colorbar values could take advantage of offsetting and/or scientific notation

[anntzer]

Currently, colorbars seem to label their values by simply printing them out (with str). It may be advantageous to use scientific notation and offset the values when needed (like axes do) instead.

Silly example:

from pylab import *; plt.imshow(np.random.rand(32, 32) / 1000); plt.colorbar(); plt.show()

[mdboom]

Colorbars have a formatter like regular axes, so you can tweak this behavior through

c = plt.colorbar()
c.formatter.set_scientific(True)
c.formatter.set_powerlimits((-1, 1))
# etc...

[anntzer]

Fair enough. Consider this a vote for changing the default, then?

[efiring]

I think the default is already the same as for the x-axis and y-axis. In all cases it is the ScalarFormatter with powerlimits of [-7, 7].

[anntzer]

I didn't realize that I tend to have x and y axes of the style "largenumber+[smallnumbers]" (which triggers scientific notation) but colorbars which are all (moderately) large numbers and therefore do not trigger scientific notation. I was confused, my apologies.