Yes, the current behaviour is to fail silently. Let me know
> if you want this changed.
Let's just put a debug flag in the file so that when we get a user
question about "why isn't my font being found?" on matplotlib-users,
we can advise them to set that flag. At a couple of critical points
(eg the return value of findfont and any failure point), we can print
if debug.
> In this case the user or developer should provide his own
> font family list, e.g. ['Vera', 'sans-serif']. If Vera is
> always supplied with the application, then it will be found
> first, before the default 'sans-serif'. However, in the
> case where, for some reason, it could not be found, the
> default font will be used.
I think you are finally getting through my skull :-).
How about this:
What if all the family lists from font_manager are moved to
matplotlib.__init__.defaultParams and hence .matplotlibrc
font.family : sans-serif
font.style : normal
font.variant : normal
font.weight : normal
font.size : small
font.sans_serif : Lucida Grande, Verdana, Geneva, Lucida, Arial, Helvetica, Bitstream Vera Sans, sans-serif
font.monospace : Andale Mono, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, Nimbus Mono L, Courier New, Courier, Fixed, Terminal, monospace
and so on
(we'll need a new converter func in matplotlib.__init__: comma_sep_strs)
Users can then order them as they see fit.
We *require* that font.family be one of serif, sans_serif, cursive,
fantasy, or monospace. (Is this overly restrictive?)
Thus users who want courier move courier up higher in font.monospace
in their rc file; ditto for vera.
Does this work? I think I was a little slow to catch on because you
intended font family lists to be user configurable but the
configuration interface doesn't exist yet - it's essentially hardcoded
in font_manager (is this right, or am I still confused?)
As for deprecation, we can build a reverse dictionary mapping names to
one of the allowed font families. On calls to text.set_fontname, we
issue a deprecation warning and then set the appropriate font family
where possible. In due time, we remove fontname.
Am I starting to get on the right track here?
JDH