManagerCocoa from terminal as well,
> but that's not the use case I wrote it for.
>
> Although I personally think (2) (in conjunciton with a native forntend
> for IPython) is the way of the future on OS X, it may still be too
> small a use case for you to feel its inclusion in matplotlib is
> valuable. In that case, being able to delegate the backend to an other
> package as discussed above would meet our needs.
>
>>
>> So your backend *should* be designed so that it can be run from the
>> shell, basically you need to create an application within the backend
>> and start the mainloop with show -- this app will only be created in
>> pylab mode on calls to new_figure_manager and show. I don't know if
>> any of this makes sense for cocoa apps, but it is a nice feature for
>> backends because then those of us who do not know how to build a cocoa
>> app (and maybe don't want to learn) can still test the backend on
>> pylab scripts and regular os x users can use your backend w/ pylab
>> scripts.
>
> backend_cocoaagg already does this. if there's a compelling reason to
> move to the native renderer, we could merge that into
> backend_cocoaagg. backend_cocoa provides a separate functionality --
> simulating a pylab session from within a native GUI frontend for
> IPython.
>
>>
>> JDH
>>
>

On Jul 12, 2008, at 1:50 PM, Alan wrote:
> Hi List,
>
> I use Fink for Mac OSX, tiger 10.4.11.
>
> So with MPL 0.90.1, this script works fine:
>
> from matplotlib.pylab import *
> import matplotlib, numpy
> print matplotlib.__version, numpy.__version__
> att1 = {'color': 'black', 'markerfacecolor': 'red', 'markersize':
> 80.0, 'markeredgewidth': 1.0, 'alpha': 1.0, 'marker': 's',
> 'markeredgecolor': 'blue'}
> att2 = {'color': 'black', 'markerfacecolor': None, 'markersize': 8.0,
> 'markeredgewidth': 1.0, 'alpha': 1.0, 'marker': 'o',
> 'markeredgecolor': 'blue'}
> plot([0],[0], **att1)
> plot([0],[0], **att2)
> show()
>
> I got just a blue circle line (not filled) over a red square. However,
> trying the same script with updated MPL 0.91.3, I got:
>
> [snip]
> File "/sw/lib/python2.5/site-packages/matplotlib/colors.py", line
> 279, in to_rgb
> raise ValueError('to_rgb: Invalid rgb arg "%s"\n%s' % (str(arg), 
> exc))
> ValueError: to_rgb: Invalid rgb arg "None"
> cannot convert argument to rgb sequence
>
> Bottom line, version 0.91.3 simply doesn't like 'markerfacecolor':
> None anymore.
Could you try setting 'markerfacecolor' to 'none' (Note that this is 
the string, not the keyword). I'm on version 0.98.2, but I think this 
worked when I was using 0.91.3. I'm not sure why this change was made, 
though.
Best,
-Tony
>
>
> So, is it a bug, or there's another way of getting a simple circle 
> not filled?
>
> Many thanks in advance,
> Alan
> -- 
> Alan Wilter S. da Silva, D.Sc. - CCPN Research Associate
> Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge.
> 80 Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1GA, UK.
>>> http://www.bio.cam.ac.uk/~awd28<<
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Sponsored by: SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards: VOTE NOW!
> Studies have shown that voting for your favorite open source project,
> along with a healthy diet, reduces your potential for chronic lameness
> and boredom. Vote Now at http://www.sourceforge.net/community/cca08
> _______________________________________________
> Matplotlib-users mailing list
> Mat...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users

Hi List,
I use Fink for Mac OSX, tiger 10.4.11.
So with MPL 0.90.1, this script works fine:
from matplotlib.pylab import *
import matplotlib, numpy
print matplotlib.__version, numpy.__version__
att1 = {'color': 'black', 'markerfacecolor': 'red', 'markersize':
80.0, 'markeredgewidth': 1.0, 'alpha': 1.0, 'marker': 's',
'markeredgecolor': 'blue'}
att2 = {'color': 'black', 'markerfacecolor': None, 'markersize': 8.0,
'markeredgewidth': 1.0, 'alpha': 1.0, 'marker': 'o',
'markeredgecolor': 'blue'}
plot([0],[0], **att1)
plot([0],[0], **att2)
show()
I got just a blue circle line (not filled) over a red square. However,
trying the same script with updated MPL 0.91.3, I got:
[snip]
 File "/sw/lib/python2.5/site-packages/matplotlib/colors.py", line
279, in to_rgb
 raise ValueError('to_rgb: Invalid rgb arg "%s"\n%s' % (str(arg), exc))
ValueError: to_rgb: Invalid rgb arg "None"
cannot convert argument to rgb sequence
Bottom line, version 0.91.3 simply doesn't like 'markerfacecolor':
None anymore.
So, is it a bug, or there's another way of getting a simple circle not filled?
Many thanks in advance,
Alan
-- 
Alan Wilter S. da Silva, D.Sc. - CCPN Research Associate
Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge.
80 Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1GA, UK.
>>http://www.bio.cam.ac.uk/~awd28<<

James K. Gruetzner wrote:
> I don't really need any live interaction or a live data display; I just want 
> the thang to stop running (i.e., the process to terminate) when the figure 
> window is closed. 
> 
> Unfortunately, the 
> dynamic_image_gtkagg.py
> example has the same problem. It's final line is "show()". When run as a 
> background process, everything displays well --- but when the window is 
> closed (click on X), the process fails to terminate. So . . . the root 
> cause is that show() does not return when the shown image is closed. 
> 
>> If you *need* it to wait for user interaction before continuing, there might
>> be a little bit more work, but I don't think it'd be much. You could
>> probably instead look at some of the Matplotlib UI widgets, like in the
>> buttons.py example.
> 
> I really don't need user interaction per se, I may have to go that route an 
> establish some sort of "close window and exit" event. Hmmm: another 
> learning opportunity . . . . :-) 
> 
> The show() function is defined in
> .../matplotlib/backends/backend_gtk.py
> and looks to be calling gtk.main(), which, according to 
> .../gtk-2.0/gtk/__init__.py
> appears to be deprecated in favor of mainloop().
> 
> And that's as far as I can go in this: I'm not graphics whiz, and, in fact, 
> having reached somewhat beyond my skill level, can't even figure out how to 
> trace the mainloop call back further. 
> 
> I would think that the gtk mainloop would terminate when the window closes 
> (which termination should propagate back up the stack), but apparently that 
> doesn't happen.
I'm not sure I'm following you at the moment. Are you calling show() 
once and closing the figure doesn't cause it to return? or are you 
trying to call show() multiple times from a single script and subsequent 
calls to show() fail to return?
Ryan
-- 
Ryan May
Graduate Research Assistant
School of Meteorology
University of Oklahoma

On Jul 8, 2008, at 4:47 PM, Michael Muratet wrote:
> Greetings
>
> I am trying to install matplotlib 0.98.1 on python 2.5.1 on Mac OS X
> 10.5.3. The install breaks at the required dependancy numpy 1.1
> because it thinks it has v 1.0.1. I have, in fact, installed numpy 1.1
> and I can't figure out why the matplotlib installer is not seeing it.
> I am not entirely familiar with installing python tools on Macs. Can
> anyone point out a build parameter or a common newbie error or any
> other info so I can resolve the dependancy?
This is happening because Leopard comes with an older version of numpy 
already installed in:
/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/Extras/lib/ 
python
I'm pretty sure that this searched in before the path where your numpy 
install is. This issue has come up before in many places, here's one:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pythonmac-sig/2008-January/019596.html
I'm not sure what the current "best practice" is thought to be. You 
should be able to change your PYTHONPATH environment variable to load 
the correct directory first.
Some suggest to install your own (newer) version of python from 
python.org for your own use and leave the system python for Apple's 
use. You can then easily install the numpy/scipy/matplotlib/ipython 
tools with the "Scipy superpack" installer:
http://macinscience.org/?page_id=6
An easier route might be to use the enthought distribution (if their 
licensing is OK with you):
http://enthought.com/products/epddownload.php
It installs its on Python framework in:
"/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5.2001"
And numpy,scipy,ipython,matplotlib all just work out of the box.
-steve

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 1:55 PM, Michael Muratet
<mmu...@hu...> wrote:
> I am running on a Mac OS X 10.5 system and even though I set the
> CFLAGS and LDFLAGS I can't seem to point the build to the correct tree.
>
> Note: I am a newbie relative to python on a Mac.
>
> Can anyone point out an error I've made or offer troubleshooting
> suggestions?
My OS X build notes are at
http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/Py4Science/InstallationOSX and Charlie's
(who does the binary mpl builds) are at
http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/MatplotlibOSXBuildNotes. From the
output you posted, it looks like it the freetype and png headers are
not found, which means either you haven't installed x-code package,
pkgconfig is not installed or the PKG_CONFIG_PATH is not set. Also,
the error complains about the architecture ppc not being included in
the libpng build
The following may help prevent the compiler from trying to build/link
the ppc libraries
 CFLAGS="-Os -arch i386" LDFLAGS="-Os -arch i386" python setup.py build
Charlie includes notes on how to properly build universal png and freetype libs.
JDH

Thanks to Eric and Fernando
I will try to update ipython (for some reason I have troubles with that in
windows).
The ipython -pylab[...]
with who() command works but it seems to work only for arrays.
i.e. with x = arange(20) it worked but not with x=1.
Hence updating ipython remains the only way.
Thanks
Eli
On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 3:57 PM, Eric Firing <ef...@ha...> wrote:
> Eli Brosh wrote:
>
>> Thanks Fernando,
>> I now tried %who.
>> The result was a huge output, apparently containing all the pylab
>> functions.
>> This is exactly the thing I was trying to avoid.
>> I wanted to use the who command to see only the variables I defined as
>> part of the pylab session.
>>
>> Is there a way to do just this ?
>>
>
> Maybe the pylab command does what you want; you have to include the
> trailing parentheses:
>
> efiring@manini:~$ ipython -pylab
> [...]
>
> In [2]:x = arange(20)
>
> In [3]:who()
> Name Shape Bytes Type
> ===========================================================
>
> x 20 80 int32
>
> Upper bound on total bytes = 80
>
>
> Eric
>