Tabbed window for matplotlib figures, is it possible?

The backend you choose to use for matplotlib controls how each figure is displayed. Some backends just render figures to file, while others like the tk, qt, or gtk backends render figures in graphical windows. Those backends determine what functionality those GUI windows have.

The existing backends don't support the type of tabbed navigation you're looking for. Someone else here implemented this using Qt4.

You might also try writing your own report files with PDF or HTML which would let you more easily write more complex image arrangements with simpler libraries.

I wrote a simple wrapper for matplotlib that does something like you're describing. You need pyqt5 for it to work though.

Here is the code, you build a plotWindow object and feed it figure handles. It'll create a new tab for each figure.

import matplotlib
# prevent NoneType error for versions of matplotlib 3.1.0rc1+ by calling matplotlib.use()
# For more on why it's nececessary, see
# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59656632/using-qt5agg-backend-with-matplotlib-3-1-2-get-backend-changes-behavior
matplotlib.use('qt5agg')

from matplotlib.backends.backend_qt5agg import FigureCanvasQTAgg as FigureCanvas
from matplotlib.backends.backend_qt5agg import NavigationToolbar2QT as NavigationToolbar
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QMainWindow, QApplication, QWidget, QTabWidget, QVBoxLayout
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import sys

class plotWindow():
    def __init__(self, parent=None):
        self.app = QApplication(sys.argv)
        self.MainWindow = QMainWindow()
        self.MainWindow.__init__()
        self.MainWindow.setWindowTitle("plot window")
        self.canvases = []
        self.figure_handles = []
        self.toolbar_handles = []
        self.tab_handles = []
        self.current_window = -1
        self.tabs = QTabWidget()
        self.MainWindow.setCentralWidget(self.tabs)
        self.MainWindow.resize(1280, 900)
        self.MainWindow.show()

    def addPlot(self, title, figure):
        new_tab = QWidget()
        layout = QVBoxLayout()
        new_tab.setLayout(layout)

        figure.subplots_adjust(left=0.05, right=0.99, bottom=0.05, top=0.91, wspace=0.2, hspace=0.2)
        new_canvas = FigureCanvas(figure)
        new_toolbar = NavigationToolbar(new_canvas, new_tab)

        layout.addWidget(new_canvas)
        layout.addWidget(new_toolbar)
        self.tabs.addTab(new_tab, title)

        self.toolbar_handles.append(new_toolbar)
        self.canvases.append(new_canvas)
        self.figure_handles.append(figure)
        self.tab_handles.append(new_tab)

    def show(self):
        self.app.exec_()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import numpy as np

    pw = plotWindow()

    x = np.arange(0, 10, 0.001)

    f = plt.figure()
    ysin = np.sin(x)
    plt.plot(x, ysin, '--')
    pw.addPlot("sin", f)

    f = plt.figure()
    ycos = np.cos(x)
    plt.plot(x, ycos, '--')
    pw.addPlot("cos", f)
    pw.show()

This is also posted at: https://github.com/superjax/plotWindow

Hopefully this could be a good starting point for your application.