Jupyterlab Extensions Walkthrough

Development is now happening in https://github.com/jtpio/jupyterlab-extension-examples with the following roadmap:

Update to JupyterLab 1.0
Update existing examples
Add more examples
Move the repo to https://github.com/jupyterlab when ready

Introduction
Prerequesites
1 Hello World: Setting up the development environment
2 Commands and Menus: Extending the main app
- Jupyterlab Commands
- Adding new Menu tabs and items
3 Widgets: Adding new Elements to the Main Window
- A basic tab
- Datagrid: a Fancy Phosphor Widget
4 Kernel Outputs: Simple Notebook-style Rendering
5 Buttons and Signals: Interactions Between Different Widgets
6 Custom Kernel Interactions: Kernel Managment and Messaging

Introduction

This is a short tutorial series about JupyterLab extensions. Jupyterlab can be used as a platform to combine existing data-science components into a new powerful application that can be deployed remotely for many users. Some of the higher level components that can be used are text editors, terminals, notebooks, interactive widgets, filebrowser, renderers for different file formats that provide access to an enormous ecosystem of libraries from different languages.

Prerequesites

Writing an extension is not particularly difficult but requires very basic knowledge of javascript and typescript and potentially Python.

Don't be scared of typescript, I never coded in typescript before I touched JupyterLab but found it easier to understand than pure javascript if you have a basic understanding of object oriented programming and types.

1 Hello World: Setting up the development environment

The template folder structure

Writing a JupyterLab extension usually starts from a configurable template. It can be downloded with the cookiecutter tool and the following command:

cookiecutter https://github.com/JupyterLab/extension-cookiecutter-ts

cookiecutter asks for some basic information that could for example be setup like this:

author_name []: tuto
extension_name [JupyterLab_myextension]: 1_hello_world
project_short_description [A JupyterLab extension.]: minimal lab example
repository [https://github.com/my_name/JupyterLab_myextension]:

The cookiecutter creates the directory 1_hello_world [or your extension name] that looks like this:

1_hello_world/

├── README.md
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── src
│   └── index.ts
└── style
    └── index.css

README.md contains some instructions
package.json contains information about the extension such as dependencies
tsconfig.json contains information for the typescript compilation
src/index.ts this contains the actual code of our extension
style/index.css contains style elements that we can use

What does this extension do? You don't need a PhD in Computer Science to take a guess from the title of this section, but let's have a closer look:

A minimal extension that prints to the browser console

We start with the file src/index.ts. This typescript file contains the main logic of the extension. It begins with the following import section:

import {
  JupyterLab, JupyterLabPlugin
} from '@JupyterLab/application';

import '../style/index.css';

JupyterLab is class of the main Jupyterlab application. It allows us to access and modify some of its main components. JupyterLabPlugin is the class of the extension that we are building. Both classes are imported from a package called @JupyterLab/application. The dependency of our extension on this package is declared in the file package.json:

  "dependencies": {
    "@JupyterLab/application": "^0.16.0"
  },

With this basic import setup, we can move on to construct a new instance of the JupyterLabPlugin class:

const extension: JupyterLabPlugin<void> = {
  id: '1_hello_world',
  autoStart: true,
  activate: (app: JupyterLab) => {
    console.log('JupyterLab extension 1_hello_world is activated!');
  }
};

export default extension;

a JupyterLabPlugin contains a few attributes that are fairly self-explanatory in the case of id and autoStart. The activate attribute links to a function (() => {} notation) that takes one argument app of type JupyterLab and then calls the console.log function that is used to output something into the browser console in javascript. app is simply the main JupyterLab application. The activate function acts as an entry point into the extension and we will gradually extend it to access and modify functionality through the app object.

Our new JupyterLabPlugin instance has to be finally exported to be visible to JupyterLab, which is done with the line export default extension. This brings us to the next point. How can we plug this extension into JupyterLab?

Building and Installing an Extension

Let's look at the README.md file. It contains instructions how our labextension can be installed for development:

For a development install (requires npm version 4 or later), do the following in the repository directory:

npm install
npm run build
jupyter labextension link .

Roughly the first command installs the dependencies that are specified in package.json. Among the dependencies are also all of the JupyterLab components that we want to use in our project, but more about this later. The second step runs the build script. In this step, the typescript code gets converted to javascript using the compiler tsc and stored in a lib directory. Finally, we link the module to JupyterLab.

After all of these steps are done, running jupyter labextension list should now show something like:

   local extensions:
        1_hello_world: [...]/labextension_tutorial/1_hello_world

Now let's check inside of JupyterLab if it works. Run [can take a while]:

jupyter lab --watch

Our extension doesn't do much so far, it just writes something to the browser console. So let's check if it worked. In firefox you can open the console pressing the f12 key. You should see something like:

JupyterLab extension 1_hello_world is activated

Our extension works but it is incredibly boring. Let's modify the source code a bit. Simply replace the activate function with the following lines:

    activate: (app: JupyterLab) => {
        console.log('the main JupyterLab application:');
        console.log(app);
    }

to update the module, we simply need to go into the extension directory and run npm run build again. Since we used the --watch option when starting JupyterLab, we now only have to refresh the JupyterLab website in the browser and should see in the browser console:

Object { _started: true, _pluginMap: {…}, _serviceMap: Map(28), _delegate: {…}, commands: {…}, contextMenu: {…}, shell: {…}, registerPluginErrors: [], _dirtyCount: 0, _info: {…}, … } index.js:12

This is the main application JupyterLab object and we will see how to interact with it in the next sections.

checkout how the core packages of JupyterLab are defined at https://github.com/JupyterLab/JupyterLab/tree/master/packages . Each package is structured similarly to the extension that we are writing. This modular structure makes JupyterLab very adapatable

An overview of the classes and their attributes and methods can be found in the JupyterLab documentation. The @JupyterLab/application module documentation is here and which links to the JupyterLab class. The JupyterLabPlugin is a type alias [a new name] for the type IPlugin. The definition of IPlugin is more difficult to find because it is defined by the phosphor.js library that runs JupyterLab under the hood (more about this later). Its documentation is therefore located on the phosphor.js website.

Click here for the final extension: 1_hello_world

2 Commands and Menus: Extending the main app

For the next extension you can either copy the last folder to a new one or simply continue modifying it. In case that you want to have a new extension, open the file package.json and modify the package name, e.g. into 2_commands_and_menus. The same name changes needs to be done in src/index.ts.

Jupyterlab Commands

Start it with jupyter lab --watch. In this extension, we are going to add a command to the application command registry and expose it to the user in the command palette. The command palette can be seen when clicking on Commands on the left hand side of Jupyterlab. The command palette can be seen as a list of actions that can be executed by JupyterLab. (see screenshot below).

Extensions can provide a bunch of functions to the JupyterLab command registry and then expose them to the user through the command palette or through a menu item.

Two types play a role in this: the CommandRegistry type (documentation) and the command palette interface ICommandPalette that is imported with:

import {
  ICommandPalette
} from '@JupyterLab/apputils';

To see how we access the applications command registry and command palette open the file src/index.ts.

const extension: JupyterLabPlugin<void> = {
    id: '2_commands_and_menus',
    autoStart: true,
    requires: [ICommandPalette],
    activate: (
        app: JupyterLab,
        palette: ICommandPalette) =>
    {
        const { commands } = app;

        let command = 'labtutorial';
        let category = 'Tutorial';

        commands.addCommand(command, {
            label: 'New Labtutorial',
            caption: 'Open the Labtutorial',
            execute: (args) => {console.log('Hey')}});

        palette.addItem({command, category});
    }
};

export default extension;

The CommandRegistry is an attribute of the main JupyterLab application (variable app in the previous section). It has an addCommand method that adds our own function. The ICommandPalette (documentation) is passed to the activate function as an argument (variable palette) in addition to the JupyterLab application (variable app). We specify with the property requires: [ICommandPalette], which additional arguments we want to inject into the activate function in the JupyterLabPlugin. ICommandPalette provides the method addItem that links a palette entry to a command in the command registry. Our new plugin code then becomes:

When this extension is build (and linked if necessary), JupyterLab looks like this:

Adding new Menu tabs and items

Adding new menu items works in a similar way. The IMainMenu interface can be passed as a new argument two the activate function, but first it has to be imported. The Menu class is imported from the phosphor library on top of which JupyterLab is built, and that will be frequently encountered when developing JupyterLab extensions:

import {
  IMainMenu
} from '@JupyterLab/mainmenu';

import {
  Menu
} from '@phosphor/widgets';

We add the IMainMenu in the requires: property such that it is injected into the activate function. The Extension is then changed to:

const extension: JupyterLabPlugin<void> = {
    id: '2_commands_and_menus',
    autoStart: true,
    requires: [ICommandPalette, IMainMenu],
    activate: (
        app: JupyterLab,
        palette: ICommandPalette,
        mainMenu: IMainMenu) =>
    {
        const { commands } = app;
        let command = 'labtutorial';
        let category = 'Tutorial';
        commands.addCommand(command, {
            label: 'New Labtutorial',
            caption: 'Open the Labtutorial',
            execute: (args) => {console.log('Hey')}});
        palette.addItem({command, category});

        let tutorialMenu: Menu = new Menu({commands});

        tutorialMenu.title.label = 'Tutorial';
        mainMenu.addMenu(tutorialMenu, {rank: 80});
        tutorialMenu.addItem({ command });
    }
};

export default extension;

In this extension, we have added the dependencies JupyterLab/mainmenu and phosphor/widgets. Before it builds, this dependencies have to be added to the package.json file:

  "dependencies": {
    "@JupyterLab/application": "^0.16.0",
    "@JupyterLab/mainmenu": "*",
    "@phosphor/widgets": "*"
  }

we can then do

npm install
npm run build

to rebuild the application. After a browser refresh, the JupyterLab website should now show:

[ps:

for the build to run, the tsconfig.json file might have to be updated to:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "declaration": true,
    "noImplicitAny": true,
    "noEmitOnError": true,
    "noUnusedLocals": true,
    "module": "commonjs",
    "moduleResolution": "node",
    "target": "ES6",
    "outDir": "./lib",
    "lib": ["ES6", "ES2015.Promise", "DOM"],
    "types": []
  },
  "include": ["src/*"]
}

]

Click here for the final extension 2_commands_and_menus

3 Widgets: Adding new Elements to the Main Window

Finally we are going to do some real stuff and add a new tab to JupyterLab. Visible elements such as a tab are represented by widgets in the phosphor library that is the basis of the JupyterLab application.

A basic tab

The base widget class can be imported with:

import {
    Widget
} from '@phosphor/widgets';

A Widget can be added to the main area through the main JupyterLab applicationapp.shell. Inside of our previous activate function, this looks like this:

    activate: (
        app: JupyterLab,
        palette: ICommandPalette,
        mainMenu: IMainMenu) =>
    {
        const { commands, shell } = app;
        let command = 'ex3:labtutorial';
        let category = 'Tutorial';
        commands.addCommand(command, {
            label: 'Ex3 command',
            caption: 'Open the Labtutorial',
            execute: (args) => {
                const widget = new TutorialView();
                shell.addToMainArea(widget);}});
        palette.addItem({command, category});

        let tutorialMenu: Menu = new Menu({commands});

        tutorialMenu.title.label = 'Tutorial';
        mainMenu.addMenu(tutorialMenu, {rank: 80});
        tutorialMenu.addItem({ command });
    }

The custom widget TutorialView is straight-forward as well:

class TutorialView extends Widget {
    constructor() {
        super();
        this.addClass('jp-tutorial-view')
        this.id = 'tutorial'
        this.title.label = 'Tutorial View'
        this.title.closable = true;
    }
}

Note that we have used a custom css class that is defined in the file style/index.css as:

.jp-tutorial-view {
    background-color: AliceBlue;
}

Our custom tab can be started in JupyterLab from the command palette and looks like this:

Click here for the final extension: 3_widgets

Datagrid: a Fancy Phosphor Widget

Now let's do something a little more advanced. Jupyterlab is build on top of Phosphor.js. Let's see if we can plug this phosphor example into JupyterLab.

We start by importing the Panel widget and the DataGrid and DataModel classes from phosphor:

import {
    Panel
} from '@phosphor/widgets';

import {
  DataGrid, DataModel
} from '@phosphor/datagrid';

The Panel widget can hold several sub-widgets that are added with its .addWidget method. DataModel is a class that provides the data that is displayed by the DataGrid widget.

With these three classes, we adapt the TutorialView as follows:

class TutorialView extends Panel {
    constructor() {
        super();
        this.addClass('jp-tutorial-view')
        this.id = 'tutorial'
        this.title.label = 'Tutorial View'
        this.title.closable = true;

        let model = new LargeDataModel();
        let grid = new DataGrid();
        grid.model = model;

        this.addWidget(grid);
    }
}

That's rather easy. Let's now dive into the DataModel class that is taken from the official phosphor.js example. The first few lines look like this:

class LargeDataModel extends DataModel {

  rowCount(region: DataModel.RowRegion): number {
    return region === 'body' ? 1000000000000 : 2;
  }

  columnCount(region: DataModel.ColumnRegion): number {
    return region === 'body' ? 1000000000000 : 3;
  }

While it is fairly obvious that rowCount and columnCount are supposed to return some number of rows and columns, it is a little more cryptic what the RowRegion and the ColumnRegion input arguments are. Let's have a look at their definition in the phosphor.js source code:

export
type RowRegion = 'body' | 'column-header';

/**
 * A type alias for the data model column regions.
 */
export
type ColumnRegion = 'body' | 'row-header';

/**
 * A type alias for the data model cell regions.
 */
export
type CellRegion = 'body' | 'row-header' | 'column-header' | 'corner-header';

The meaning of these lines might be obvious for experienced users of typescript or Haskell. The | can be read as or. This means that the RowRegion type is either body or column-header, explaining what the rowCount and columnCount functions do: They define a table with 2 header rows, with 3 index columns, with 1000000000000 rows and 1000000000000 columns.

The remaining part of the LargeDataModel class defines the data values of the datagrid. In this case it simply displays the row and column index in each cell, and adds a letter prefix in case that we are in any of the header regions:

  data(region: DataModel.CellRegion, row: number, column: number): any {
    if (region === 'row-header') {
      return `R: ${row}, ${column}`;
    }
    if (region === 'column-header') {
      return `C: ${row}, ${column}`;
    }
    if (region === 'corner-header') {
      return `N: ${row}, ${column}`;
    }
    return `(${row}, ${column})`;
  }
}

Let's see how this looks like in Jupyterlab:

Click here for the final extension: 3b_datagrid

4 Kernel Outputs: Simple Notebook-style Rendering

In this extension we will see how initialize a kernel, and how to execute code and how to display the rendered output. We use the OutputArea class for this purpose that Jupyterlab uses internally to render the output area under a notebook cell or the output area in the console.

Essentially, OutputArea will renders the data that comes as a reply to an execute message that was sent to an underlying kernel. Under the hood, the OutputArea and the OutputAreaModel classes act similar to the KernelView and KernelModel classes that we have defined ourselves before. We therefore get rid of the model.ts and widget.tsx files and change the panel class to:

Reorganizing the extension code

Since our extension is growing bigger, we begin by splitting our code into more managable units. Roughly we can see three larger components of our application:

the JupyterLabPlugin that activates all extension components and connects them to the main Jupyterlab application via commands, launcher, or menu items.
a Panel that combines different widgets into a single application

We split these components in the two files:

src/
├── index.ts
└── panel.ts

Let's go first through panel.ts. This is the full Panel class that displays starts a kernel, then sends code to it end displays the returned data with the jupyter renderers:

export
class TutorialPanel extends StackedPanel {
    constructor(manager: ServiceManager.IManager, rendermime: RenderMimeRegistry) {
        super();
        this.addClass(PANEL_CLASS);
        this.id = 'TutorialPanel';
        this.title.label = 'Tutorial View'
        this.title.closable = true;

        let path = './console';

        this._session = new ClientSession({
            manager: manager.sessions,
            path,
            name: 'Tutorial',
        });

        this._outputareamodel = new OutputAreaModel();
        this._outputarea = new SimplifiedOutputArea({ model: this._outputareamodel, rendermime: rendermime });

        this.addWidget(this._outputarea);
        this._session.initialize();
    }

    dispose(): void {
        this._session.dispose();
        super.dispose();
    }

    public execute(code: string) {
        SimplifiedOutputArea.execute(code, this._outputarea, this._session)
            .then((msg: KernelMessage.IExecuteReplyMsg) => {console.log(msg); })
    }

    protected onCloseRequest(msg: Message): void {
        super.onCloseRequest(msg);
        this.dispose();
    }

    get session(): IClientSession {
        return this._session;
    }

    private _session: ClientSession;
    private _outputarea: SimplifiedOutputArea;
    private _outputareamodel: OutputAreaModel;
}

Initializing a Kernel Session

The first thing that we want to focus on is the ClientSession that is stored in the private _session variable:

private _session: ClientSession;

A ClientSession handles a single kernel session. The session itself (not yet the kernel) is started with these lines:

        let path = './console';

        this._session = new ClientSession({
            manager: manager.sessions,
            path,
            name: 'Tutorial',
        });

A kernel is initialized with this line:

        this._session.initialize();

In case that a session has no predefined favourite kernel, a popup will be started that asks the user which kernel should be used. Conveniently, this can also be an already existing kernel, as we will see later.

The following three methods add functionality to cleanly dispose of the session when we close the panel, and to expose the private session variable such that other users can access it.

    dispose(): void {
        this._session.dispose();
        super.dispose();
    }

    protected onCloseRequest(msg: Message): void {
        super.onCloseRequest(msg);
        this.dispose();
    }

    get session(): IClientSession {
        return this._session;
    }

OutputArea and Model

The SimplifiedOutputArea class is a Widget, as we have seen them before. We can instantiate it with a new OutputAreaModel (this is class that contains the data that will be shown):

        this._outputareamodel = new OutputAreaModel();
        this._outputarea = new SimplifiedOutputArea({ model: this._outputareamodel, rendermime: rendermime });

SimplifiedOutputArea provides the classmethod execute that basically sends some code to a kernel through a ClientSession and that then displays the result in a specific SimplifiedOutputArea instance:

    public execute(code: string) {
        SimplifiedOutputArea.execute(code, this._outputarea, this._session)
            .then((msg: KernelMessage.IExecuteReplyMsg) => {console.log(msg); })
    }

The SimplifiedOutputArea.execute function receives at some point a response message from the kernel which says that the code was executed (this message does not contain the data that is displayed). When this message is received, .then is executed and prints this message to the console.

We just have to add the SimplifiedOutputArea Widget to our Panel with:

        this.addWidget(this._outputarea);

and we are ready to add the whole Panel to Jupyterlab.

asynchronous extension initialization

index.ts is responsible to initialize the extension. We only go through the changes with respect to the last sections.

First we reorganize the extension commands into one unified namespace:

namespace CommandIDs {
    export
    const create = 'Ex7:create';

    export
    const execute = 'Ex7:execute';
}

This allows us to add commands from the command registry to the pallette and menu tab in a single call:

    // add items in command palette and menu
    [
        CommandIDs.create,
        CommandIDs.execute
    ].forEach(command => {
        palette.addItem({ command, category });
        tutorialMenu.addItem({ command });
    });

Another change is that we now use the manager to add our extension after the other jupyter services are ready. The serviceManager can be obtained from the main application as:

    const manager = app.serviceManager;

to launch our application, we can then use:

    let panel: TutorialPanel;

    function createPanel() {
        return manager.ready
            .then(() => {
                panel = new TutorialPanel(manager, rendermime);
                return panel.session.ready})
            .then(() => {
                shell.addToMainArea(panel);
                return panel});
    }

Make it Run

Let's for example display the variable df from a python kernel that could contain a pandas dataframe. To do this, we just need to add a command to the command registry in index.ts

    command = CommandIDs.execute
    commands.addCommand(command, {
        label: 'Ex7: show dataframe',
        caption: 'show dataframe',
        execute: (args) => {panel.execute('df')}});

and we are ready to see it. The final extension looks like this:

Click here for the final extension: 4a_outputareas

Jupyter-Widgets: Adding Interactive Elements

A lot of advanced functionality in Jupyter notebooks comes in the form of jupyter widgets (ipython widgets). Jupyter widgets are elements that have one representation in a kernel and another representation in the JupyterLab frontend code. Imagine having a large dataset in the kernel that we want to examine and modify interactively. In this case, the frontend part of the widget can be changed and updates synchronously the kernel data. Many other widget types are available and can give an app-like feeling to a Jupyter notebook. These widgets are therefore ideal component of a JupyterLab extension.

We show in this extension how the ipywidget qgrid can be integrated into JupyterLab. As a first step, install ipywidgets and grid. It should work in a similar way with any other ipywidget.

(These are the commands to install the ipywidgets with anaconda:

conda install -c conda-forge ipywidgets
conda install -c conda-forge qgrid
jupyter labextension install @jupyter-widgets/JupyterLab-manager
jupyter labextension install qgrid

)

Before continuing, test if you can (a) open a notebook, and (b) see a table when executing these commands in a cell:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import qgrid
df = pd.DataFrame(np.arange(25).reshape(5, 5))
qgrid.show_grid(df)

If yes, we can check out how we can include this table in our own app. Similar to the previous Extension, we will use the OutputArea class to display the widget. Only some minor adjustments have to be made to make it work.

The first thing is to understand the nature of the jupyter-widgets JupyterLab extension (called jupyterlab-manager). As this text is written (26/6/2018) it is a document extension and not a general extension to JupyterLab. This means it provides extra functionality to the notebook document type and not the the full Jupyterlab app. The relevant lines from the jupyter-widgets source code that show how it registers its renderer with Jupyterlab are the following:

export
class NBWidgetExtension implements INBWidgetExtension {
  /**
   * Create a new extension object.
   */
  createNew(nb: NotebookPanel, context: DocumentRegistry.IContext<INotebookModel>): IDisposable {
    let wManager = new WidgetManager(context, nb.rendermime);
    this._registry.forEach(data => wManager.register(data));
    nb.rendermime.addFactory({
      safe: false,
      mimeTypes: [WIDGET_MIMETYPE],
      createRenderer: (options) => new WidgetRenderer(options, wManager)
    }, 0);
    return new DisposableDelegate(() => {
      if (nb.rendermime) {
        nb.rendermime.removeMimeType(WIDGET_MIMETYPE);
      }
      wManager.dispose();
    });
  }

  /**
   * Register a widget module.
   */
  registerWidget(data: base.IWidgetRegistryData) {
    this._registry.push(data);
  }
  private _registry: base.IWidgetRegistryData[] = [];
}

The createNew method of NBWidgetExtension takes a NotebookPanel as input argument and then adds a custom mime renderer with the command nb.rendermime.addFactory to it. The widget renderer (or rather RenderFactory) is linked to the WidgetManager that stores the underlying data of the jupyter-widgets. Unfortunately, this means that we have to access jupyter-widgets through a notebook because its renderer and WidgetManager are attached to it.

To access the current notebook, we can use an INotebookTracker in the plugin's activate function:

const extension: JupyterLabPlugin<void> = {
    id: '6_ipywidgets',
    autoStart: true,
    requires: [ICommandPalette, INotebookTracker, ILauncher, IMainMenu],
    activate: activate
};


function activate(
    app: JupyterLab,
    palette: ICommandPalette,
    tracker: INotebookTracker,
    launcher: ILauncher,
    mainMenu: IMainMenu)
{
    [...]

We then pass the rendermime registry of the notebook (the one that has the jupyter-widgets renderer added) to our panel:

    function createPanel() {
        let current = tracker.currentWidget;
        console.log(current.rendermime);

        return manager.ready
            .then(() => {
                panel = new TutorialPanel(manager, current.rendermime);
                return panel.session.ready})
            .then(() => {
                shell.addToMainArea(panel);
                return panel});
    }

Finally we add a command to the registry that executes the code widget that displays the variable widget in which we are going to store the qgrid widget:

    let code = 'widget'
    command = CommandIDs.execute
    commands.addCommand(command, {
        label: 'Ex8: show widget',
        caption: 'show ipython widget',
        execute: () => {panel.execute(code)}});

To render the Output we have to allow the OutputAreaModel to use non-default mime types, which can be done like this:

        this._outputareamodel = new OutputAreaModel({ trusted: true });

The final output looks is demonstrated in the gif below. We also show that we can attach a console to a kernel, that shows all executed commands, including the one that we send from our Extension.

Click here for the final extension: 4b_jupyterwidgets

5 Buttons and Signals: Interactions Between Different Widgets

Phosphor Signaling 101

In this extension, we are going to add some simple buttons to the widget that trigger the panel to print something to the console. Communication between different components of JupyterLab are a key ingredient in building an extension. Jupyterlab's phosphor engine uses the ISignal interface and the Signal class that implements this interface for communication (documentation).

The basic concept is the following: A widget, in our case the one that contains some visual elements such as a button, defines a signal and exposes it to other widgets, as this _stateChanged signal:

    get stateChanged(): ISignal<TutorialView, void> {
        return this._stateChanged;
    }

    private _stateChanged = new Signal<TutorialView, void>(this);

Another widget, in our case the panel that boxes several different widgets, subscribes to the stateChanged signal and links some function to it:

[...].stateChanged.connect(() => { console.log('changed'); });

The function is executed when the signal is triggered with

_stateChanged.emit(void 0)

Let's see how we can implement this ...

A simple react button

We start with a file called src/widget.tsx. The tsx extension allows to use XML-like syntax with the tag notation <>to represent some visual elements (note that you might have to add a line: "jsx": "react", to the tsconfig.json file).

widget.tsx contains one major class TutorialView that extends the VDomRendered class that is provided by Jupyterlab. VDomRenderer defines a render() method that defines some html elements (react) such as a button.

TutorialView further contains a private variable stateChanged of type Signal. A signal object can be triggered and then emits an actual message. Other Widgets can subscribe to such a signal and react when a message is emitted. We configure one of the buttons onClick event to trigger the stateChangedsignal with_stateChanged.emit(void 0)`:

export
class TutorialView extends VDomRenderer<any> {
    constructor() {
        super();
        this.id = `TutorialVDOM`
    }

    protected render(): React.ReactElement<any>[] {
        const elements: React.ReactElement<any>[] = [];
        elements.push(
            <button
                key='header-thread'
                className="jp-tutorial-button"
                onClick={() => {this._stateChanged.emit(void 0)}}>
            Clickme
            </button>
            );
        return elements;
    }

    get stateChanged(): ISignal<TutorialView, void> {
        return this._stateChanged;
    }

    private _stateChanged = new Signal<TutorialView, void>(this);
}

subscribing to a signal

The panel.ts class defines an extension panel that displays the TutorialView widget and that subscribes to its stateChanged signal. Subscription to a signal is done using the connect method of the stateChanged attribute. It registers a function (in this case () => { console.log('changed'); } that is triggered when the signal is emitted:

export
class TutorialPanel extends StackedPanel {
    constructor() {
        super();
        this.addClass(PANEL_CLASS);
        this.id = 'TutorialPanel';
        this.title.label = 'Tutorial View'
        this.title.closable = true;

        this.tutorial = new TutorialView();
        this.addWidget(this.tutorial);
        this.tutorial.stateChanged.connect(() => { console.log('changed'); });
    }

    private tutorial: TutorialView;
}

The final extension writes a little changed text to the browser console when a big red button is clicked. It is not very spectacular but the signaling is conceptualy important for building extensions. It looks like this:

Click here for the final extension: 5_signals_and_buttons

6 Custom Kernel Interactions: Kernel Managment and Messaging

One of the main features of JupyterLab is the possibility to manage and interact underlying compute kernels. In this section, we explore how to start a kernel and execute a simple command on it.

Component Overview

In terms of organization of this app, we want to have these components:

index.ts: a JupyterLabPlugin that initializes the plugin and registers commands, menu tabs and a launcher
panel.ts: a panel class that is responsible to initialize and hold the kernel session, widgets and models
model.ts: a KernelModel class that is responsible to execute code on the kernel and to store the execution result
widget.tsx: a KernelView class that is responsible to provide visual elements that trigger the kernel model and display its results

The KernelView displays the KernelModel with some react html elements and needs to get updated when KernelModel changes state, i.e. retrieves a new execution result. Jupyterlab provides a two class model for such classes, a VDomRendered that has a link to a VDomModel and a render function. The VDomRendered listens to a stateChanged signal that is defined by the VDomModel. Whenever the stateChanged signal is emitted, the VDomRendered calls its render function again and updates the html elements according to the new state of the model.

Initializing and managing a kernel session (`panel.ts`)

Jupyterlab provides a class ClientSession (documentation) that manages a single kernel session. Here are the lines that we need to start a kernel with it:

        this._session = new ClientSession({
            manager: manager.sessions,
            path,
            name: 'Tutorial',
        });
        this._session.initialize();

well, that's short, isn't it? We have already seen the manager class that is provided directly by the main JupyterLab application. path is a link to the path under which the console is opened (?).

With these lines, we can extend the panel widget from 7_signals_and_buttons to intialize a kernel. In addition, we will initialize a KernelModel class in it and overwrite the dispose and onCloseRequest methods of the StackedPanel (documentation) to free the kernel session resources if the panel is closed. The whole adapted panel class looks like this:

export
class TutorialPanel extends StackedPanel {
    constructor(manager: ServiceManager.IManager) {
        super();
        this.addClass(PANEL_CLASS);
        this.id = 'TutorialPanel';
        this.title.label = 'Tutorial View'
        this.title.closable = true;

        let path = './console';

        this._session = new ClientSession({
            manager: manager.sessions,
            path,
            name: 'Tutorial',
        });

        this._model = new KernelModel(this._session);
        this._tutorial = new TutorialView(this._model);

        this.addWidget(this._tutorial);
        this._session.initialize();
    }

    dispose(): void {
        this._session.dispose();
        super.dispose();
    }

    protected onCloseRequest(msg: Message): void {
        super.onCloseRequest(msg);
        this.dispose();
    }

    get session(): IClientSession {
        return this._session;
    }

    private _model: KernelModel;
    private _session: ClientSession;
    private _tutorial: TutorialView;
}

Executing code and retrieving messages from a kernel (`model.ts`)

Once a kernel is initialized and ready, code can be executed on it through the ClientSession class with the following snippet:

        this.future = this._session.kernel.requestExecute({ code });

Without getting too much into the details of what this future is, let's think about it as an object that can receive some messages from the kernel as an answer on our execution request (see jupyter messaging). One of these messages contains the data of the execution result. It is published on a channel called IOPub and can be identified by the message types execute_result, display_data and update_display_data.

Once such a message is received by the future object, it can trigger an action. In our case, we just store this message in this._output and then emit a stateChanged signal. As we have explained above, our KernelModel is a VDomModel that provides this stateChanged signal that can be used by a VDomRendered. It is implemented as follows:

export
class KernelModel extends VDomModel {
    constructor(session: IClientSession) {
        super();
        this._session = session;
    }

    public execute(code: string) {
        this.future = this._session.kernel.requestExecute({ code });
    }

    private _onIOPub = (msg: KernelMessage.IIOPubMessage) => {
        let msgType = msg.header.msg_type;
        switch (msgType) {
            case 'execute_result':
            case 'display_data':
            case 'update_display_data':
                this._output = msg.content as nbformat.IOutput;
                console.log(this._output);
                this.stateChanged.emit(undefined);
            default:
                break;
        }
        return true
    }

    get output(): nbformat.IOutput {
        return this._output;
    }

    get future(): Kernel.IFuture {
        return this._future;
    }

    set future(value: Kernel.IFuture) {
        this._future = value;
        value.onIOPub = this._onIOPub;
    }

    private _output: nbformat.IOutput = null;
    private _future: Kernel.IFuture = null;
    private _session: IClientSession;
}

Connecting a View to the Kernel

The only remaining thing left is to connect a View to the Model. We have already seen the TutorialView before. To trigger the render function of a VDomRendered on a stateChanged signal, we just need to add our VDomModel to this.model in the constructor. We can then connect a button to this.model.execute and a text field to this.model.output and our extension is ready:

export
class KernelView extends VDomRenderer<any> {
    constructor(model: KernelModel) {
        super();
        this.id = `TutorialVDOM`
        this.model = model
    }

    protected render(): React.ReactElement<any>[] {
        console.log('render');
        const elements: React.ReactElement<any>[] = [];
        elements.push(
            <button key='header-thread'
            className="jp-tutorial-button"
            onClick={() => {this.model.execute('3+5')}}>
            Compute 3+5</button>,

            <span key='output field'>{JSON.stringify(this.model.output)}</span>
        );
        return elements;
    }
}

How does it look like

Well that's nice, the basics are clear, but what about this weird output object? In the next extensions, we will explore how we can reuse some jupyter components to make things look nicer...

Click here for the final extension: 6_kernel_messages

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 75 Commits
1_hello_world		1_hello_world
2_commands_and_menus		2_commands_and_menus
3a_widgets		3a_widgets
3b_datagrid		3b_datagrid
4a_kernel_output		4a_kernel_output
4b_jupyterwidgets		4b_jupyterwidgets
5_signals_and_buttons		5_signals_and_buttons
6_kernel_messaging		6_kernel_messaging
7_serving_files		7_serving_files
images		images
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md

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Jupyterlab Extensions Walkthrough

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Prerequesites

1 Hello World: Setting up the development environment

The template folder structure

A minimal extension that prints to the browser console

Building and Installing an Extension

2 Commands and Menus: Extending the main app

Jupyterlab Commands

Adding new Menu tabs and items

3 Widgets: Adding new Elements to the Main Window

A basic tab

Datagrid: a Fancy Phosphor Widget

4 Kernel Outputs: Simple Notebook-style Rendering

Reorganizing the extension code

Initializing a Kernel Session

OutputArea and Model

asynchronous extension initialization

Make it Run

Jupyter-Widgets: Adding Interactive Elements

5 Buttons and Signals: Interactions Between Different Widgets

Phosphor Signaling 101

A simple react button

subscribing to a signal

6 Custom Kernel Interactions: Kernel Managment and Messaging

Component Overview

Initializing and managing a kernel session (panel.ts)

Executing code and retrieving messages from a kernel (model.ts)

Connecting a View to the Kernel

How does it look like

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Initializing and managing a kernel session (`panel.ts`)

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