Folks, We tagged the first beta for v2.0.0 tonight. Please check out the new defaults! This is tagged as a beta because we anticipate a longer than normal release cycle. The style changes are substantial and we want to make sure that we have not crippled any common use cases. The target for the final release around scipy. A build of the docs is available at http://matplotlib.org/2.0.0b1 Preview conda packages are available via conda install -c conda-forge/label/rc -c conda-forge matplotlib pre-release packages should be on pypi tomorrow. Brief release notes: This previews the new default style and many bug-fixes. A full list of the style changes will be collected for the final release. In addition to the style change this release includes: - overhaul of font handling/text rendering to be faster and clearer - many new rcParams - Agg based OSX backend - optionally deterministic SVGs - complete re-write of image handling code - simplified color conversion - specify colors in the global property cycle via `'C0'`, `'C1'`... `'C9'` - use the global property cycle more places (bar, stem, scatter) There is a 'classic' style sheet which reproduces the 1.Y defaults: import matplotlib.style as mstyle mstyle.use('classic') A big thank you to everyone who worked on this release. Tom