title: Manipulate xticks, need every second xtick to just be the decimal and smaller font
body: <p>So, as a beginner python user, I can not even BEGIN to work out how to do this. It is very difficult to search for help online, as it just turns up lots of junk results. </p>
  
  <p>But basically I have a plot where the xticks look like:
  <code>14.0, 14.5, 15.0, 15.5, 16.0, 16.5, ... etc</code> and I would like to have it instead looking like
  <code>14, .5, 15, .5, 16, .5, ...</code> </p>
  
  <p>That is, every 'whole number' displays as an integer, and every .5 increment is listed only as .5 (or 0.5 if that is too tough) and has a smaller font.</p>
  
  <p>I hope this is as challenging as my mind is making it out to be!</p>
  
  <p><strong>Whoever answers this shall be forever known as the greatest py-zard of the decade!</strong></p>
  
  <p>oh a little more info: my xmin and xmax are non integer so I am using
  <code>xticks(np.arange(np.ceil(xmin),np.ceil(xmax),0.5))</code></p>