interactive plots in gtk

Hi All,

I would like to ask how I can invoke the interactive option in a gtk GUI. Basically, I have something like this

         self.figure = Figure(figsize=(8,6), dpi=72)
         self.axis = self.figure.add_subplot(111)
         self.axis.plot(x,y)

which works, except that I have to explicitly call something like this

     def refresh_plot(self):
         self.canvas.draw_idle()
         while gtk.events_pending():
             gtk.main_iteration()

My question is, whether it is possible to set interactive(True) or ion() in such a case, so that the plot would be displayed immediately. If that is not the case, is it possible to figure out whether a graph has changed since some point in time? If that is an option, then I could just check for the state of the figure, and if necessary, call the refresh_plot function.

Thanks,
v923z