drag and drop

This IPython notebook extension allows dragging&dropping images from the desktop or other programs into a notebook. A new markdown cell is created below the currently selected cell and the image is embedded. The notebook has been tested with Firefox and Chrome.

A demo video showing drag&drop of images is here: http://youtu.be/buAL1bTZ73c

Installation

• Copy the file drag-and-drop.js to your /static/custom/ directory of your IPython profile and add

require(['/static/custom/dragdrop/drag-and-drop.js'])

to your custom.js file so it looks like this:

$([IPython.events]).on('app_initialized.NotebookApp', function(){
  //... 
  require(['/static/custom/drag-and-drop.js'])
});

• Configure the port Edit you ipython_notebook_config.py file in your profile to include the line: c.DragDrop.port = 8901

This will tell the websocket server on which port to communicate.

• Start websocket service Add a startup file to you startup directory, called 50-start-drag-and-drop.ipy:

# start websocket server for drag-and-drop extension

drag_and_drop_webport = get_ipython().config['DragDrop']['port']

def start_drag_and_drop():
    c = get_ipython()
    nb_dir = get_ipython().config['FileNotebookManager']['notebook_dir']
    newpath = os.path.normpath(c.config['NotebookApp']['extra_static_paths'][0]+'/custom/dragdrop/')
    sys.path.insert(0, newpath)

    import drag_and_drop
    drag_and_drop.start_server(drag_and_drop_webport, nb_dir)

start_drag_and_drop()

Link: 50-startup-drag-and-drop.ipy

Internals

The image will be uploaded to the server where the notebook is running and into a directory called images. This means, the image is not copied to the notebook itself, it will only be linked to. The markdown cell in the notebook will contain this tag: <img src="http://127.0.0.1:8888/notebooks//images/read_only_ext.png"/>

A websocket server needs to be run on the machine where the IPython notebook server is running, so images can be saved. The server is located in drag_and_drop.py and needs to be called either manually or (ideally) automatically started from the startup directory.