Appmode

A Jupyter extensions that turns notebooks into web applications.

Try it live

Click the binder badge to try it live without installing anything. This will take you directly to the "app" version of the notebook.

Installation

If you use conda, you can install it as:

conda install --channel conda-forge appmode

If you use pip, you can install it as:

pip install appmode
jupyter nbclassic-extension enable --py --sys-prefix appmode
jupyter server    extension enable --py --sys-prefix appmode

If you want to use mybinder add the following environment.yml file to your repository:

channels:
  - conda-forge
dependencies:
  - appmode

Description

Appmode consist of a server-side and a notebook extension for Jupyter. Together these two extensions provide the following features:

• One can view any notebook in appmode by clicking on the Appmode button in the toolbar. Alternatively one can change the url from baseurl/notebooks/foo.ipynb to baseurl/apps/foo.ipynb. This also allows for direct links into appmode.

• When a notebook is opened in appmode, all code cells are automatically executed. In order to present a clean UI, all code cells are hidden and the markdown cells are read-only.

• A notebook can be opened multiple times in appmode without interference. This is achieved by creating temporary copies of the notebook for each active appmode view. Each appmode view has its dedicated ipython kernel. When an appmode page is closed the kernel is shutdown and the temporary copy gets removed.

• To allow for passing information between notebooks via url parameters, the current url is injected into the variable jupyter_notebook_url.

Server Side Configuration

Appmode adds the following configuration options:

• Appmode.trusted_path Run only notebooks below this path in Appmode. Default: No restrictions.
• Appmode.show_edit_button Show Edit App button during Appmode. Default: True.
• Appmode.show_other_buttons Show other buttons, e.g. Logout, during Appmode. Default: True.
• Appmode.temp_dir Create temp notebooks under this directory. Default: Same directory as current notebook

Writing hidden files is by default disabled in newer versions of Jupyter. To allow Appmode to hide its temporary notebook copies the option ContentsManager.allow_hidden has to be set:

jupyter notebook --ContentsManager.allow_hidden=True

Client Side Customization

The UI elements of Appmode can be customized via the custom.js file. Some examples are:

$('#appmode-leave').hide();                          // Hides the edit app button.
$('#appmode-busy').hide();                           // Hides the kernel busy indicator.
$('#appmode-loader').append('<h2>Loading...</h2>');  // Adds a loading message.

Beware that hiding the edit button does not prevent users from leaving Appmode by changing the URL manually.

Development

With the included Dockerfile a development environment can be quickly created:

1. Install Docker.
2. git clone this repository
3. docker build --tag appmode_dev ./
4. docker run --init -ti -p127.0.0.1:8888:8888 appmode_dev
5. Browse to http://localhost:8888/apps/example_app.ipynb

Acknowledgements

Appmode has been developed with the support of the NCCR MARVEL funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.