Path configuration for .chat files

[mvallet91]

Problem

The .chat files are created in the home directory of JupyterLab. It would be nice to be able to specify the path for chat files so users can put them into a chats folder, or admins (for instance using JupyterHub) can store them in a different path to minimize confusion for novice users.

Proposed Solution

Enable configuration or something like a jupyterlab_collaborative_chat_config.py that is processed on startup, where the path can be specified.

[brichet]

Thanks for opening this @mvallet91.

When creating a chat file, you can specify an existing directory in the dialog, like chats/general.chat if the chats directory already exists.
We could add a setting for a default chat directory, and the path would be relative to this directory.

The left panel also provides a list of existing chat files, as a shortcut to open it (in the left panel).
We have deliberately limited the exploration to the root directory, to avoid extra computation if jupyterlab run in a huge file system.
If we provide a setting for a root chats directory, we should probably update also the directory to explore in the left panel.

[mvallet91]

Thank you @brichet.

So, for user-a and user-b to have a collaborative chat, they would have to have the same root directory?

Just to get it right, as I understand it, JupyterHub would start Jupyter in /home/user-a and in /home/user-b, respectively. And currently, they cannot chat since jupyter-chat couldn't read a /home/shared-chats/CHAT1.chat, even if they try to create it with that path. Is that correct? Is there another way for them to have access to the same chat?

[brichet]

There is special case for collaboration in jupyterhub, you need to set up a collaborative server, but I never tried so I can't tell more than that.
https://github.com/jupyterhub/jupyterhub/blob/main/docs/source/tutorial/collaboration-users.md (thanks @trungleduc for the link)

[mvallet91]

Thank you, I'll check it out.