provide mean to retrieve static data path

[juliantaylor]

currently the html conversion of nbconvert does not work with with the debian ipython package.
the debian package places the static data into usr/share to share it between python2 and 3, but nbconvert searches for boilerplate.css in the ipython installation path (usr/lib or IPython.utils.path.get_ipython_package_dir)

To solve this a way should be added to query from the installation where the static data is located without having to start a full notebookapp.
This can then be patched by packagers to return the correct value.

an issue might be when users replace part of the static path with to provide customized notebook and want that represented in nbconverts html export. Can custom paths be retrieved without starting a notebookapp?

[minrk]

@juliantaylor does #2932 fix this well enough?

[juliantaylor]

yes seems it to work with nbconvert (after fixing html.py for the new css layout, see 9d59d16 )

but it doesn't deal with users changing the static path in their configuration
It may make sense to ignore that as it probably brings in a lot extra complexity

[minrk]

I don't think we need to support that - if a user is setting a custom path, they may need to set it in more than one place.

[Carreau]

It would be great to expose it outside of notebookapp as to get it you need to import nbookapp which require pyzmq. It seem a little silly to require pyzmq just to be able to get a path... (found through nbviewer which uses nbconvert)

[minrk]

Try #3105

[minrk]

for 1.0, this will be:

from IPython.html import DEFAULT_STATIC_FILES_PATH