Spyder Python Animation not working

Question

I'm working on a python project using spyder from anaconda and I am trying to get the animation function working.

I found a basic animation example here: http://matplotlib.org/1.4.1/examples/animation/basic_example.html and tried to make it work.

However when I run it, nothing happens both in the Python and iPython console.

I found this answer: Animation from matplotlib not working in spyder However, changing the preferences does not do anything and typing in %matplotlib qt returns: No module named qt4.

Spyder Version: 3.1.0 Running on MacOS Sierra

Answer 1

You need to run

%matplotlib qt5

before running the animation, instead of

%matplotlib qt

because that only works for Qt4.

Answer 2

Thanks everyone for the answers. I found out my error, it was that I forgot to add .py to the file name so Spyder did not recognise them as python files.