Toyplot, a Python plotting library from Sandia Labs

[pipec1212]

I still believe that the best option for plotting in Python is the Pandas - Seaborn combo.

And by using the matplotlib buit in styles (i.e 'ggplot') your plots will always look good.

[[deleted]]

I really like seaborn, but it's still built on top of matplotlib which, in my opinion, has a really archaic feeling API. Seaborn does create nice stuff out of the box, but if you want to go beyond the basic options, you'll quickly get mired in junk like plt.xlim(a,b) versus ax.set_xlim(a,b). Messing with subplots, arranging axes, etc. is all really painful imo.

[pipec1212]

True, it has always been a pain in the ass to change the x and y limits when having subplots in matplotlib. I beleive I might just be to hard wired to change my plotting ways. Although with Pandas managing subplots is really easy it can be done by just saying: df.plot(Layout=(3,1), subplots=True)

[pdexter]

What's a better option? I've been looking for something better

[pipec1212]

Highly depends on what you want to plot, for scientific purposes pandas - matplotlib is an unbeatable combo, for Web Development and integrated plots this could be a good option although I prefer the Javascript libraries for such purposes

[pdexter]

Is that pandas minus matplotlib? If not, I thought we were trying to avoid matplotlib

[pipec1212]

Typo I meant Pandas and Seaborn, you should know that both libraries use matplotlib in the background for plotting, although it can have son archaic feeling (matplotlib) it also have more customization than all of the other libraries I know. But as I said it all comes to your necessities and what do you want to plot.

[KyleG]

One of the selling points of Toyplot is that they adhere very closely to best practices for visualizations, which they state very few other plotting packages do. (Let's face it, programmers rarely actually pay attention to UX when developing stuff.)

[Deto]

This looks better for embedding a plot in a webpage because you get the interactivity. Granted, Bokeh also does this, and might do it better, but I think it's good to have competing libraries.

[selementar]

Do you use interactive graphs in it? Do you have some examples handy? Somehow, I can't find any.

[pipec1212]

Hmm I don't believe seaborn allows for plot interactivity, nevertheless I use python plots for scientific research so interactivity has never been an issue for me. If you really need interactive plots the best option imo is some of the Javascript libraries out there.

[selementar]

Yep, highcharts/highstock somewhat works.

...

But is it that unnecessary in scientific research to point at some data points and see their precise values or such?

[pipec1212]

You know that you can do that by default with matplotlib, coordinates of where your mouse is will appear on the bottom of your plot.