Question: I'm writing a simple Python application that uses matplotlib to display a few figures on screen. The number of figures generated is based on user input and changes throughout the application's life. The user has the ability to issue a "plot" command to generate a new figure window with the selected data series. In order to improve the user experience, I would like to provide another command that would programmatically arrange all open figure windows in some convenient arrangement (e.g. tile them across the available screen space).

I believe to have found APIs that allow me to adjust the size of the figure window (in pixels), but haven't had any success in finding a way to set their absolute position on screen. Is there a way to do this without delving into the details of whatever backend is in use? I would like to do this in a backend-agnostic way so I can avoid relying upon implementation details that might change in the future.

Answer: 
For Qt4Agg, this worked for me.

```
fig = figure()
fig.canvas.manager.window.move(0,0)

```

Tested on Win7, mpl version 1.4.2, python 2.7.5
```
'''This is a way to resize the window to a given fraction of the screen.
It uses the screenSize in pixels. User specifies the fx and fy fraction
of the sreen or just a fraction. Couldn't fine how to really position the
window though. No hints in the current figmanager could be found.
But of course, this could be combined with mgr.canvas.move()

'''

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
#pylab

def screenPos(f):
   '''reset window on screen to size given by fraction f
   where f may by a scalar or a tuple, and where all values
   are 0<=f<=1
   '''
   if type(f)==float: f=(f,) # assert we have a tuple
   mgr = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
   mgr.full_screen_toggle() # primitive but works
   py = mgr.canvas.height()
   px = mgr.canvas.width()
   mgr.resize(f[0]*px,f[-1]*py)
   return f[0]*px,f[-1]*py

px,py = screenPos(0.8)

```