Merge pull request #7153 from efiring/DOC_log_locator_auto_N

NelleV · web-flow · commit db59e816c19a · 2016-09-21T13:55:12.000-07:00
DOC: entries for the new kwarg and behavior of LogLocator
diff --git a/doc/api/api_changes.rst b/doc/api/api_changes.rst
@@ -116,6 +116,16 @@ consistently. For example, when both y-axes of a``twinx`` plot use
 ``matplotlib.ticker.LinearLocator`` with the same number of ticks,
 their y-tick locations and grid lines will coincide.
 
+`matplotlib.ticker.LogLocator` gains numticks kwarg
+---------------------------------------------------
+
+The maximum number of ticks generated by the
+`~matplotlib.ticker.LogLocator` can now be controlled explicitly
+via setting the new 'numticks' kwarg to an integer.  By default
+the kwarg is None which internally sets it to the 'auto' string,
+triggering a new algorithm for adjusting the maximum according
+to the axis length relative to the ticklabel font size.
+
 
 New defaults for 3D quiver function in mpl_toolkits.mplot3d.axes3d.py
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/doc/users/dflt_style_changes.rst b/doc/users/dflt_style_changes.rst
@@ -896,6 +896,17 @@ or create a new `~matplotlib.ticker.MaxNLocator`::
   import matplotlib.ticker as mticker
   ax.set_major_locator(mticker.MaxNLocator(nbins=9, steps=[1, 2, 5, 10])
 
+For a log-scaled axis the default locator is the
+`~matplotlib.ticker.LogLocator`.  Previously the maximum number
+of ticks was set to 15, and could not be changed. Now there is a
+`numticks` kwarg for setting the maximum to any integer value,
+to the string 'auto', or to its default value of None which is
+equivalent to 'auto'.  With the 'auto' setting the maximum number
+will be no larger than 9, and will be reduced depending on the
+length of the axis in units of the tick font size.  As in the
+case of the AutoLocator, the heuristic algorithm reduces the
+incidence of overlapping tick labels but does not prevent it.
+
 
 Auto limits
 -----------
