Support standard tickdir control (in/out/inout) in axisartist. by anntzer · Pull Request #30369 · matplotlib/matplotlib

anntzer · 2025-07-29T18:08:19Z

... and also respect rcParams, which makes axisartist ticks default to pointing outwards, similarly to standard ticks.

Rework the tick direction machinery to also support "inout" (similarly to standard ticks).

One may wonder whether external ticks should really be drawn in the local direction of the gridlines, though, or whether drawing them orthogonal to the axis spine would look better. This PR keeps the old behavior of set_ticks_out(True), but we could later add something like set_tick_direction("out_ortho") (name up to bikeshedding).

While at it, also deprecate the entirely unused
Ticks.locs_angles_labels and LabelBase.locs_angles_labels.

See the modified simple_axis_pad example:

and demo_curvelinear grid shows why "out_ortho" may actually be a better option:

PR summary

PR checklist

"closes #0000" is in the body of the PR description to link the related issue
new and changed code is tested
Plotting related features are demonstrated in an example
New Features and API Changes are noted with a directive and release note
Documentation complies with general and docstring guidelines

lib/mpl_toolkits/axisartist/tests/test_axislines.py

galleries/users_explain/toolkits/axisartist.rst

anntzer · 2025-07-30T10:54:56Z

Sure, done.

timhoffm

Sorry, I'm a bit nit-picky today, but let's improve on code and docs, when we touch it anyway.

galleries/users_explain/toolkits/axisartist.rst

lib/mpl_toolkits/axisartist/axis_artist.py

lib/mpl_toolkits/axisartist/tests/test_floating_axes.py

lib/mpl_toolkits/axisartist/tests/test_grid_helper_curvelinear.py

lib/mpl_toolkits/axisartist/tests/test_floating_axes.py

anntzer · 2025-07-30T23:55:19Z

No worries, it's good to improve this...

timhoffm · 2025-07-31T00:10:21Z

Some refs still need fixing:

/home/circleci/project/doc/users/explain/toolkits/axisartist.rst:425: WARNING: py:obj reference target not found: Tick.set_tick_direction [ref.obj]3d.Axes3D.get_zinverted
/home/circleci/project/doc/users/explain/toolkits/axisartist.rst:426: WARNING: py:obj reference target not found: Tick.set_ticksize [ref.obj]
/home/circleci/project/doc/users/explain/toolkits/axisartist.rst:431: WARNING: py:obj reference target not found: TickLabels.set_rotation [ref.obj]
/home/circleci/project/doc/users/explain/toolkits/axisartist.rst:432: WARNING: py:obj reference target not found: TickLabels.set_ha [ref.obj]
/home/circleci/project/doc/users/explain/toolkits/axisartist.rst:432: WARNING: py:obj reference target not found: TickLabels.set_va [ref.obj]
/home/circleci/project/doc/users/explain/toolkits/axisartist.rst:437: WARNING: py:obj reference target not found: AxisLabel.set_rotation [ref.obj]
/home/circleci/project/doc/users/explain/toolkits/axisartist.rst:438: WARNING: py:obj reference target not found: AxisLabel.set_ha [ref.obj]
/home/circleci/project/doc/users/explain/toolkits/axisartist.rst:438: WARNING: py:obj reference target not found: AxisLabel.set_va [ref.obj]

lib/mpl_toolkits/axisartist/axis_artist.py

galleries/users_explain/toolkits/axisartist.rst

anntzer · 2025-07-31T06:01:09Z

Hopefully the missing references are fixed.

QuLogic · 2026-03-10T05:33:55Z

lib/mpl_toolkits/axisartist/tests/test_axislines.py

    # Remove this line when this test image is regenerated.
-    plt.rcParams['text.kerning_factor'] = 6
+    plt.rcParams.update({
+        "text.kerning_factor": 6, "xtick.direction": "in", "ytick.direction": "in"})


Do you intend that all of these be removed in the text-overhaul branch, as text.kerning_factor will be?

I pushed a second commit (as usual, without the actual baseline image updates) where I take advantage of the upcoming text-overhaul branch to update the tests as well; now they are a mix of "in", "out", and "inout" (to test a bit everything). Note that there are also other axisartist tests where there is a high tolerance currently set due to partial updates to the axisartist code; likely those could also have their tolerance set to zero again as the baselines will likely need to be regen'd anyways (I didn't touch them, but I can do it if you prefer -- it's just a grep for tol in the test suite of axisartist).

Let me know if you want me to retarget this to text-overhaul.

I'd rather this get in through regular review, but maybe you can target the second commit to the text-overhaul branch? Not sure if that's too much work though.

No problem at all, but the second commit only makes sense after the first (feature) goes in to main and main gets merged back into text-overview (so this PR is effectively blocking the final merge-back)? Unless we decide not to take advantage of the opportunity to update the baselines here to test the new functionality.

Well, we already have one approval and I don't think much has changed since then, so I'm sure we can merge this one right now. I can merge main into text-overhaul after that.

OK, so I dropped the testing commit from this PR; that commit exists now at anntzer@f1777c6 (aiot-tests branch). Right now that commit is atop the main branch (via this PR), I will rebase it atop text-overhaul once this PR is merged into main and main into text-overhaul, and open a PR for it.
(Note that the aiot-tests commit stills builds upon this PR because this one already alters the tests but in a way that fully maintains backcompatibility of baseline images so that tests locally pass; thus the aiot-tests commit also needs to undo these alterations.)

The test suite update is now at #31281.

lib/mpl_toolkits/axisartist/axis_artist.py

... and also respect rcParams, which makes axisartist ticks default to pointing outwards, similarly to standard ticks. Rework the tick direction machinery to also support "inout" (similarly to standard ticks). One may wonder whether external ticks should really be drawn in the local direction of the gridlines, though, or whether drawing them orthogonal to the axis spine would look better. This PR keeps the old behavior of `set_ticks_out(True)`, but we could later add something like ``set_tick_direction("out_ortho")`` (name up to bikeshedding). While at it, also deprecate the entirely unused `Ticks.locs_angles_labels` and `LabelBase.locs_angles_labels`.

anntzer added the topic: mpl_toolkit label Jul 29, 2025

github-actions bot added Documentation: examples files in galleries/examples Documentation: user guide files in galleries/users_explain or doc/users labels Jul 29, 2025

anntzer force-pushed the aiot branch 2 times, most recently from a80878e to 6831cb5 Compare July 29, 2025 23:16

timhoffm reviewed Jul 30, 2025

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anntzer force-pushed the aiot branch from 6831cb5 to 15bfe84 Compare July 30, 2025 10:54

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anntzer force-pushed the aiot branch from 15bfe84 to c22b36b Compare July 30, 2025 23:54

timhoffm approved these changes Jul 31, 2025

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anntzer force-pushed the aiot branch from c22b36b to 5a134ed Compare July 31, 2025 05:53

QuLogic reviewed Mar 10, 2026

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anntzer force-pushed the aiot branch 2 times, most recently from f1777c6 to 61b6cdc Compare March 11, 2026 09:06

QuLogic added this to the v3.11.0 milestone Mar 11, 2026

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QuLogic merged commit 94d09cd into matplotlib:main Mar 11, 2026
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This was referenced Mar 11, 2026

support for ticks crossing axes in axisartist #19101

Closed

AxisArtist to use standard tick directions and have an option for tick orientation #24553

Open

Switch AxisArtist to use standard tick directions. #19102

Closed

anntzer deleted the aiot branch March 11, 2026 18:07

anntzer mentioned this pull request Mar 11, 2026

Drop axis_artist tickdir image compat, due to text-overhaul merge. #31281

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andreas16700 added a commit to andreas16700/matplotlib that referenced this pull request Mar 16, 2026

Run 94d09cd: Merge pull request matplotlib#30369 from anntzer/aiot

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andreas16700 added a commit to andreas16700/matplotlib that referenced this pull request Mar 16, 2026

Run 94d09cd: Merge pull request matplotlib#30369 from anntzer/aiot

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anntzer commented Jul 29, 2025

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anntzer commented Jul 30, 2025

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