title: is it possible to plot timelines with matplotlib?
body: <p>Im trying to plot dates with values like this csv.</p>
  
  <pre><code>Tue  2 Jun 16:55:51 CEST 2015,3
  Wed  3 Jun 14:51:49 CEST 2015,3
  Fri  5 Jun 10:31:59 CEST 2015,3
  Sat  6 Jun 20:47:31 CEST 2015,3
  Sun  7 Jun 13:58:23 CEST 2015,3
  Mon  8 Jun 14:56:49 CEST 2015,2
  Tue  9 Jun 23:39:11 CEST 2015,1
  Sat 13 Jun 16:55:26 CEST 2015,2
  Sun 14 Jun 15:52:34 CEST 2015,3
  Sun 14 Jun 16:17:24 CEST 2015,3
  Mon 15 Jun 13:23:18 CEST 2015,1
  ...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Im doing something very similar to the first answer here: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25041905/matplotlib-timelines">Matplotlib timelines</a></p>
  
  <p>But is really hard to get a good grasp of the data looking at that kind of visualization. Then I realize that im trying to plot periods and that I dont need a significant y-axis, only x-axis with the dates and the values can be colors</p>
  
  <p>Something like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>---===-===---****
  DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
  
  -=* = type of values (using colors for example, but any representation would do)
  D = dates
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I dont seem to see anything similar looking at the matplotlib examples</p>
  
  <p>colorbars seems like they might work, but not quite, since the axis need to be date intervals
  <a href="http://matplotlib.org/examples/api/colorbar_only.html" rel="noreferrer">http://matplotlib.org/examples/api/colorbar_only.html</a></p>