Implement interact/interactive for widgets

[ellisonbg]

We will implement a high-level interact/interactive API for widgets that have a value attribute and produce output. The different APIs we will support are:

• interact(f, *args, **kwargs) = immediate display
• @interact(*args, **kwargs) = immediate display, identity decorator
• @interact without arguments = used with annotate
• w = interactive(f, *args, **kwargs) = delayed display, return Widget

We also attach f.widget when appropriate. Initial work done in this branch:

https://github.com/ellisonbg/ipython/tree/newinteract

[jasongrout]

@interact without arguments---will that use the default arguments in the function, or just use python 3 annotations?

It's been incredibly convenient in Sage to have default arguments in a function control the widgets. It's a really useful shortcut. Something like:

def interact_default(f):
    args,defaults = inspect.getargspec(f) # pseudo-code here...I don't remember exactly what getargspec returns
    return interact(f, zip(args,defaults))

[ellisonbg]

I like this idea and think it will be possible even without having a
separate API entry point for this. Something like this should work:

def f(x=1, y=2):
    # code goes here...

interact(f)

On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 10:54 AM, Jason Grout notifications@github.comwrote:

@interact https://github.com/interact without arguments---will that use
the default arguments in the function, or just use python 3 annotations?

It's been incredibly convenient in Sage to have default arguments in a
function control the widgets. It's a really useful shortcut. Something like:

def interact_default(f):
args,defaults = inspect.getargspec(f) # pseudo-code here...I don't remember exactly what getargspec returns
return interact(f, zip(args,defaults))

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/4883#issuecomment-33720017
.

Brian E. Granger
Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo
bgranger@calpoly.edu and ellisonbg@gmail.com

[jasongrout]

I agree. I made it a separate function to make it clearer what I was proposing.

Something like this should work too:

@interact
def f(n=(0,10), x=TextWidget('hi')):
    print n, x

and use the current auto-guessing features to make a slider for n and the requested widget for x.