add a little detail to custom repr method docs

- explicitly state the return type, rather than only via example
- give some examples of PNG, HTML
- note that formatters shouldn't be sensitive to other formats

docs/source/config/integrating.rst

@@ -1,173 +1,185 b''
 .. _integrating:
 
 =====================================
 Integrating your objects with IPython
 =====================================
 
 Tab completion
 ==============
 
 To change the attributes displayed by tab-completing your object, define a
 ``__dir__(self)`` method for it. For more details, see the documentation of the
 built-in `dir() function <http://docs.python.org/library/functions.html#dir>`_.
 
 You can also customise key completions for your objects, e.g. pressing tab after
 ``obj["a``. To do so, define a method ``_ipython_key_completions_()``, which
 returns a list of objects which are possible keys in a subscript expression
 ``obj[key]``.
 
 .. versionadded:: 5.0
    Custom key completions
 
 .. _integrating_rich_display:
 
 Rich display
 ============
 
 Custom methods
 ----------------------
+
 IPython can display richer representations of objects.
-To do this, you can define ``_ipython_display_()``, or any of a number of 
-``_repr_*_()`` methods. 
+To do this, you can define ``_ipython_display_()``, or any of a number of
+``_repr_*_()`` methods.
 Note that these are surrounded by single, not double underscores.
 
+
 .. list-table:: Supported ``_repr_*_`` methods
    :widths: 20 15 15 15
    :header-rows: 1
-   
+
    * - Format
      - REPL
      - Notebook
      - Qt Console
    * - ``_repr_pretty_``
      - yes
      - yes
      - yes
    * - ``_repr_svg_``
      - no
      - yes
      - yes
    * - ``_repr_png_``
      - no
      - yes
      - yes
    * - ``_repr_jpeg_``
      - no
      - yes
      - yes
    * - ``_repr_html_``
      - no
      - yes
      - no
    * - ``_repr_javascript_``
      - no
      - yes
      - no
    * - ``_repr_markdown_``
      - no
      - yes
      - no
    * - ``_repr_latex_``
      - no
      - yes
      - no
    * - ``_repr_mimebundle_``
      - no
      - ?
      - ?
 
-If the methods don't exist, or return ``None``, the standard ``repr()`` is used.
+If the methods don't exist, the standard ``repr()`` is used.
+If a method exists and returns ``None``, it is treated the same as if it does not exist.
+In general, *all* available formatters will be called when an object is displayed,
+and it is up to the UI to select which to display.
+A given formatter should not generally change its output based on what other formats are available -
+that should be handled at a different level, such as the :class:`~.DisplayFormatter`, or configuration.
+
+``_repr_*_`` methods should *return* data of the expected format and have no side effects.
+For example, ``_repr_html_`` should return HTML as a `str` and ``_repr_png_`` should return PNG data as `bytes`.
+
+If you wish to take control of display via your own side effects, use ``_ipython_display_()``.
 
 For example::
 
     class Shout(object):
         def __init__(self, text):
             self.text = text
-        
+
         def _repr_html_(self):
             return "<h1>" + self.text + "</h1>"
 
 
 Special methods
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
 Pretty printing
 """""""""""""""
 
 To customize how your object is pretty-printed, add a ``_repr_pretty_`` method
-to the class. 
+to the class.
 The method should accept a pretty printer, and a boolean that indicates whether
 the printer detected a cycle.
 The method should act on the printer to produce your customized pretty output.
 Here is an example::
 
     class MyObject(object):
 
         def _repr_pretty_(self, p, cycle):
             if cycle:
                 p.text('MyObject(...)')
             else:
                 p.text('MyObject[...]')
 
 For details on how to use the pretty printer, see :py:mod:`IPython.lib.pretty`.
 
 More powerful methods
 """""""""""""""""""""
 
 .. class:: MyObject
 
    .. method:: _repr_mimebundle_(include=None, exclude=None)
 
      Should return a dictionary of multiple formats, keyed by mimetype, or a tuple
      of two dictionaries: *data, metadata* (see :ref:`Metadata`).
      If this returns something, other ``_repr_*_`` methods are ignored.
-     The method should take keyword arguments ``include`` and ``exclude``, though 
+     The method should take keyword arguments ``include`` and ``exclude``, though
      it is not required to respect them.
 
    .. method:: _ipython_display_()
 
       Displays the object as a side effect; the return value is ignored. If this
       is defined, all other display methods are ignored.
       This method is ignored in the REPL.
 
 
 Metadata
 ^^^^^^^^
 
 We often want to provide frontends with guidance on how to display the data. To
 support this, ``_repr_*_()`` methods (except ``_repr_pretty_``?) can also return a ``(data, metadata)``
 tuple where ``metadata`` is a dictionary containing arbitrary key-value pairs for
 the frontend to interpret. An example use case is ``_repr_jpeg_()``, which can
 be set to return a jpeg image and a ``{'height': 400, 'width': 600}`` dictionary
 to inform the frontend how to size the image.
 
 
 
 Formatters for third-party types
 --------------------------------
 
 The user can also register formatters for types without modifying the class::
 
     from bar.baz import Foo
 
     def foo_html(obj):
         return '<marquee>Foo object %s</marquee>' % obj.name
 
     html_formatter = get_ipython().display_formatter.formatters['text/html']
     html_formatter.for_type(Foo, foo_html)
 
     # Or register a type without importing it - this does the same as above:
     html_formatter.for_type_by_name('bar.baz', 'Foo', foo_html)
 
 Custom exception tracebacks
 ===========================
 
 Rarely, you might want to display a custom traceback when reporting an
 exception. To do this, define the custom traceback using
 `_render_traceback_(self)` method which returns a list of strings, one string
 for each line of the traceback. For example, the `ipyparallel
 <https://ipyparallel.readthedocs.io/>`__ a parallel computing framework for
 IPython, does this to display errors from multiple engines.
 
 Please be conservative in using this feature; by replacing the default traceback
 you may hide important information from the user.