BF: Plot window arrangement - storage/recovery of window size and position

[detlefarend]

Description/Motivation
The plot windows created by class mlpro.bf.plot.Plottable need to be placed/resized manually each time a program is started. To improve the user experience of MLPro's plot mechanism, the class shall be extended by functionality for storing and recovering the size and position of a window.

Task list

• 1. Underlying functions
  • 1.1 Class ConfigFile
    ... storing (plot) configuration data in a local JSON file
  • 1.2 Template class PlotBackend
    • 1.2.1 Systematics to deal with different backends
    • 1.2.2 Systematics to deal with different OS
  • 1.3 Implementation PlotBackendTkAgg
    • 1.3.1 Linux/Default
    • 1.3.2 Windows
• 2. Explore/ensure stable proceedings for backend TkAgg under all OS platforms
  • 2.1 Method Plottable._init_figure()
    • 2.1.1 Get and store the size and position of the window in a local (hidden) file in the user's home directory
    • 2.1.2 Set window title
    • 2.1.3 Force foreground
      • Open question: why does forcing the foreground need a pause of 2000ms while the first plot update brings all windows on top of the screen. What Matplotlib/Tkinter command is needed to flush the foreground command?
    • 2.1.4 Valid control of the matplotlib event-loop (plt.show vs. plt.pause), window refresh, ...
• 3. Extensive validation
  • 3.1 Linux
    • Related howtos and paper examples
    • Versions of matplotlib/numpy
  • 3.2 Windows
    • Related howtos and paper examples
    • Versions of matplotlib/numpy
  • 3.3 MacOS
    • Related howtos and paper examples
    • Versions of matplotlib/numpy
• 4. Update RTD
  • 4.1 Class diagrams and API