matplotlib-users Mailing List for matplotlib

>Darren Dale wrote:
> > I was thinking about the first example in the tutorial. On windows, TkAgg
> > is the default backend, at least for the precompiled windows version. If
> > Idle is run with -n, the show() command must be omitted, or the window 
> will
> > not render.
>Todd Miller wrote:
>Not in my experience. What's the command sequence you're executing?
Sorry guys, I made a mistake here. I was pasting
from matplotlib.matlab import *
plot([1,2,3,4])
show()
as a block right into Idle -n. Running the commands one at a time does work.
I've maybe posted too many times today (:-/), but I have one last comment 
before I settle in to look at all the nice demos that you awesome dudes 
have put together. I didnt know these demos existed, I didnt find them on 
my file system when I searched through the folders that the windows .exe 
had installed. I downloaded the .zip package and extracted the samples from 
there, then did a windows search to see if i just hadnt been looking in the 
right place. The results: it found the examples from the zip file in 
C:\[path]\examples, and it found another set of examples in 
matplotlib-0.53.1/examples. But note: there is no mention of C:\... for 
this set of files, and they dont show up in windows explorer. 

>>>>> "Jos=E9" =3D=3D Jos=E9 Alexandre Nalon <na...@te...> writes:
 Jos=E9> Yes, it was the version I downloaded and tried. I tried the
 Jos=E9> simple_plot.py running, and I got the exact picture shown in
 Jos=E9> the homepage (the quality of the image still amazes me). The
 Jos=E9> window is shown without any problems, but with the figure
 Jos=E9> saved in a file, it results in a figure bigger than the
 Jos=E9> page, so the result is clipped.
OK, the fix is in. For the record there were three problems that
needed fixing.
 1) backend_tkagg, gtkagg and wxagg were doing way to much work on a
 call to print_figure. All that is needed is to forward the call
 onto agg, which now handles ps detection itself.
 2) When creating figures with the PS backend (not switching backends
 as in tkagg->ps) the matlab interface needed to detect this
 situation and override any default DPI that is set since PS is
 always 72. When the figures used to be coupled to the backend,
 this happened at the backend level. Apparently something was
 lost in translation.
 3) Any time the figure dpi is set the new Figure.resize method needs
 to be called so it can update it's bounding box - not too elegant
 but works for now. This call forwards the resize call down to
 it's axes, so the axes resize commands no longer need to be made.
Fortunately, all the fixes were a the python level, so you should just
be able to unzip this file in your site-packages dir and be good to go
 http://nitace.bsd.uchicago.edu:8080/files/share/matplotlib.zip
CVS is also updated.
Let me know how it goes...
JDH

One more thought along this line. Perhaps it's possible for
matplotlib to inspect whether or not any of the supported gui's 
has already been imported and make that the default. It seems
like a sensible rule to me. If none are found, then all the
other mechanisms apply.
Perry

> 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 

>>>>> "Jos=E9" =3D=3D Jos=E9 Alexandre Nalon <na...@te...> writes:
 Jos=E9> Yes, it was the version I downloaded and tried. I tried the
 Jos=E9> simple_plot.py running, and I got the exact picture shown in
 Jos=E9> the homepage (the quality of the image still amazes me). The
 Jos=E9> window is shown without any problems, but with the figure
 Jos=E9> saved in a file, it results in a figure bigger than the
 Jos=E9> page, so the result is clipped.
 Jos=E9> I have the EPS generated, I can send them directly to you or
 Jos=E9> to the list, if you want to look at them.
OK, you're right. I hadn't noticed it before because my postscript
viewer was showing the who figure. When I measure it the postscript
figure extends beyond the 8 inches that it should if you are using the
standard figsize=3D8,6.
This is related to the centering 640 thing Todd noticed earlier. I'll
work on a fix.
JDH

>>>>> "Darren" == Darren Dale <dd...@co...> writes:
 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?)
In the meantime, I've added this warning to the win32 section of the
installing page
 Important: There are known conflicts with some of the backends with
 some python IDEs such as pycrust, idle. If you want to use
 matplotlib from an IDE, please consult the backends documentaion for
 compatibility information. You will have the greatest likelihood of
 success if you run the examples from the command shell or by double
 clicking on them, rather than from an IDE. If you are interactively
 generating plots, your best bet is TkAgg from the standard python
 shell.
JDH

Hello,
Thanks for all your help!
> On earlier versions of matplotlib there was a figure sizing issue when
> you saved from tkagg -> postscript or eps,
(...)
> Are you using the latest version 0.53.1?
Yes, it was the version I downloaded and tried. I tried
the simple_plot.py running, and I got the exact picture
shown in the homepage (the quality of the image still
amazes me). The window is shown without any problems,
but with the figure saved in a file, it results in a
figure bigger than the page, so the result is clipped.
I have the EPS generated, I can send them directly to
you or to the list, if you want to look at them.
---
José Alexandre Nalon
na...@te...

On Wed, 2004年04月28日 at 11:50, Darren Dale wrote:
> I was thinking about the first example in the tutorial. On windows, TkAgg 
> is the default backend, at least for the precompiled windows version. If 
> Idle is run with -n, the show() command must be omitted, or the window will 
> not render. 
Not in my experience. What's the command sequence you're executing?
> Interactive2.py will try to render the window and then hang, 
I think interactive2.py is for GTK. It's a bad idea to use it with
TkAgg since TkAgg is Tcl/Tk based.
> as will pycrust. 
I think PyCrust is WxWindows based. It's also a bad idea to use with
TkAgg. In general, multiple GUIs in the same process is a bad idea. 
> I think the first thing a newbie to matplotlib wants to do is 
> open their favorite shell interface and make sure they can reproduce the 
> first example in the tutorial.
I gotta admit, shell confusion/compatibility is out of hand. For
TkAgg, the only windows shells I recommend are python (not pythonwin!),
idle -n, and IPython. Anything else either doesn't work or hasn't been
tested.
Regards,
Todd

>>>>> "Todd" == Todd Miller <jm...@st...> writes:
 >> * Well, here is my real problem. I need to generate EPS files
 >> of my pictures for use with TeX (MiKTeX). I'm having a lot of
 >> trouble with it (this includes problems with the GS conversion
 >> tool, but that is beyond the scope of this list). Basically,
 >> using TkAgg or the savefig method, I can generate a PS file
 >> with the figure. But the problem is that the figure does not
 >> show well - it is bigger than the generated page, so a very
 >> significant part of the figure is cut out. Is there anyway to
 >> resize the picture or tell matplotlib to fit the picture within
 >> specified dimensions (like some and some centimeters or inches
 >> height and width)? Resizing the drawing window _did_ solve the
 >> problem, but then I can't generate the figures by scripting - I
 >> would have to manually resize everyone of them.
 Todd> I'm not sure it's made clear anywhere, but you can generate
 Todd> EPS by using the extension ".ep" or ".eps".
On earlier versions of matplotlib there was a figure sizing issue when
you saved from tkagg -> postscript or eps, but I thought this was
cleared up. Eg when I run examples/simple_plot.py with TkAgg backend
and then save test.eps, I don't see any figure size issues.
Are you using the latest version 0.53.1? If so can you post a test
script that reproduces the eps figure size problem you describe. In
the latter case I can probably fix it pronto.
JDH

On Wed, 2004年04月28日 at 10:14, José Alexandre Nalon wrote:
> Greetings.
> 
> I'm new to matplotlib and to this list. I know it is a
> good thing to wait a little before posting, but I need
> some work done quickly, so I had to post a message as
> soon as I could. I also couldn't find in the list
> archives a solution to my problems, so I had to ask.
> Bear with me, please.
> 
> I must say that I'm very impressed with the overall
> quality of the figures generated with matplotlib, and
> the possibility to add TeX expression as labels is a
> fantastic feature that I have never even thought about
> (but now I can't live without).
> 
> I had some problems though, which I report below. Some
> of them I could solve (by hacking a little), others I
> didn't.
> 
> * I use TK backend, but also tried wx. They didn't work
> well: in the TK backend, in interactive mode, the fi-
> gure take a lot of time to be rendered, and sometimes
> it does not. The same with wx. I looked into the
> code of 'show' method in backend_tkagg.py, and did
> some changes. The Tk.mainloop() was commented, I
> uncommented it. I also changed the interactive mode
> to False. By doing this, I lost the interactive
> environment, but at least the figure shows quickly
> when I use the 'show' command. I don't know if this
> has been an issue for everyone, or if it is a problem
> with compatibility with what I have installed here
> (it is Python 2.3.2, Windows ME, Tk 8.4, if I'm right),
> but if there is a better solution to it, I'd like to
> hear.
I can't look at this today but I'll try to look tomorrow.
> * Also in the backend_tkagg.py there was two lines with
> wrong identation. Line 181 (method show of
> FigureManagerTkAgg class and line 416 (method update
> of NavigationToolbar class) were not idented correctly.
> I tried identing them and everything seems to be working
> fine. I might have changed something that I shouldn't,
> though.
I got these. Thanks.
> * Well, here is my real problem. I need to generate EPS
> files of my pictures for use with TeX (MiKTeX). I'm
> having a lot of trouble with it (this includes problems
> with the GS conversion tool, but that is beyond the
> scope of this list). Basically, using TkAgg or the
> savefig method, I can generate a PS file with the
> figure. But the problem is that the figure does not
> show well - it is bigger than the generated page, so a
> very significant part of the figure is cut out. Is
> there anyway to resize the picture or tell matplotlib
> to fit the picture within specified dimensions (like
> some and some centimeters or inches height and width)?
> Resizing the drawing window _did_ solve the problem,
> but then I can't generate the figures by scripting -
> I would have to manually resize everyone of them.
I'm not sure it's made clear anywhere, but you can generate EPS by using
the extension ".ep" or ".eps".
Regards,
Todd
-- 
Todd Miller <jm...@st...>

>John writes:
>I still support the other backends because people still use them but
>spend less energy porting all the new features to them. If someone
>says "I need alpha blending on WX", I usually say "Can you use
>WXAgg?", and so on. postscript is still very actively maintained
>because it is in a different category and widely used for publication
>and TeX.
All things to all people...PS support is a big selling point.
>Now I see why you were looking at
>interactive2.py -- you want to embed a python shell in your
>application.
No, not really. I was just reading through the documentation, found 
interactive2, and tried it out. I like the command recall better than Idle. 
It would be interesting to have a matplotlib user interface, akin to the 
one from Matlab. If for no other reason than to make converts like myself 
feel familiar. For example, I still dont know how to change the working 
directory from inside the shell, or how to access a list of attributes for 
an object.
>You may also want to look into VTK if you need 3D plotting, which has
>nice integration with pygtk. I use this a lot in my application. I
>find it amazing that you can embed an OpenGL window into a GTK widget
>set wrapped by pygtk running in a python interpreter on a Microsoft
>Windows OS and still get hardware acceleration!
And a partridge in a pear tree.
(that IS impressive!) 

Starting at line 363:
 console.execute_line('import matplotlib')
 console.execute_line("matplotlib.use('GTKAgg')") # or 'GTK'. This is the 
only change
 console.execute_line('matplotlib.interactive(1)')
 console.execute_line('from matplotlib.matlab import *')
Otherwise, an incompatible backend will cause the plot window to hang.
Darren

I was thinking about the first example in the tutorial. On windows, TkAgg 
is the default backend, at least for the precompiled windows version. If 
Idle is run with -n, the show() command must be omitted, or the window will 
not render. Interactive2.py will try to render the window and then hang, as 
will pycrust. I think the first thing a newbie to matplotlib wants to do is 
open their favorite shell interface and make sure they can reproduce the 
first example in the tutorial.
Darren
Darren S. Dale
dd...@co...
PGP public key available 

Greetings.
I'm new to matplotlib and to this list. I know it is a
good thing to wait a little before posting, but I need
some work done quickly, so I had to post a message as
soon as I could. I also couldn't find in the list
archives a solution to my problems, so I had to ask.
Bear with me, please.
I must say that I'm very impressed with the overall
quality of the figures generated with matplotlib, and
the possibility to add TeX expression as labels is a
fantastic feature that I have never even thought about
(but now I can't live without).
I had some problems though, which I report below. Some
of them I could solve (by hacking a little), others I
didn't.
* I use TK backend, but also tried wx. They didn't work
 well: in the TK backend, in interactive mode, the fi-
 gure take a lot of time to be rendered, and sometimes
 it does not. The same with wx. I looked into the
 code of 'show' method in backend_tkagg.py, and did
 some changes. The Tk.mainloop() was commented, I
 uncommented it. I also changed the interactive mode
 to False. By doing this, I lost the interactive
 environment, but at least the figure shows quickly
 when I use the 'show' command. I don't know if this
 has been an issue for everyone, or if it is a problem
 with compatibility with what I have installed here
 (it is Python 2.3.2, Windows ME, Tk 8.4, if I'm right),
 but if there is a better solution to it, I'd like to
 hear.
* Also in the backend_tkagg.py there was two lines with
 wrong identation. Line 181 (method show of
 FigureManagerTkAgg class and line 416 (method update
 of NavigationToolbar class) were not idented correctly.
 I tried identing them and everything seems to be working
 fine. I might have changed something that I shouldn't,
 though.
* Well, here is my real problem. I need to generate EPS
 files of my pictures for use with TeX (MiKTeX). I'm
 having a lot of trouble with it (this includes problems
 with the GS conversion tool, but that is beyond the
 scope of this list). Basically, using TkAgg or the
 savefig method, I can generate a PS file with the
 figure. But the problem is that the figure does not
 show well - it is bigger than the generated page, so a
 very significant part of the figure is cut out. Is
 there anyway to resize the picture or tell matplotlib
 to fit the picture within specified dimensions (like
 some and some centimeters or inches height and width)?
 Resizing the drawing window _did_ solve the problem,
 but then I can't generate the figures by scripting -
 I would have to manually resize everyone of them.
* The EPS problem I might solve with a little hack, and
 generate an EPS file directly from my scripts. If this
 turns out to work well, I will contribute the code, of
 course, if the developers would want it.
* Another very important thing to me is to generate the
 plot of discrete functions (like the Matlab 'mesh'
 command). Is there anyway to do that with matplotlib?
 If not, can I suggest it as a feature request? :)
That's all for now. Thanks for the great software.
---
José Alexandre Nalon
na...@te...

>>>>> "Darren" == Darren Dale <dd...@co...> writes:
 Darren> I was wondering why matplotlib strives to support so many
 Darren> backends...
Accretion. In the beginning there was GTK, but being a LaTeX user, I
needed a postscript output. Also, there was a lot of interest in a
pure image backend that could make JPG/PNG/etc w/o having a window
popup. gdmodule is a python module wrapping the very nice gd library
so I wrote the gd backend to provide pure image generation (could have
just as easily done PIL at this point). Around the same time, David
Moore, also needing a pure image backend (gd hadn't been ported to
win32 yet), stealthily developed paint, a libart backend. Meanwhile,
Jeremy needed wx at work, and developed the wx backend.
At this time the proliferation of backends was beginning to become a
maintenance hassle, and Perry Greenfield had a bright idea: another
backend! But not just any old backend, the mother of all backends,
that could be used not only for pure image generation but used to
render directly into the GUI canvases. GTK and WX use native GUI
drawing code to render the figure, so we not only need to support not
only all the widget-set related stuff, but all the drawing stuff as
well.
The new idea is to focus development on one high quality image backend
and use this in as many areas as possible. We looked hard at libart
and gd, but both had bugs that could not be fixed. Having worked with
the developers of chaco, Perry suggested antigrain which is a very
high quality 2D image library that I've just begun to scratch the
surface of. So Agg was born and the GUI wrappers GTKAgg, TkAgg and
WXAgg quickly followed suit. These 3 are the GUI backends of choice
for performance, feature set, and quality.
I still support the other backends because people still use them but
spend less energy porting all the new features to them. If someone
says "I need alpha blending on WX", I usually say "Can you use
WXAgg?", and so on. postscript is still very actively maintained
because it is in a different category and widely used for publication
and TeX.
 Darren> I wrote a gui app in matlab that takes the fourier
 Darren> transform of a semi-infinite crystal. The point is to
 Darren> simulate X-ray diffraction (I work at the Cornell
 Darren> Synchrotron). The program is pretty good, from a science
 Darren> standpoint. I am considering publishing the work, but I
 Darren> wanted to make it open source. What's the point of doing
 Darren> work funded by the NSF if the public can't access it? So I
 Darren> am investigating rewriting the code using pygtk. I wanted
 Darren> something free and cross platform, and I need the
 Darren> vectorized matrix operations.
 Darren> Aside from that specific project, I am just trying to get
 Darren> the interactive feel of matlab. I need to take some time
 Darren> to look carefully through all the documentation here, it
 Darren> seems all of my questions have had answers published on
 Darren> the web.
Sounds very similar to my situation. I develop a pretty complex
application for EEG and medical image data analysis. I originally
wrote it in matlab but became dissatisfied with the ability of matlab
to easily manipulate complex data structures, work with databases,
fill out CGI forms, and the like. You can do all of this in matlab
using the matlab JVM stuff (and I did), but it's a pain and it's slow.
I started over in python and decided on pygtk. I couldn't find a 2D
plotting library I was satisfied with so wrote matplotlib around
pygtk. If you need any additional encouragement, the quality of the
application and the ease of extending it are dramatically better now.
I develop on linux and most of the users are on win32, and have been
very happy with GTK on win32. The only bug I've seen on OS X is that
progress bars don't seem to work. Now I see why you were looking at
interactive2.py -- you want to embed a python shell in your
application. I think pygtk + matplotlib + GTKAgg
+ a modified interactive2.py is a good combination for you. Some
features of interactive2.py are underdeveloped, such as cutting and
pasting code blocks from an editor into the interpreter.
You may also want to look into VTK if you need 3D plotting, which has
nice integration with pygtk. I use this a lot in my application. I
find it amazing that you can embed an OpenGL window into a GTK widget
set wrapped by pygtk running in a python interpreter on a Microsoft
Windows OS and still get hardware acceleration!
JDH

>>>>> "Darren" == Darren Dale <dd...@co...> writes:
 Darren> The desired size of the tickmarks depends on whether I am
 Darren> creating a plot for publication, or for a talk. I find
 Darren> that I tweak this quite a bit in Matlab, looking for the
 Darren> most appealing result (I started in graphic design, 10
 Darren> years ago).
The easiest way to set the size of the tick labels is
 labels = get(gca(), 'xtickabels')
 set(labels, 'fontsize', 12)
I also end up doing the same thing, tweaking line size, font size and
weight, etc, to make figures that show up nicely in small journal
formats.
JDH

Hi Darren,
If this is a Windows font problem as John suggests, a recent post of mine may be relevant to you. Here it is reproduced since the mailing list archive seems to have broken. It would be interesting to know whether option B also fixes your problem. If it does, can you let the list know:
--
I just installed Gimp 2 for windows along with the latest GTK+
runtime and noticed that it exhibited the same font problem I've been
experiencing for ages with matplotlib. I was getting WARNING **:
Couldn't load font "MS Sans Serif 8" falling back to
"Sans 8" errors. It's addressed in their FAQ, <http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/faq.html>,
 reproduced here:
# I installed Gimp 2.0 on Windows 9x/ME or NT 4, and I'm getting a
lot of messages saying ** (gimp-2.0.exe:4294830849): WARNING **:
Couldn't load font "MS Sans Serif 8" falling back to
"Sans 8". What should I do?
# You have two options:
* Go to Control Panel->Display properties->Apperance tab, and
set all fonts to Tahoma (or any other TrueType font).
* Uninstall GTK+ 2.2.4, then re-install it without the GTK-Wimp
component.
I took option B and now all is well with both Gimp and Matplotlib.
I'm running Win98 and the Gimp FAQ entry hints that it may be a
problem in Win98,ME and NT installations. It might be worth adding
this to the Matplotlib faq page next to the "On windows with
GTK, I'm getting lots of messages about not finding the Times
font" entry.
Gary
--
-- 
___________________________________________________________
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>Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to manage every backend
>across every platform. gtk, tk, wx, gd, ps, agg cross win32, osx,
>linux, solaris equals 24 possible environments; multiply this by
>different versions of python/gd/tk/gtk/wx and the problem gets worse.
I was wondering why matplotlib strives to support so many backends...
>Let me know what you are trying to do, and I
>can give more targeted and appropriate advice....
I wrote a gui app in matlab that takes the fourier transform of a 
semi-infinite crystal. The point is to simulate X-ray diffraction (I work 
at the Cornell Synchrotron). The program is pretty good, from a science 
standpoint. I am considering publishing the work, but I wanted to make it 
open source. What's the point of doing work funded by the NSF if the public 
can't access it? So I am investigating rewriting the code using pygtk. I 
wanted something free and cross platform, and I need the vectorized matrix 
operations.
Aside from that specific project, I am just trying to get the interactive 
feel of matlab. I need to take some time to look carefully through all the 
documentation here, it seems all of my questions have had answers published 
on the web.
Darren 

John, thanks for the information, I will study these options.
In Matlab, set(gca,'FontSize',12) will have at least two effects. The 
fontsize of the tickmark labels will be set accordingly, and the set of 
tickmarks will be reasonably adjusted to prevent overlapping text. If a 
legend exists, the fonts there will also be changed. Axes labels are not 
affected. For example,
axes % returns empty plot, x and yrange=[0 1]
set(gca,'FontSize',12) % tickmarks=[0:0.2:1]
set(gca,'FontSize',8) % tickmarks=[0:0.1:1]
set(gca,'FontSize',20) % tickmarks=[0:0.5:1]
The desired size of the tickmarks depends on whether I am creating a plot 
for publication, or for a talk. I find that I tweak this quite a bit in 
Matlab, looking for the most appealing result (I started in graphic design, 
10 years ago).
Darren

>>>>> "Darren" == Darren Dale <dd...@co...> writes:
 Darren> Hi All, interactive2.py, with GTK backend, is continually
 Darren> returning: 'Warning **: Couldnt load font "Tahoma Italic
 Darren> 8" falling back to "Sans Italic 8"
Basically you are experiencing a win32 GTK font bug. 
If GTKAgg is a possibility for you, I encourage you to use it. You
can do an end-run around GTK's font handling with GTKAgg. 
Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to manage every backend
across every platform. gtk, tk, wx, gd, ps, agg cross win32, osx,
linux, solaris equals 24 possible environments; multiply this by
different versions of python/gd/tk/gtk/wx and the problem gets worse.
Thus I encourage you and everyone to switch to TkAgg, GTKAgg or WXAgg
where possible. Not only will you get the highest quality and
probably fastest rendering, you'll get the latest features and the
best support. The other platforms are still supported, but not as
aggressively....
 Darren> I found this line in interactive2.py:
 Darren> self.style_err.set_property( "style", pango.STYLE_ITALIC )
 Darren> and checked GTK/etc/pango/pango.aliases. There is no
 Darren> mention of Tahoma fonts in this file.
 Darren> Any suggestions?
The fact that it is not mentioned in your pango.aliases file is
essentially the problem. When GTK tries to load a font it can't find
it goes to this file to look for an alias. Try mapping it to a known
good font on your system, as described in
http://matplotlib.sf.net/faq.html#WINFONTS.
The fact that you are using interactive2.py means you need an
interactive shell. If you want interactivity from the python shell on
win32, I recommend TkAgg if it is a possibility for you. Noting else
comes close for interactive use from the standard python shell,
particularly if you set
tk.window_focus : True
in your .matplotlibrc. Let me know what you are trying to do, and I
can give more targeted and appropriate advice....
JDH

>>>>> "Darren" == Darren Dale <dd...@co...> writes:
 Darren> Hi everyone, Is there an equivalent to the Matlab
 Darren> set(gca,'FontSize',12)?
There is no direct way to set the font size for the current axes.
Actually, I've never quite understood what that call does in matlab.
If I recall correctly, it does not set *all* the axes text instances
to that size; eg, I don't think it affects the tick labels.
Admittedly it's been a long time, mainly because I don't use matlab
much anymore :-). If you know what this command does in matlab and
can explain it to me, I'm all ears!
However, in matplotlib, the font sizes of all the figure elements can
be controlled. The best way to do this depends on what you are trying
to do.
Any text command, eg text, xlabel, ylabel, title, accepts the fontsize
kwarg, so you can specify the fontsize with, for example, 
 xlabel('my label', fontsize=14)
If you want more global control, at any point in a script's execution,
you can set the default font properties; see
examples/font_properties_demo.py in the matplotlib src distribution.
If you want to change the default fontsize for all figures created in
a given script/interactive session, you can set the rcParams font.size
attribute on a per script bases, as described in
http://matplotlib.sf.net/faq.html#CUSTOM.
Finally, if you want to change the default font size globally for all
figures in all scripts, you can edit your .matplotlibrc file, as
described in http://matplotlib.sf.net/faq.html#MATPLOTLIBRC
Hope this helps!
JDH