[JOSS] Dependency ncplot is not well documented

[platipodium]

The dependency ncplot is not very well documented. Any suggestions or plans to improve that?

https://ncplot.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html

See https://github.com/openjournals/joss-reviews/issues/5494

[robertjwilson]

I've just checked this. For some reason readthedocs was disliking a notebook. I've replaced the .ipynb file with a .rst file.

https://ncplot.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html

[platipodium]

OK, I see. There is indeed only one API call: view. That simple :=). I guess I was missing information on how to style the plot once it is done with view. That should be documented

• what kind of plot object is created?
• with what API is the plot object to be manipulated?

That's at least what I was wondering when I played around with using nctoolkit to viz some of my own files.

[robertjwilson]

I just noticed the docstring for plot was failing to show on the website. My bad. I've fixed that.

The object created is an hvplot object, though it can be image, quadmesh etc. depending on what kind of data you are dealing with.

I've added something to the doc explaining that. But I need a list of common things people might want to modify, such as log-scales. Having said, the aim of plot is to give something very rough-and-ready, so I try to not focus much on customizations.

[platipodium]

I think your comment in the docs

This is a package that aims to deliver plotting for rapid exploratory analysis, and therefore it does not offer a large number of customizations. However, because it is built on hvplot, you can use most of the customization options available in hvplot, which are detailed here. Arguments such as logz and clim can be passed to plot and will be automatically passed to the hvplot method used.

is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

Now, however, the readthedocs is broken. I'll create a new issue