Matplotlib text transparency

Question

I was wondering if it is possible to change the transparency of a text in Matplotlib. set_alpha does not function and in the documentation I couldn't find anything relevant. Are there may be any workarounds?

I want to connect it to a pick_event.

EDIT: I was actually trying to change the transparency of a legend-text. Although I tried to solve the issue with set_alpha, I have overseen that I was trying to modify the transparency of a list and hence I couldn't succeed. To sum up, as can be seen from answers, the transparency can be modified with set_alpha

Answer 1

You can set alpha when using annotate to add the text to your figure.

Before:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(1, 1, 1)

ax.annotate("TESTING", xy=(.5, .5), xytext=(.5, .5))

plt.show()

After:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(1, 1, 1)

text = ax.annotate("TESTING", xy=(.5, .5), xytext=(.5, .5))

text.set_alpha(.4)

plt.show()

Answer 2

If you want to set alpha on the legend text, you should have said so:

ax.plot([1,2,3], [4,5,6], label='Null')
leg = ax.legend()

# print dir(leg) # inspection
for _txt in leg.texts:
    _txt.set_alpha(0.3)

Side note: Because I can never remember where exactly to find things in the mpl docs, I inspected the legend object. Attribute texts sounded useful.