Graphical User Interface for the psyplot package¶
Welcome! This package enhances the interactive visualization framework psyplot with a graphical user interface using PyQt. See the homepage of the main project on examples on the possibilities with psyplot.
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Documentation¶
Installation¶
This package requires the psyplot package which is installed alongside if you
use conda
or pip
. However see the psyplot documentation for further
informations.
How to install¶
Installation using conda¶
We highly recommend to use conda for installing psyplot-gui.
You can then install psyplot-gui simply via:
$ conda install -c conda-forge psyplot-gui
If you do not want to use PyQt4 (we indeed recommend to use PyQt5), you should
remove the 'pyqt'
and and 'qt'
package from anaconda:
$ conda remove -y pyqt qt
You then have to install PyQt5 manually (see the installation page) or use an inofficial anaconda channel, e.g. the spyder-ide:
$ conda install -c spyder-ide pyqt5
Installation using pip¶
If you do not want to use conda for managing your python packages, you can also
use the python package manager pip
and install via:
$ pip install psyplot-gui
Dependencies¶
Required dependencies¶
Psyplot has been tested for python 2.7 and 3.4. Furthermore the package is built upon multiple other packages, namely
- psyplot>=0.2: The underlying framework for data visualization
- qtconsole>=4.1.1: A package providing the necessary objects for running an inprocess ipython console in a Qt widget
- fasteners: Which provides an inprocess lock to communicate to the psyplot mainwindow
- PyQt4 or PyQt5: Python bindings to the Qt software
Getting started¶

The Screenshot above shows you the essential parts of the GUI:
- The Console: An IPython console
- The Help Explorer: A browser to display help and browse in the internet
- The Plot Creator: A widget to create new plots and open datasets
- The Project content: A widget to interact with the psyplot project
- The formatoptions widget: A widget to update and change formatoptions
Starting the GUI¶
Starting the GUI is straight forward but depends on how you installed it. If
you installed it via conda or pip, just open a terminal (or Command Window
cmd
on Windows) and type psyplot
. If you installed it through the
standalone-installers (see Installation via standalone installers) and decided to
add the binaries to your PATH
variable (the default setting), just type
psyplot
in the terminal/cmd.
Otherwise, on MacOSX, look for the Psyplot app, e.g. via spotlight, and on Windows look in the
directory in your Windows start menu.The Console¶
The central widget in the GUI is an in-process IPython console that provides the possibility to communicate with the psyplot package via the command line and to load any other module or to run any other script.
It is based on the qtconsole module and it is, by default, connected to the help explorer. If you type, for example,
np.sum(
it will show you the documentation of the numpy.sum()
module in the
help explorer. The same comes, if you type
np.sum?
This feature is motivated from the Spyder editor and can be disabled via
the rcParams key console.connect_to_help
(see Configuration of the GUI) or the
little symbol at the top of the help explorer.
Furthermore, is connected to the current psyplot project (see
psyplot.project.scp()
and psyplot.project.gcp()
). Those are
- sp
- This variable links to the current subproject (
psy.gcp()
) - mp
- This variable links to the current main project (
psy.gcp(True)
)
The following example, which you can just copy and paste in the console of the GUI, illustrates this:
# in the beginning, sp and mp are empty
In [1]: print(sp)
...: print(mp)
...:
psyplot.project.Project([
])
1 Main psyplot.project.Project([
])
In [3]: psy.plot.lineplot(xr.DataArray([1, 2, 3], name='test').to_dataset())