René's URL Explorer Experiment

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"[ENH]: Compute ticks of log scaled axes a bit better?","articleBody":"### Problem\n\nTaken from [here](https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/8768/#issuecomment-889516769), I found the following ticks (from `plt.semilogy([1.5, 50])`):\r\n\r\n![image](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/a5b3e30a-2c2e-4ba1-bd75-b727acee045d)\r\n\r\nNot informative enough. I wish there was an easy way to `set_minor_formatter` such that say\te.g `2x10^0`, `3x10^0` would have been displayed. I tried to use (full MWE this time):\r\n\r\n```python\r\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\r\nfrom matplotlib import ticker\r\n\r\nplt.semilogy([1.5, 50])\r\nplt.gca().yaxis.set_minor_formatter(ticker.LogFormatter(base=10, labelOnlyBase=True))\r\nplt.show()\r\n```\r\n\r\nBut it changed nothing. OTH I was capable to obtain my desired output with:\r\n\r\n```python\r\n#!/usr/bin/env python\r\n\r\nimport numpy as np\r\n\r\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\r\nfrom matplotlib import ticker\r\n\r\nplt.semilogy([1.5, 50])\r\ndef get_minor_tick_string(x, pos):\r\n    b = np.floor(np.log10(x)).astype(int)\r\n    p = pos % 8\r\n    if p \u003c 3:\r\n        return f\"${p+2}\\\\cdot 10^{b}$\"\r\n    else:\r\n        return \"\"\r\nplt.gca().yaxis.set_minor_formatter(get_minor_tick_string)\r\nplt.show()\r\n```\r\n\r\nBut I'm sure it is not very versatile. It produces:\r\n\r\n![image](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/80f70a0a-e54e-4e6f-9f42-e60d1b9e8e35)\r\n\r\nWhich is not bad.\n\n### Proposed solution\n\nI'd like to first explain in the docs / fix the behavior of `set_minor_formatter(ticker.LogFormatter(base=10, labelOnlyBase=True))`. 2ndly, I'd like to discuss the possibility of adding tick labels as shown above, because I think I'm not the only one that was not satisfied by this default behavior.","author":{"url":"https://github.com/doronbehar","@type":"Person","name":"doronbehar"},"datePublished":"2025-01-06T18:52:37.000Z","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/CommentAction","userInteractionCount":2},"url":"https://github.com/29414/matplotlib/issues/29414"}