diff --git a/projects/cf-gcdyn.py b/projects/cf-gcdyn.py
index 535aebcdd..b508b01ad 100755
--- a/projects/cf-gcdyn.py
+++ b/projects/cf-gcdyn.py
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@
 args.bool_args = ['dont-scale-params']  # need to keep track of bool args separately (see utils.add_to_scan_cmd())
 if 'data' in args.actions:
     args.data_samples_list = ':'.join(os.path.basename(d) for d in glob.glob('%s/*' % args.data_dir))
-    print('  running on %d data samples from %s' % (len(args.data_samples_list), args.data_dir))
+    print('  running on %d data samples from %s' % (len(args.data_samples_list.split(':')), args.data_dir))
 utils.process_scanvar_args(args, after_actions, plot_actions, all_perf_metrics)
 if args.inference_extra_args is not None:
     raise Exception('not used atm')
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ def add_scan_args(cmd, skip_fcn=None):  # using nargs='+' syntax for these rathe
         if action in ['simu', 'check-dl']:
             cmd += ' --outdir %s --debug 1' % odr  #  --debug 1
             # --make-plots
-            # --tree-inference-method iqtree
+            # cmd += ' --tree-inference-method gctree' #iqtree'
             if args.test:
                 cmd += ' --test'
             cmd = add_scan_args(cmd, skip_fcn=lambda v: v not in args.scan_vars[action] or action=='check-dl' and v not in check_dl_args)
diff --git a/python/hist.py b/python/hist.py
index c53d95e9f..87ae846d6 100644
--- a/python/hist.py
+++ b/python/hist.py
@@ -467,6 +467,8 @@ def mpl_plot(self, ax, ignore_overflows=False, label=None, color=None, alpha=Non
         def sqbplot(kwargs):
             kwargs['markersize'] = 0
             for ibin in self.ibiniter(include_overflows=False):
+                if not keep_bin(self.low_edges[ibin], self.bin_contents[ibin]):  # maybe should use bin centers rather than low edges, i dunno
+                    continue
                 tplt = ax.plot([self.low_edges[ibin], self.low_edges[ibin+1]], [self.bin_contents[ibin], self.bin_contents[ibin]], **kwargs)  # horizontal line for this bin
                 kwargs['label'] = None  # make sure there's only one legend entry for each hist
                 if not no_vertical_bin_lines:
@@ -477,20 +479,6 @@ def sqbplot(kwargs):
             if not no_vertical_bin_lines:
                 tplt = ax.plot([self.low_edges[ibin+1], self.low_edges[ibin+1]], [self.bin_contents[ibin], 0], **kwargs)  # vertical line for right side of last bin
             return tplt  # not sure if this gets used anywhere?
-            # TODO some oldercalls of this may require the following code, so I need to figure shit out
-            print('  %s square_bins option needs to be checked/fixed, it does not work in some cases (seems to eat bins)' % utils.wrnstr())
-            import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
-            if abs(xvals[-1] - xvals[0]) > 5:  # greater/less than five is kind of a shitty way to decide whether to int() and +/- 0.5 or not, but I'm calling it now with a range much less than 1, and I don't want the int()s, but where I call it elsewhere I do and the range is much larger, so...
-                npbins = list(numpy.arange(int(xvals[0]) - 0.5, int(xvals[-1]) - 0.5))
-                npbins.append(npbins[-1] + 1)
-            elif xvals[0] != xvals[-1]:
-                n_bins = len(xvals)  # uh, maybe?
-                npbins = list(numpy.arange(xvals[0], xvals[-1], (xvals[-1] - xvals[0]) / float(n_bins)))
-            else:
-                npbins = [0, 1]
-            kwargs = {k : kwargs[k] for k in kwargs if k not in ['marker', 'markersize']}
-            kwargs['histtype'] = 'step'
-            return plt.hist(xvals, npbins, weights=yvals, **kwargs)
         # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
         if linewidth is not None:  # i'd really rather this wasn't here, but the error message mpl kicks is spectacularly uninformative so you have to catch it beforehand (when writing the svg file, it throws TypeError: Cannot cast array data from dtype('<U1') to dtype('float64') according to the rule 'safe')
             if not isinstance(linewidth, int):