Update annotations in Matplotlib using buttons

Question

I am modifying a button example from Matplotlib documentation to add text annotations in the plots. My problem is that i can't find a proper way to update the annotations each time the button is pressed, becose the annotations overlap. I tried remove() method, but is not working.

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.widgets import Button

freqs = np.arange(2, 20, 3)

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
plt.subplots_adjust(bottom=0.2)
t = np.arange(0.0, 1.0, 0.001)
s = np.sin(2*np.pi*freqs[0]*t)
l, = plt.plot(t, s, lw=2)


class Index(object):
    ind = 0

    def next(self, event):
        self.ind += 1
        i = self.ind % len(freqs)
        ydata = np.sin(2*np.pi*freqs[i]*t)
        l.set_ydata(ydata)
        plt.annotate("lalala", (0, 0))
        plt.draw()

    def prev(self, event):
        self.ind -= 1
        i = self.ind % len(freqs)
        ydata = np.sin(2*np.pi*freqs[i]*t)
        l.set_ydata(ydata)
        plt.annotate("lelele", (0.50, 0))
        plt.draw()

callback = Index()
axprev = plt.axes([0.7, 0.05, 0.1, 0.075])
axnext = plt.axes([0.81, 0.05, 0.1, 0.075])
bnext = Button(axnext, 'Next')
bnext.on_clicked(callback.next)
bprev = Button(axprev, 'Previous')
bprev.on_clicked(callback.prev)

plt.show()

Any help would be appreciated.

surce code: http://matplotlib.org/examples/widgets/buttons.html

Answer 1

Unfortunately it's not completely clear, what you are trying to achieve.

You do of course have the option to update an annotation inside the callback class:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.widgets import Button

freqs = np.arange(2, 20, 3)

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
plt.subplots_adjust(bottom=0.2)
t = np.arange(0.0, 1.0, 0.001)
s = np.sin(2*np.pi*freqs[0]*t)
l, = plt.plot(t, s, lw=2)
ann = ax.annotate("", (0, 0))

class Index(object):
    ind = 0

    def next(self, event):
        self.ind += 1
        i = self.ind % len(freqs)
        ydata = np.sin(2*np.pi*freqs[i]*t)
        l.set_ydata(ydata)
        ann.set_text("next clicked")
        ann.set_position((0.6,0.5))
        plt.draw()

    def prev(self, event):
        self.ind -= 1
        i = self.ind % len(freqs)
        ydata = np.sin(2*np.pi*freqs[i]*t)
        l.set_ydata(ydata)
        ann.set_text("previous clicked")
        ann.set_position((0.3,0.5))
        plt.draw()

callback = Index()
axprev = plt.axes([0.7, 0.05, 0.1, 0.075])
axnext = plt.axes([0.81, 0.05, 0.1, 0.075])
bnext = Button(axnext, 'Next')
bnext.on_clicked(callback.next)
bprev = Button(axprev, 'Previous')
bprev.on_clicked(callback.prev)

plt.show()