matplotlib-backend-kitty

This python module allows you to use your kitty terminal to show the plots generated by python's matplotlib.

For other terminals, the similar notcurses backend may also be of interest.

To install this one, do one of the following

• $ pip install --user matplotlib-backend-kitty
• clone this repo into your python's site-packages directory
• clone this repo and add the parent directory to sys.path or $PYTHONPATH

Then, configure matplotlib to use the module by either setting the environment variable MPLBACKEND to module://matplotlib-backend-kitty or by initializing matplotlib as follows.

import matplotlib
matplotlib.use('module://matplotlib-backend-kitty')
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

If you've installed this module correctly, you can now use the following sample code to draw a plot in your terminal.

$ export MPLBACKEND='module://matplotlib-backend-kitty'
$ python
>>> n = 10000
>>> df = pd.DataFrame({'x': np.random.randn(n),
                       'y': np.random.randn(n)})
>>> df.plot.hexbin(x='x', y='y', gridsize=20)
<plot is shown>

If you set your matplotlib to interactive mode via matplotlib.pyplot.ion() or by running an interactive python shell like python or ipython, non-empty figures are drawn on construction where possible. This allows you to use pandas' plot() calls directly, without calling plt.show(), and still enables you to manually construct and plt.show().

If your matplotlib is in non-interactive mode, you can construct your figures as usual, and then call plt.show() to render them to your terminal. This works both from scripts and from a repl.

Figures are resized to the size of your terminal by default. If you'd rather control the sizing of figures manually, set the MPLBACKEND_KITTY_SIZING environment variable to manual.

Internally, this backend is somewhat based on matplotlib's IPython support: it's a hybrid of image and GUI backend types. It works by using matplotlib's Agg backend to render the plot, and then calls kitty's icat to place the rendered image on your terminal. This means that plotting works as expected, but the image drawn to your terminal isn't interactive and animations aren't supported.