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General

Development

General

Welcome to the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for the JupyterLab Beta Release Series.

What is JupyterLab?

JupyterLab is a new user interface for Project Jupyter, allowing users to arrange multiple Jupyter notebooks, file editors, terminals, output areas, etc. on a single page with multiple panels and tabs in one integrated application. While JupyterLab looks like an IDE (Integrated Development Environment), it remains focused on the core Jupyter experience of interactive computing with data.

In addition to the Jupyter Notebook, JupyterLab offers multiple models of interactive computing, including a scratchpad-like Code Console and the ability to attach kernels to any text file. JupyterLab has built-in support for many common file and output formats (CSV, PDF, Vega, Vega-Lite, Markdown, JSON, VDOM, PNG, JPEG, HTML, etc.).

The codebase and user-interface of JupyterLab is based on a flexible extension system that makes it easy to extend with new functionality.

What new features does JupyterLab offer?

JupyterLab offers a number of features beyond the classic Jupyter Notebook. Here are a few of them you may want to try out:

  • Arrange multiple notebooks, terminals, text files, etc. in the application using drag and drop.
  • Run code interactively outside of a notebook in the Code Console, and connect one to a text file.
  • Right click on a markdown file and “Open with” a live markdown viewer.
  • Double click on CSV files to view them as a nicely formatted table.
  • Drag and drop notebook cells within a notebook or between notebooks.

See the JupyterLab Documentation for more detailed information about these and other features.

How stable is JupyterLab?

This Beta version of JupyterLab is ready for you to use! Starting with this release, the JupyterLab Beta series of releases are characterized by:

  • Stable and featureful enough for daily usage.
  • Most of the commonly used features in the classic notebook are implemented.
  • Developer APIs that are approaching stability but still undergoing significant changes.

Early in 2018, we will release the 1.0 version of JupyterLab that will provide additional UI/UX improvements, features, and API stability. At that point, JupyterLab should be a full featured replacement for the classic notebook - and go far beyond its capabilities. Between now and then we will release a series of beta releases, all of which should be stable for daily usage.

What will happen to the classic Jupyter Notebook?

JupyterLab is intended to be a full replacement for the classic Jupyter Notebook. Because of this, our plan is to gradually retire the classic Jupyter Notebook. However, we will support the classic notebook for a signifciant period of time to help users and extension authors through this transition. It is important to note that the notebook server and the notebook document format is unchanged during this transition.

Where is the documentation for JupyterLab?

The JupyterLab Documentation can be found on ReadTheDocs.

Development

How can you report a bug or provide feedback?

If you find a bug or want to provide feedback, please open an issue on our GitHub Issues page.

How can you contribute?

We welcome other developers and designers to contribute to JupyterLab. Development of JupyterLab takes place on our GitHub Repository. To get started with development, please have a look at our Contributing Guide or chat with us on our Gitter Channel.

JupyterLab is a part of Project Jupyter and follows the Jupyter Code of Conduct.

How can you extend or customize JupyterLab?

JupyterLab consists entirely of JupyterLab Extensions, which are NPM packages that utilize the public JupyterLab APIs. You can develop your own custom extensions that use these APIs to extend the functionality of JupyterLab. Examples of possible extensions include:

  • Custom renderers/viewers/editors for specific file types.
  • Renderers for custom output types in the notebook.
  • Entirely new user interfaces for working with data that utilize JupyterLab's layout, command palette and integrate in various ways with our core extensions (notebooks, code consoles, etc.).

To start developing your own JupyterLab extension, please have a look at: