Improved color conversion API and RGBA support ¶ The colors gained a new color conversion API with full support for the alpha channel. The main public functions are is_color_like() , matplotlib.colors.to_rgba() , matplotlib.colors.to_rgba_array() and to_hex() . RGBA quadruplets are encoded in hex format as #rrggbbaa . A side benefit is that the Qt options editor now allows setting the alpha channe