{"action":"created","issue":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/5930","labels_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/5930/labels{/name}","comments_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/5930/comments","events_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/5930/events","html_url":"https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/5930","id":129290090,"number":5930,"title":"Include ability to query status of CheckButtons widget","user":{"login":"DanHickstein","id":1107796,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/1107796?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/DanHickstein","html_url":"https://github.com/DanHickstein","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/DanHickstein/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/DanHickstein/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/DanHickstein/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/DanHickstein/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/DanHickstein/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/DanHickstein/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/DanHickstein/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/DanHickstein/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/DanHickstein/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"labels":[],"state":"open","locked":false,"assignee":null,"milestone":null,"comments":3,"created_at":"2016-01-27T22:27:13Z","updated_at":"2016-01-28T22:10:36Z","closed_at":null,"body":"Similar to the discussion of RadioButtons a few months ago (see [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27784575/get-status-of-matplotlib-radio-button) and [here](https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/pull/3971#issuecomment-69268762)), it seems like there should be an ability to check the status of the check boxes in the [CheckButtons](https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/blob/master/lib/matplotlib/widgets.py#L475) widget. \r\n\r\nA fairly reasonable solution was proposed in this [SO post](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17812938/retrieving-the-selected-values-from-a-checkbuttons-object-in-matplotlib) (answer from user \"Grunby\"), where you can just query the visibility of the lines in each checkbox. It would be fairly easy to implement this as a function within the CheckButtons class, so that users could do something like:\r\n\r\n```python\r\nfrom matplotlib.widgets import CheckButtons\r\ncheck = CheckButtons(ax1, ('a','b','c'), (True, False, True))\r\ncheck.get_status()\r\n```\r\nwhere `get_active()` would return `(True, False, True)` in this case.\r\n\r\nI would be happy to work on a PR. Any thoughts on exactly how this should be implemented or what the function should be called to query the status? \r\n"},"comment":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/comments/176444227","html_url":"https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/5930#issuecomment-176444227","issue_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/5930","id":176444227,"user":{"login":"tacaswell","id":199813,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/199813?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/tacaswell","html_url":"https://github.com/tacaswell","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tacaswell/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tacaswell/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tacaswell/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tacaswell/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tacaswell/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tacaswell/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tacaswell/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tacaswell/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tacaswell/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"created_at":"2016-01-28T22:10:36Z","updated_at":"2016-01-28T22:10:36Z","body":"On the other hand, we know the state (so we can draw it) and it seems annoying to make the users set up a _separate_ set of that that gets updated via callbacks rather that just giving a view of the state we hold."}}