Feature request

Feature summary

The FAQ https://matplotlib.org/faq/howto_faq.html describes a way to make the figure patch transparent, see "Save transparent figures". It would be great to have an option for the matplotlibrc file to always make the figure patch transparent.

Code

As described in the FAQ, the following code makes the figure patch transparent.

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure()
fig.patch.set_alpha(0.0) # set this via rcParams?

I am aware of the rcParams option "savefig.transparent" which makes the figure patch and the axis patch transparent. I only want the figure patch to be transparent, because this looks very nice on slides with a gradient on the background.

Matplotlib version

• Operating System: MacOS
• Matplotlib Version: 2.0.2
• Python Version: 2.7.10