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Converting mpl_style.py to a static stylesheet ? #16053
Description
I noticed that astropy/visualization/mpl_style.py would work as as static matplotlib stylesheet, which matplotlib has functionality to utilise even without importing astropy since version 3.7.0.
Now, there's a comment in there indicating that the module isn't recommended since astropy 3.0
(authored by @astrofrog), but it's kept for backward compatibility. Is there any appetite to actually "promote" it to a static stylesheet (this can absolutely be done in a backward-compatible way), or should this module just be left alone ?My two cents on this: it'd be nice to lean on matplotlib's new function, but it will probably be easiest when support for matplotlib<3.7 is dropped, which, following SPEC 0, could happen in early 2025.
Activity
neutrinoceros commentedon Feb 16, 2024
and to answer a question I had while researching this: yes, even the color cycle can be defined "statically" (as in, leaving the dynamic part of instantiating
cycler.cyclerto matplotlib)astrofrog commentedon Feb 16, 2024
That style was considered to be inferior to the current Matplotlib defaults so there is no point in reviving it. It might be worth finally deprecating and removing it though.
neutrinoceros commentedon Feb 17, 2024
It is still used in documentation examples. Should they be updated just use mpl's default style ?
hamogu commentedon Mar 1, 2024
I'd be in favor of using matplotlibs defaults for simplicity. But, if I remember correctly, some people felt strongly about having astropy-orange in some plot etc. That's (I think) why this was left alone at the time - there are better places to spend our effort.
However, I agree with @astrofrog : It might be time to finally get rid of it altogether.