Chapter 11. Jupyter Labs

In this chapter, we will cover the following recipes:

• Installing and starting JupyterLab
• JupyterLab display
• JupyterLab menus
• Starting a Notebook
• Starting a console

Introduction

JupyterLab is the next generation of Jupyter. The idea is to try new features of Jupyter in a lab environment where some features may be dropped.

There are many familiar and new components available in Jupyter with JupyterLab.

JupyterLab features

JupyterLab has all the features of Jupyter plus the following:

• Drag-and-drop reordering of cells within a Notebook and across Notebooks
• The ability to run native code text files; for example, sample.r
• Working interactively between a cell and a kernel to speed up development of notebooks
• Expanding view inline capabilities for other graphical formats
• A large number of extensions to Jupyter for custom graphical interfaces applicable to a Notebook

Installing and starting JupyterLab

This recipe will show you how to install JupyterLab. After installing JupyterLab, we will take a look at how to start it to create your own Jupyter Notebook.

How to do it...

JupyterLab can be installed and started as shown in the following sections:

Installing JupyterLab

You can install JupyterLab using any of the typical install tools. For example, using conda, the command would be:

conda install -c conda-forge jupyterlab

Starting JupyterLab

• Again, this is a familiar invocation, as shown in the following code:

jupyter lab

• This will bring up a command window that has some familiar aspects but with slightly different information than what we have seen with Jupyter:

JupyterLab display

We can see several points of interest in the display:

• We are running JupyterLab versus Jupyter
• The code is installed as part of Anaconda
• New information: 0 active kernels, so we have the idea of multiple kernels running simultaneously
• We see the URL to use if we want to use token authentication (as described in the previous chapter)
• Then, there are several invocation lines as I moved around to different Notebooks in the system

How to do it...

1. Now for something completely different: the JupyterLab display. Once the application starts, we open a new browser window, shown as follows:

2. The initial display (which is configurable) looks very different to Jupyter, as shown in the preceding screenshot.
3. We have the screen split in two (this can be configured for more).
4. The left panel is the familiar directory display we have seen before. Note that we are seeing filenames rather than the titles applied to the Notebooks.
5. The right panel (also known as Launcher) is broken up into three sections...

JupyterLab menus

This recipe will walk us through the different menus available once we start our JupyterLab.

How to do it...

1. There are additional menus and menu items available, as shown in the following screenshot:

• 

2. The File menu includes the following:

• • New: This creates a new console, Notebook, text file, or terminal window
  • New Launcher: Opens another launcher window
  • New View: We can now have different views of the same Notebook—completely configurable
  • New Console for Activity: Another console window
  • Close Launcher: Closes the launcher
  • Close and Shutdown: Menu item versus Ctrl + C in the console window where Jupyter starts
  • Close All: Closes all the programs that are running
  • Save options: This option is used to save the Notebook
  • Revert to Saved: Notebooks are stored with checkpoints that can be recovered
  • Rename...: To rename the Notebook that is running
  • Trust Notebook: As mentioned in the previous chapter
  • Export Notebook As...: Familiar options to export the Notebook into a variety of formats:
    • HTML
    • LaTeX...

Starting a Notebook

With the help of this recipe, you will learn how to start your own Notebook.

How to do it...

1. Double-clicking on a Notebook in the file display panel will start the Notebook in a new tab in the center portion of the screen, as shown in the following picture:

2. Note that the Notebook takes another tab in the center display area. Otherwise, it looks very familiar. There is a vertical bar alongside each cell of the Notebook. To the right of the tab (not shown) is the Notebook engine in use by this Notebook.

Starting a console

With the help of the following ways, you can start the console:

• If we were to select a New Console from the File menu or from the initial center display, we would see a tab taken up by the corresponding engine. For example, the Python console is shown in the following screenshot:

• I think this display change is a great step forward for Jupyter.