I used Plots for some time, and am quiet unsatisfied with the figure quality. The tutorial38 gives us some example, which shows its simplicity. However, none of those figures are publication-quality. I reproduced these plots using PyPlot.jl and GR.jl, they look much better. Therefore, the poor quality of figure made by Plots is not caused by the backend. What makes Plot.jl so ugly? I know some recipes are allowed in Plots.jl, which might make the figure more beautiful. I tested some of these recipes, and was still unsatisfied. Could the developer offer a gallery of beautiful figures produced by Plots.jl (maybe in some notebooks)? It is very inspiring to see beautiful figures, especially for those who don’t know what plotting package to use.
I find the pgfplots() backend very nice. YMMV.
However, “ugly” is a subjective term, and the discussion would be very much helped by
providing a self-contained minimal working example that demonstrates the issue,
various plots (via Plots.jl, also directly),
pointing out the differences you consider “ugly”.
Also, opening an issue for Plots.jl may be a better place for the discussion, so that it does not get lost.
Good suggestion, go for it! You, yes you, are part of the mythical the developers. And beautiful figures somewhere could be done by you. No better way to communicate exactly what you mean.
In your first post you said: “I reproduced these plots using PyPlot.jl and GR.jl, they look much better”. I suggest to produce a document with code & graphic for the “ugly” plot on the left and PyPlot and GR on the right. If done well, it would be helpful also for people deciding between different approaches.
[So far I used PyPlot or, ähem, R for plotting and only know Plots.jl from the interesting JuliaCon16 presentation. But now curious having a look at the mentioned tutorial, I must say, I’m very very impressed by this beautifully thought out document. And I like that it stays clear and doesn’t over-distract with decorations. Don’t want to know how many nights must have gone into it… ]
I moved two of the many substantive suggestions directly related to Plots.jl defaults to this new topic, and closed the old one (linked above). If there are any specific examples with code and images please discuss them here, or preferably open an issue and link it here.
Any of the other discussions are off-topic in this thread. If there are specific issues or suggestions to resurface from the old thread, please start a new topic or open an issue at the appropriate project github page.
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