Add an 'interface switcher' to the toolbar

[yuvipanda]

Fixes #157

Is how it looks. Can switch to lab or classic.

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[github-actions]

👈 Launch RetroLab on Binder

[yuvipanda]

I also wonder if we should trigger a save of the notebook first? Otherwise you might end up not seeing the proper notebook

[jtpio]

Thanks!

We still depend on nbclassic at the moment:

retrolab/setup.py

Line 90 in 0f7c026

"nbclassic~=0.2",

So there could indeed be an interface switcher like this in the notebook toolbar.

I also wonder if we should trigger a save of the notebook first? Otherwise you might end up not seeing the proper notebook

Sounds good 👍

[jtpio]

Also I'm wondering whether this plugin could actually go in the lab extension package?

https://github.com/jupyterlab/retrolab/blob/main/packages/lab-extension/src/index.ts

Then it would also be available in the JupyterLab UI:

We could then remove the existing RetroLab icon from the notebook toolbar, since this would already be covered by the switch?

[yuvipanda]

@jtpio so if we move it to the labextension, we'll have to determine current setup (lab or retro) and adjust choices accordingly. That seems reasonable, I'll do that instead.

[jtpio]

We could yes, by checking whether there is an IRetroShell or ILabShell (by having them in optional in the plugin).

It would also be fine to have them all show up in both retro and lab to start with.

[yuvipanda]

@jtpio I can't seem to figure out how to test this in lab though :(

[yuvipanda]

I did refactor the code to suck less, and theoretically added code to behave differently when running in lab vs retro. Any idea how I can test it?

[jtpio]

The lab-extension package is a "normal" JupyterLab 3.0 prebuilt extension:

retrolab/setup.py

Lines 28 to 41 in 752e21f

	labext_name = "@retrolab/lab-extension"
	lab_extension_dest = os.path.join(HERE, PACKAGE_NAME, "labextension")
	lab_extension_source = os.path.join(HERE, "packages", "lab-extension")
	# Representative files that should exist after a successful build
	jstargets = [
	os.path.join(lab_extension_dest, "package.json"),
	os.path.join(main_bundle_dest, "bundle.js"),
	]
	package_data_spec = {PACKAGE_NAME: ["*", "templates/*", "static/**"]}
	data_files_spec = [
	("share/jupyter/labextensions/%s" % labext_name, lab_extension_dest, "**"),

So having the interface switcher in that package sounded like it would then be loaded automatically in both retro and lab, since retro also supports loading existing prebuilt JupyterLab extensions.

In that case we shouldn't need to manually include the package in this index.js file.

[jtpio]

Maybe we could also add ILabShell and IRetroShell as optional dependencies for the plugin, and check whether they are null to know if the current interface is a JupyterLab-like or RetroLab-like interface?

[jtpio]

name could indeed be overriden via the page config or directly in JS like here:

https://github.com/jtpio/jupyterlite/blob/a198d902908483f8eea36fecae858cbd14b4a078/app/lab/index.template.js#L176

[jtpio]

Thanks Yuvi for the update 👍

Since the lab-extension package is a prebuild extension for JupyerLab, it should normally be loaded automatically in both interfaces.

For real testing, it would be great to start using end-to-end tools like Galata at some point: #135

[yuvipanda]

Ah, I'll make these changes :) And to clarify, when I said 'I do not know how to test these' I was refering to not being able to get JupyterLab to reflect my changes at all! So I can't actually see if what I did worked...

[jtpio]

It seems to be showing fine in both retro and lab now when testing with the Binder link above:

Although choosing one of the dropdown options doesn't seem to perform the switch.

Need to check, but maybe you need to run python -m pip install -e . every time for the changes to the lab extension to take effect locally. If so then we should definitely improve that workflow and use the jupyter labextension develop command.

[yuvipanda]

@jtpio yay, running pip install -e . worked. The idea is that instead of saying 'Interface' it will show the current interface by default, and selecting another will switch to that.

I'll change the way to detect which UI we are running by using ILabShell instead of the .name

[yuvipanda]

@jtpio gentle bump - anything else needed here?

[jtpio]

Thanks Yuvi for the update.

Checking with the Binder link above, it looks like choosing other interfaces has no effect?

interface-switch-binder.mp4

And it seems to be defaulting to JupyterLab.

[jtpio]

But using the commands from the command palette works fine.

[yuvipanda]

oh interesting - it works for me. I'll investigate it this week.

[jtpio]

@yuvipanda I pushed an update in 3f49eea to show the appropriate notebook toolbar buttons depending on the current interface:

interface-switch-buttons.mp4

Using buttons instead of a dropdown to help simplify the state management.

If you want to try it on Binder:

https://mybinder.org/v2/gh/yuvipanda/retrolab/open-in?urlpath=retro/tree

If it looks good to you we can merge and ship it right after in 0.3.4.

[yuvipanda]

Awesome! This looks great to me, thank you for putting effort into it!!!

[jtpio]

Great, thanks for checking it out!

Let's get it in then, I'll cut 0.3.4 right after.

[jtpio]

https://pypi.org/project/retrolab/0.3.4/