using mpatches.Patch for a custom legend
Setting the legend's background color can be done using the
facecolor
argument toplt.legend()
,plt.legend(facecolor="plum")
To obtain a circular shaped legend handle, you may use a standard plot with a circular marker as proxy artist,
plt.plot([],[], marker="o", ms=10, ls="")
Complete example:
import matplotlib.patches as mpatches
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
colors = ["g", "w"]
texts = ["Green Data Description", "RedData Description"]
patches = [ plt.plot([],[], marker="o", ms=10, ls="", mec=None, color=colors[i],
label="{:s}".format(texts[i]) )[0] for i in range(len(texts)) ]
plt.legend(handles=patches, bbox_to_anchor=(0.5, 0.5),
loc='center', ncol=2, facecolor="plum", numpoints=1 )
plt.show()
(Note that mec
and numpoints
arguments are only required for older versions of matplotlib)
For more complicated shapes in the legend, you may use a custom handler map, see the legend guide or e.g. this answer as an example
As the other answers did not work for me, I am adding an answer that is super simple and straight forward:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
handles = []
for x in colors:
handles.append(plt.Line2D([], [], color=x, marker="o", linewidth=0))
You can adjust marker size and whatever else you want (maybe a star etc) and the linewidth removes the line to leave you with only the marker. Works perfectly and is super simple!
Even simpler:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
handles = [(plt.Line2D([], [], color=x, marker="o", linewidth=0)) for x in colors]
Try this:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.patches as mpatches
from matplotlib.legend_handler import HandlerPatch
colors = ["g", "w"]
texts = ["Green Data Description", "RedData Description"]
class HandlerEllipse(HandlerPatch):
def create_artists(self, legend, orig_handle,
xdescent, ydescent, width, height, fontsize, trans):
center = 0.5 * width - 0.5 * xdescent, 0.5 * height - 0.5 * ydescent
p = mpatches.Ellipse(xy=center, width=width + xdescent,
height=height + ydescent)
self.update_prop(p, orig_handle, legend)
p.set_transform(trans)
return [p]
c = [ mpatches.Circle((0.5, 0.5), 1, facecolor=colors[i], linewidth=3) for i in range(len(texts))]
plt.legend(c,texts,bbox_to_anchor=(0.5, 0.5), loc='center', ncol=2, handler_map={mpatches.Circle: HandlerEllipse()}).get_frame().set_facecolor('#00FFCC')
plt.show()
output:
Update:
To circle, set width equals to height, in mpatches.Ellipse
Remove the outer black line, set edgecolor="none"
in mpatches.Circle
code:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.patches as mpatches
from matplotlib.legend_handler import HandlerPatch
colors = ["g", "w"]
texts = ["Green Data Description", "RedData Description"]
class HandlerEllipse(HandlerPatch):
def create_artists(self, legend, orig_handle,
xdescent, ydescent, width, height, fontsize, trans):
center = 0.5 * width - 0.5 * xdescent, 0.5 * height - 0.5 * ydescent
p = mpatches.Ellipse(xy=center, width=height + xdescent,
height=height + ydescent)
self.update_prop(p, orig_handle, legend)
p.set_transform(trans)
return [p]
c = [ mpatches.Circle((0.5, 0.5), radius = 0.25, facecolor=colors[i], edgecolor="none" ) for i in range(len(texts))]
plt.legend(c,texts,bbox_to_anchor=(0.5, 0.5), loc='center', ncol=2, handler_map={mpatches.Circle: HandlerEllipse()}).get_frame().set_facecolor('#00FFCC')
plt.show()
New Picture: