Clarify that it is ok to use plt.subplots to create figures#19554
Conversation
This is a real source of confusion for users when told that they should prefer the OO style.
There was a problem hiding this comment.
| In general, try to use the object-oriented interface over the pyplot | |
| In general, the explicit interface is preferred over the pyplot |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
That would require rephrasing the earlier paragraphs in the tutorial as well. That may be a good thing to do but wasn't my intention here. Is this enough of an incremental improvement to stand on its own?
There was a problem hiding this comment.
That's better but it is still a break from how the opening paragraph describes things. But perhaps Im worrying too much about that
There was a problem hiding this comment.
Maybe fix the first parapraph while we are here? It is not terribly clear.
| interface for making the plots. However, for creating figures and axes | ||
| the pyplot interface with `~.pyplot.subplots` should be preferred. |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
| interface for making the plots. However, for creating figures and axes | |
| the pyplot interface with `~.pyplot.subplots` should be preferred. | |
| interface for making the plots. The `~.pyplot` module still has some useful | |
| shortcuts, and in particular is the preferable method for instantiating figures | |
| and axes via ``fig=plt.figure()`` or ``fig, axs=plt.subplots(2, 1)``. |
|
Maybe something like the above? Or even more detail. There is lots of good stuff in pyplot that this note was not meant to forbid. ie. plt.rcParams is pretty helpful, rather than importing matplotlib. |
|
@ianhi are you coming back to this? |
|
Since this Pull Request has not been updated in 60 days, it has been marked "inactive." This does not mean that it will be closed, though it may be moved to a "Draft" state. This helps maintainers prioritize their reviewing efforts. You can pick the PR back up anytime - please ping us if you need a review or guidance to move the PR forward! If you do not plan on continuing the work, please let us know so that we can either find someone to take the PR over, or close it. |
|
This section had a bit of a re-write at #22613 and the relevant note now says "...for plotting". Is there more to do here? |

PR Summary
Adds a line explaining that it is ok to use pyplot methods to create figures. This was (is perhaps) confusing for me and seems to be for other users as well https://discourse.matplotlib.org/t/how-do-i-use-the-object-oriented-interface-without-having-to-rely-on-pyplot/21877
cc @jklymak because this is based on your response to that discourse post.
PR Checklist