René's URL Explorer Experiment

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"[MNT]: Color normalization in GraphicsContextBase","articleBody":"### Summary\n\nWe have\n```python\nclass GraphicsContextBase:\n\n    def set_foreground(self, fg, isRGBA=False):\n        \"\"\"\n        Set the foreground color.\n\n        Parameters\n        ----------\n        fg : :mpltype:`color`\n        isRGBA : bool\n            If *fg* is known to be an ``(r, g, b, a)`` tuple, *isRGBA* can be\n            set to True to improve performance.\n        \"\"\"\n```\nIt feels unnecessary and like a mental burden to handle unnormalized colors the GraphicsContext. Flexible color names is primarily a user-facing topic; and maybe (t.b.d.) an artist topic so that they can reproduce a color exactly as it was specified by the user (`a.set.color(c); a.get_color == c`). But I think the GraphicsContext should not need to bother with this. It should only need rgba information.\n\nPossible improvement:\n- Discourage isRGBA=False\n- internally only use isRGBA=True\n- At some point deprecatee the isRGBA argument and remove (as part of general backend API evolution).\n\nSemi-OT: is `set_foreground` the right abstraction or should we rather have `set_rgba()` and discorage `set_foreground`? Related: https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/pull/31094#issuecomment-3859586784\n\n\n\n### Proposed fix\n\n_No response_","author":{"url":"https://github.com/timhoffm","@type":"Person","name":"timhoffm"},"datePublished":"2026-02-06T11:12:47.000Z","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/CommentAction","userInteractionCount":4},"url":"https://github.com/31105/matplotlib/issues/31105"}