Can we avoid "jupyterlab-jupytext needs to be included in build" ?

[mwouts]

When we start Binder (#257), or more generally the first time we use Jupytext in Jupyter Lab, we get this message:

Probably we could avoid that by building the extension in a more adequate way, cf. jupyterlab/jupyterlab#4995.

[choldgraf]

I believe this is now fixed since the labextension install is part of postBuild now, no?

[mwouts]

I believe this is now fixed since the labextension install is part of postBuild now, no?

That's correct. But I think Jupyter Lab users still get this message the first time they start Jupyter Lab after having installed Jupytext. According to jupyterlab/jupyterlab#4995 I would say we can fix that. I care all the more that I am planning to update the extension - it's just a minor update, so I would be annoyed if everyone needs to rebuild the extension themselves...

[choldgraf]

ahh - I thought you meant in binder

[mwouts]

I have not yet found a solution for that. Take for instance the latest RC:

pip install jupytext==1.1.7rc0

Then, unless we rebuild Jupyter Lab explicitly with

jupyter lab build

we get a similar message saying that the content of jupyterlab-jupytext have changed.

When the Lab is build, the files in the extension are deployed in a static folder in share/jupyter/lab. Maybe I could try to install these files with setup.py rather than deploying the .tgz extension... At least this is what is suggested here.

I also found that the subject of offline extension install in JupyterLab is discussed here:
jupyterlab/jupyterlab#2065.

[mwouts]

@blink1073 , I am trying to find a way to bundle a jupyterlab extension with my python package that would not require to rebuild JupyterLab after install.

Could you please tell me what you think of installing the extension files in share\jupyter\lab\static directly in my setup.py ?

[choldgraf]

@mwouts maybe a post in the jupyterlab section of the community forum would find help?

[mwouts]

Sure, we could do that. But maybe I'd prefer to gain a bit more experience first, and at least test what is the outcome of installing to share\jupyter\lab\static (if that works, I could publish another release candidate so that we can try that approach on a few different configurations). Also I see that two days ago I had inserted an extra space in @blink1073's id, so he probably did not get any notice for our question yet, sorry...

[blink1073]

Hi @mwouts! There is currently no way to do what you're seeking, until something like jupyterlab/jupyterlab#2065 is implemented. Extensions can only ship their own package contents. The dependencies are fetched at build time and a single cohesive webpack bundle is created on the user's machine. I opened jupyterlab/jupyterlab#6693 as a prompt to document this better for 1.0.

[mwouts]

Thank you so much @blink1073 . That's very clear - and at least now I'm sure not to do anything sub-optimal.

Consequently I will sync the next releases of the jupyterlab extensions with minor releases of the python package (the next one being 1.2.0). The need to rebuild will be less of a surprise to the user.