Contributing#

Thanks for thinking of a way to help improve this library! Remember that contributions come in all shapes and sizes beyond writing bug fixes. Contributing to documentation, opening new issues for bugs, asking for clarification on things you find unclear, and requesting new features, are all super valuable contributions.

Code Improvements#

All development for this library happens on GitHub at mpl-playback. We recommend you work with a Conda environment (or an alternative virtual environment like venv).

git clone <your fork>
cd mpl-playback
mamba env create -n mpl-playback python matplotlib -c conda-forge
conda activate mpl-playback
pip install pre-commit
pre-commit install

The mamba env create command installs all Python packages that are useful when working on the source code of mpl_playback and its documentation. You can also install these packages separately:

pip install -e .[doc]

The -e . flag installs the mpl_playback folder in “editable” mode and [dev] installs the optional dependencies you need for developing mpl_playback.

Seeing your changes#

If you are working in a Jupyter Notebook, then in order to see your code changes you will need to either:

  • Restart the Kernel every time you make a change to the code.

  • Make the function reload from the source file every time you run it by using autoreload, e.g.:

    %load_ext autoreload
%autoreload 2
from mpl_playback import ....

Working with Git#

Using Git/GitHub can confusing (https://xkcd.com/1597), so if you’re new to Git, you may find it helpful to use a program like GitHub Desktop and to follow a guide.

Also feel free to ask for help/advice on the relevant GitHub issue.

Documentation#

Our documentation on Read the Docs (mpl-playback.rtfd.io) is built with Sphinx from the notebooks in the docs folder. It contains both Markdown files and Jupyter notebooks.

If you open the index.html file in your browser you should now be able to see the rendered documentation.

Alternatively, you can use sphinx-autobuild to continuously watch source files for changes and rebuild the documentation for you. Sphinx-autobuild will be installed automatically by the above pip command, so all you need to do is run:

tox -e doclive

In a few seconds your web browser should open up the documentation. Now whenever you save a file the documentation will automatically regenerate and the webpage will refresh for you!