plotlet 0.1.3

Small, hackable Python library that emits matplotlib-style SVG plots.

plotlet

A small, hackable Python library that emits matplotlib-style SVG plots.

Why

matplotlib is the right tool when you want the kitchen sink. plotlet's niche is custom plot types — genome tracks, Manhattan plots, phylogenetic trees, anything matplotlib's extension API makes painful. The whole library has a deliberately tiny, exposed core: adding a new plot type is a 3-step recipe, not an architecture project.

It's a scaffold, not a feature catalog: the core ships ~5 standard plots and the infrastructure for extending. Custom plot types live in your own project (or cookbook/), not upstream. See docs/PHILOSOPHY.md for the full framing.

import plotlet as pt

data = {
    "x":      [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5],
    "y":      [1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 1, 8, 27, 64, 125],
    "series": ["squares"] * 5 + ["cubes"] * 5,
}

c = pt.chart(data, title="Hello", xlabel="x", ylabel="y", legend=True, grid=True)
c.line(x="x", y="y", hue="series")
c                                        # auto-renders in Jupyter

Install

pip install plotlet

Properties

• Lightweight. fonttools for font handling. numpy / pandas / polars inputs work transparently if you have them.
• Static SVG output. No interactivity, no animation. Same script → byte-identical SVG.
• Cross-machine reproducible. Bundled DejaVu Sans + text-as-paths means rendering is identical on Linux, macOS, Windows, headless CI.
• Jupyter-native. Figure._repr_html_ auto-renders the last expression in a cell.
• Tiny output. Each plot is ~50 KB SVG, self-contained.
• Compositional. Multi-panel layouts via |, /, pt.grid; share scales with share_x= / share_y=; layout-level legend with pt.legend() covering both discrete swatches and continuous gradients (the colorbar).

API

pt.chart(data, **opts) returns a Chart bound to a table — any object that supports data[col_name] returning an iterable (pandas / polars DataFrames, dict-of-lists, dict-of-arrays). All methods return self; _repr_html_ makes the chart auto-render as the last expression in a Jupyter cell.

Frame options

Pass at construction (pt.chart(data, title=..., grid=True, ...)) or as chained setters (c.title(...), etc.):

title, xlabel, ylabel, xlim=(a, b), ylim=(a, b), xscale="linear"|"log"|"category" (chained: c.xscale("category", order=[...], padding=0)), yscale=..., grid=True/False, legend=True/False, width, height

String-valued data on either axis (scatter(["a","b","c"], ...), bar, …) auto-switches to a categorical scale, alphabetical by default. padding=0 makes category bands contiguous (heatmap-track look).

Tick customization: c.xticks([0, 5, 10], ["A","B","C"], rotation=45, fontsize=12, direction="out", marks=False). Pass [] to hide. yticks(...) works the same way.

Mark methods

call	options
.line(x=, y=, hue=, **opts)	color, label, linewidth, linestyle ("-", "--", ":", "-."), marker ("o", "s", "^", "v", "x", "+"), markersize
.scatter(x=, y=, hue=, **opts)	color, label, s (size), alpha, marker
.bar(x=, y=, **opts)	color, label, alpha
.hist(x=, **opts)	bins, color, alpha, label
.fill_between(x=, y1=, y2=, **opts)	color, alpha, label
.axhline(y, **opts) / .axvline(x, **opts)	color, linewidth, linestyle, alpha, label, axes-fraction xmin/xmax (or ymin/ymax)
.axhspan(ymin, ymax, **opts) / .axvspan(xmin, xmax, **opts)	color, alpha, label, axes-fraction xmin/xmax (or ymin/ymax)
.imshow(data, **opts)	cmap (any matplotlib name, default "viridis"), vmin, vmax, extent=(left, right, bottom, top)

hue=<col> (on .line / .scatter) splits into one call per unique value with auto-labels and tab10 colors. Reference lines and spans default to black; spans use alpha=0.2. They're drawn outside the data color cycle and don't participate in autoscaling — they're decorations on the frame, not data.

.imshow(data) renders a 2-D array as a colored grid. Small grids (nrows × ncols ≤ 10000) emit one <rect> per cell and stay vector-clean at any zoom; larger grids encode as a single base64 PNG and quantize to 256 levels. Image row 0 is rendered at the top of its rectangle; the y axis stays Cartesian (small at bottom). All ~180 matplotlib colormaps are vendored — see pt.list_colormaps().

Subplots

Compose multi-panel layouts with operators on Chart:

a | b                  # side-by-side
a / b                  # stacked
a | b | c              # left-fold flatten — one row of three, not nested

pt.grid([[a, b],       # 2-D grid; cells may be `None`
         [c, d]])

# Share x or y across panels — collapses the gap between them
# and forces both onto the source's scale.
top  = pt.chart()
main = pt.chart(share_x=top)
top / main             # vertically stacked, x-axis joined

# Layout-level legend (covers colorbar and discrete swatches in
# one constructor — geometry follows from the source's color mapping).
hm = pt.chart(); hm.imshow(matrix, cmap="viridis")
hm | pt.legend(hm)             # heatmap + colorbar (gradient strip)

# Multi-source: groups by chart, using each chart's title as
# section header. `names={chart: "Override"}` renames a header,
# `names={chart: None}` hides it, `group_by_chart=False` flattens.
(hm | top) | pt.legend()       # auto-collects from siblings
parent = a | b; parent.legend()  # sugar for parent | pt.legend()

A composed chart owns its children; render the parent ((a | b).show() or .to_svg() / .save_svg(...)). Calling .show() on a child raises. See docs/SUBPLOTS.md for the design rationale.

Render / save

c.show()                     # explicit display() inside a cell
c.to_svg()                   # raw SVG string
c.save_svg("plot.svg")       # SVG file
c.write_html("plot.html")    # standalone HTML

Color shortcuts

• "C0"–"C9" → tab10 (matches matplotlib)
• Named: "blue", "orange", "green", "red", "purple", "brown", "pink", "gray", "olive", "cyan"
• Single-letter: "k", "w", "b", "g", "r"
• Any hex / CSS color string passes through

Adding a new plot type

plotlet's central hackability claim: a custom plot type is a 3-step recipe (~50–100 lines) that gets axes, scales, legend, grid, and composability for free. The recommended home is your own project, or cookbook/ as reference. Full guide: docs/EXTENDING.md.

Testing

python tests/test_chart.py            # check vs. committed baselines
python tests/test_chart.py --update   # regenerate (review the diff!)
python tests/test_chart.py --gallery  # build tests/baseline_images/chart/index.html
python tests/test_subplots.py         # subplot baselines + composition invariants

Non-goals

• No interactivity (hover, zoom, click). Static rendering is the point.
• Not competing with matplotlib on standard plots; matplotlib is bigger and battle-tested.
• Not a 3D plotter, not a dashboard tool.
• Not a feature catalog — new plot types belong in user projects or cookbook/, not in the core.

License

MIT