|
| 1 | +======== |
| 2 | +Glossary |
| 3 | +======== |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +.. Note for glossary authors: |
| 6 | + The glossary is primarily intended for Matplotlib's own concepts and |
| 7 | + terminology, e.g. figure, artist, backend, etc. We don't want to list |
| 8 | + general terms like "GUI framework", "event loop" or similar. |
| 9 | + The glossary should contain a short definition of the term, aiming at |
| 10 | + a high-level understanding. Use links to redirect to more comprehensive |
| 11 | + explanations and API reference when possible. |
| 12 | +
|
| 13 | +This glossary defines concepts and terminology specific to Matplotlib. |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +..glossary:: |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | + Figure |
| 18 | + The outermost container for a Matplotlib graphic. Think of this as the |
| 19 | + sheet of paper to draw on. |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | + This is impolemented in the class `.Figure`. For more details see |
| 22 | +:ref:`figure-intro`. |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | + Axes |
| 25 | + This is what is often colloquially called "a plot". A data area with |
| 26 | +:term:`Axis`\es, i.e. coordinate directions. This includes also |
| 27 | + decoration like title, axis labels, legend and data artists |
| 28 | + like lines, bars etc. |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | + Since most "plotting operations" are realized as methods on `~.axes.Axes` |
| 31 | + this is the object users will mostly interact with. |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | + Note: The term *Axes* was taken over from MATLAB. Think of this as |
| 34 | + A container spanned by the *x*- and *y*-axis, including decoration |
| 35 | + and data. |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | + Axis |
| 38 | + A direction with a scale. The scale defines the mapping from |
| 39 | + data coordinates to screen coordinates. The Axis also includes |
| 40 | + the ticks and axis label. |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | + Artist |
| 43 | + The base class for all graphical element that can be drawn. |
| 44 | + Examples are Lines, Rectangles, Text, Ticks, Lengend, Axes, ... |