How can I set the backgroundcolor of text with set_backgroundcolor ?

Community matplotlib-users
#1

Thanks John. This works great. I think, however, that

    > set_backgroundcolor would be useful. It should be easy to
    > fix. If nobody speaks up, I will take a crack at it, Mark

What do you have in mind, a simple convenience function that does

    def set_backgroundcolor(self, color):
        """
        Set the background color of the text by updating the bbox facecolor

        ACCEPTS: any matplotlib color
        """
        if self._bbox is None:
            self._bbox = dict(facecolor=color, edgecolor=color)
        else:
            self._bbox.update(dict(facecolor=color))

I'm not too opposed to it, but it does violate the maxim "There should be one--
and preferably only one --obvious way to do it." Of course, we
violate this throughout mpl offerings lots of convenience functions,
but it is something to bear in mind.

#2

Thanks for writing the convenience function John !
I think there is a large group (like the students in my class) who use matplotlib as a simple tool to make beautiful graphs. To compete with matlab we need to keep simple tasks simple. I personally think that this convenience function is a good one to add. Probably under pylab.
Anybody else want to weigh in?
Mark

···

On 1/3/07, John Hunter <jdhunter@…4…> wrote:

“Mark” == Mark Bakker <
markbak@…287…> writes:

> Thanks John. This works great.  I think, however, that
> set_backgroundcolor would be useful.  It should be easy to
> fix.  If nobody speaks up, I will take a crack at it, Mark

What do you have in mind, a simple convenience function that does

def set_backgroundcolor(self, color):
    """
    Set the background color of the text by updating the bbox facecolor


    ACCEPTS: any matplotlib color
    """
    if self._bbox is None:
        self._bbox = dict(facecolor=color, edgecolor=color)
    else:
        self._bbox.update(dict(facecolor=color))

I’m not too opposed to it, but it does violate the maxim “There should be one–
and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.” Of course, we
violate this throughout mpl offerings lots of convenience functions,

but it is something to bear in mind.