[Matplotlib-users] protect figure with gui-neutral widgets

Hi all,

I have been using backend-neutral matplotlib (0.99) widgets to implement
a simple GUI control, which can be opened from IPython pylab session.
The widgets are all contained in a dedicated figure, however if this
figure is the current one, pyplot commands draw through the widget
elements.

Is there any option to lock a matplotlib figure and thus protect it
from pyplot commands?  If not, are there any plans to add such
function?  I think this would surely make the matplotlib widgets more
useful.

Thank you,

Pavol

PS: Actually, the built-in subplot_tool function seems to suffer from
    the same issue - here is an example which draws a line through the
    Reset button:

$ ipython -pylab
In [1]: subplot_tool()
# click any slider
In [2]: plot(range(2))