Issue
I have a special key (q) mapped to close the current figure. Using matplotlib 1.4.3 I can not close the current figure with this keymap and under the backend MacOSX. Specifically when I press the q key the keypress is sent to the shell instead.
I am currently on OSX Yosemite. My quick fix was to choose a different backed, Qt4Agg.
In my matplotlibrc file I have keymap.quit : q
Related issues
I am currently unsure if this has been fixed in the bleeding edge version of mpl. I have tested mpl-1.4.3 under a virtualenv and get the same results.