How to Create¶

Current section explains the procedure of creating your own class, where all desired styles for each plot setting (color style, color order style, plt style) will be stored. Mentioned before PLTtz class is taken as an example. Its script in the tz.py is explained below.

tz.py¶

import matplotlib as mpl
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from cycler import cycler
from .base import PLTbase

Four packages are included:

matplotlib is a plotting library which allows present results in a diagram form quite easily;
matplotlib.pyplot is a specified module of matplotlib;
cycler is the composable style cycles;
base is the file, where fundamental class PLTbase is described.

class PLTtz(PLTbase):
  #PLTtz class, child of PLTbase#

  _BLUE = 'blue'
  _JUPYTER_NOTEBOOK = 'jupyter-notebook'
  _MPL_V2 = 'mpl2_colors'

Gives the name to the new class mentioning in brackets the so-called “father”. Then links user-friendly names of all available styles stored inside this class with formal ones used in the script.

def __init__(self):
    PLTbase.__init__(self)

    available_styles = {
        'color_style': [self._BLUE, self._MPL_V2],
        'color_order_style': [self._BLUE, self._MPL_V2],
        'plt_style': [self._JUPYTER_NOTEBOOK]}

    self._add_available_styles(available_styles)

Function, which connects each plotting setting (color style, color order style and plt style) with corresponding list of available styles.

def _get_colors(self, style):
    if style == self._BLUE:
        return {
            'darkblue': (11, 85, 159),
            'mdarkblue': (42, 122, 185),
            'mediumblue': (83, 157, 204),
            'mlightblue': (136, 190, 220),
            'lightblue': (186, 214, 234),
            'pastelblue': (218, 232, 245),
        }
    if style == self._MPL_V2:
        return {
            'c0': '#1f77b4',
            'c1': '#ff7f0e',
            'c2': '#2ca02c',
            'c3': '#d62728',
            'c4': '#9467bd',
            'c5': '#8c564b',
            'c6': '#e377c2',
            'c7': '#7f7f7f',
            'c8': '#bcbd22',
            'c9': '#17becf'
        }
    return None

Function, which is responsible for color style plot setting. Keeps available colors for corresponding style. Style blue uses RGB codes for identification, mpl2_colors - HEX codes.

def _get_colors_order(self, style):
    if style == self._BLUE:
        return ['darkblue', 'mdarkblue', 'mediumblue', 'mlightblue',
                'lightblue', 'pastelblue']
    elif style == self._MPL_V2:
        return ['c0', 'c1', 'c2', 'c3', 'c4', 'c5', 'c6', 'c7', 'c8', 'c9']
    return None

Current function regulates color order style setting. Orders corresponding colors in dependence on style.

def _set_plt_style(self, style, colors, prop_cycle_colors):
    if style == self._JUPYTER_NOTEBOOK:
        plt.style.use('default')
        fntsz = 12
        lw = 2
        fntcol = 'black'
        font = {'family': 'arial', 'weight': 'normal', 'size': fntsz}
        mpl.rc('font', **font)
        mpl.rc('figure', titlesize=fntsz)
        mpl.rc('legend', framealpha=None,
               edgecolor='gainsboro',
               fontsize=fntsz - 2, numpoints=1, handlelength=1,
               loc='best', frameon=True, shadow=False,
               fancybox=False)
        mpl.rcParams['text.color'] = fntcol
        mpl.rc('axes', edgecolor=fntcol, grid=True,
               xmargin=0, labelsize=fntsz - 1, titlesize=fntsz,
               linewidth=0.9)
        mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.right'] = False
        mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.top'] = False
        mpl.rc('grid', linestyle='-', color='darkgrey',
               linewidth=0.5, alpha=0.35)
        mpl.rc('lines', lw=lw, markersize=10)
        mpl.rc('xtick', color=fntcol, labelsize=fntsz - 2)
        mpl.rc('ytick', color=fntcol, labelsize=fntsz - 2)
        mpl.rcParams['axes.prop_cycle'] = cycler('color',
                                                 prop_cycle_colors)
        return True
    return False

These strings control plt style setting. All terms (font of the text, fontsize, legend, ticks on the axes, etc.), which form the view of the plot, are described here.