What's new in matplotlib-0.61.0 -
Note win32 pygtk users - if you encounter problems or errors related
to svg loading, see note at end of this email.
You can read these announce notes in html with hyperlinks at
http://matplotlib.sf.net/whats_new.html.
* A new, enhanced, navigation toolbar. Set 'toolbar : toolbar2' in
matplotlibrc to try it out. Tutorial on the new toolbar is at
http://matplotlib.sf.net/tutorial.html#toolbar2. Note that this
toolbar behaves very differently than the classic toolbar. To use
it, you must click on the pan/zoom or zoom to rect and then
interact with the axes by dragging your mouse over it. The
'forward', 'back' and 'home' buttons are used to navigate between
previously defined view limits. At some point we'll add multiple
simultaneous axes support for the new toolbar but we're still
mulling over the interface - if you need it you can still uses
toolbar : classic.
* Mathtext for PS!!! Also, PS now embeds TrueType fonts so the same
fonts you use in the *Agg GUIs should be displayed in PS
output. Thanks Paul Barrett!
* The imread function is used to load PNGs into arrays. I'd like to
add more image loaders and savers down the road -
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/matplotlib.matlab.html#-imread
* New event handling. The functions mpl_connect and mpl_disconnect
are used for backend independent event handling. The callback
signature is func(event). See
http://matplotlib.sf.net/tutorial.html#events and
http://matplotlib.sf.net/examples/coords_demo.py. The new events
carry lots of useful information in them, like the coords in
display and data units, the axes instance they were over, keys
pressed during the event and more.
* Many fixes to the SVG backend, including page layout, font support
and image support. SVG is now considered alpha. You can save
ps/eps/svg figures from GUI backends by providing the right
extensions. SVG is currently the fastest backend in my tests.
* More memory leaks fixed - see
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/faq.html#LEAKS for details. My
estimate is that complex figures (multiple subplots, images, etc..)
now leak no more than 10-50 bytes per figure. Down from several
hundred bytes per figure in 0.60.
* Vertical mathtext in backend_agg (ylabels now work properly!).
mathtext with arbitrary rotations in PS. Thanks Jim Benson and
Paul Barrett!
* Added some abbrev functions in matplotlib.lines, mainly for
interactive users trying to save key strokes. markerfacecolor is a
lot of keys! For lines, these abbrevs were added
aa : antialiased
c : color
ls : linestyle
lw : linewidth
mec : markeredgecolor
mew : markeredgewidth
mfc : markerfacecolor
ms : markersize
Thus you can type --not necessarily recommended for readability in
scripts or apps but great for throwaway use in interactive shells
# no antialiasing, thick green markeredge lines
>>> plot(range(10), 'ro', aa=False, mew=2, mec='g')
Analogs in matplotlib.patches
aa : antialiased
lw : linewidth
ec : edgecolor
fc : facecolor
* You can put a .matplotlibrc file in a dir to override the one in
your HOME dir. If you have a project, say a book, and you want to
make a bunch of images with the same look and feel for the book,
you can place a custom rc file in the code dir for that book and
this won't affect the configs you use for normal, interactive use.
* Updated installing instructions at
http://matplotlib.sf.net/installing.html (see also INSTALL in src
distro). Fixed a tk/osx install problem in setupext.py
* New demo for wx/wxagg showing how to to make a flicker free cursor
that follows the mouse and reports the coords in a status bar - see
http://matplotlib.sf.net/examples/wxcursor_demo.py
* Numerous bug fixes and minor enhancements detailed at
http://matplotlib.sf.net/CHANGELOG
Downloads at http://sourceforge.net/projects/matplotlib
pygtk / win32 bug
Alas, an enterprising matplotlib user found a bug in matplotlib-0.61
on win32 with recent versions of pygtk even before the announcement.
Sigh. Is it just me or is testing multiple GUIs with multiple,
incompatible versions on multiple platforms a pain?
Apparently this bug is only exposed on recent versions of pygtk for
win32. If you encounter problems, try removing or commenting out
the last lines of site-packages\matplotlib\backends\backend_gtk.py
which set the matplotlib minimization icon. Eg, triple quote
"""
# set icon used when windows are minimized
if gtk.pygtk_version >= (2,2,0):
basedir = matplotlib.rcParams['datapath']
fname = os.path.join(basedir, 'matplotlib.svg')
try: gtk.window_set_default_icon_from_file (fname)
except gobject.GError, exc: print >>sys.stderr, exc
"""