JupyterLab

This post explains how to install and configure JupyterLab.

Installation

If you are using virtual environments it's preferable to install JupyterLab outside a virtual environment and add them later as kernels.

JupyterLab can be installed from pip:

pip3 instal jupyterlab

Then launch it with the following command:

jupyter-lab

If you are used to using tmux, you can run JupyterLab in the background with the following command:

# launch tmux session in the background
tmux new -d -s jupyter "jupyter-lab --no-browser"

# attach to the session when you want to
tmux attach-session -t jupyter

Attaching kernels

Python virtual environment kernel

Kernels in JupyterLab are installed exactly like in regular Jupyter Notebooks.

We are going to create a first kernel based on Python 3 and we are going to name it "Python (data-science)".

# create virtual env based on python3
virtualenv data-science -p python3

# activate it
source data-science/bin/activate

# install ipykernel within it
pip install ipykernel

# install the kernel into jupyter and give it a display name
python -m ipykernel install --user --name data-science --display-name "Python (data-science)"

Julia kernel

You can use JupyterLab with other languages than Python, like Julia.

# install IJulia package (within Julia interpreter)
Pkg.add("IJulia")

Now reload JupyterLab and you should see that a new Julia kernel appeared.

JupyterLab extensions

We can add widgets to JupyterLab, for instance:

Extensions can be installed from the command line by using the jupyter-labextension command. All these commands must be run outside of any virtual environment (use the same python in which you installed jupyterlab).

Table of contents

This widget generates a table of content from your notebook.

Install it with:

jupyter-labextension install @jupyterlab/toc

You'll see a new tab appear, when you click on it, it'll show the table of content. The sections are automatically created based on the markdown sections. Note that you can either enable automatic numbering or not.

Git:

If you're tired of running back and forth between your terminal and Jupyter Lab to commit your code, consider this extension that brings a Git interface to Jupyter Lab.

Install it with:

pip3 install jupyterlab-git
jupyter-labextension install @jupyterlab/git

As usual, a new tab appears that lets you commit & push directly from JupyterLab.

Latex

Use this plugin if you wish to use Jupyter Lab for compiling Latex documents.

Install it with:

pip3 install jupyterlab_latex
jupyter-labextension install @jupyterlab/latex

Now when you are editing a Latex file, a right click on the document will show an option that lets you render the file to pdf.

Templates

Sometimes you might feel like you always copy paste the same lines of code at the beginning of a new notebook. If you are, consider using notebook templates with this plugin.

Install it with:

pip3 install jupyterlab_templates
jupyter labextension install jupyterlab_templates
jupyter serverextension enable --py jupyterlab_templates

Then you will see a new "Template" icon next to your kernels. If you click on it, you will be asked which template you want to use, and it will create a notebook based on this template. You can create your own templates by saving notebooks in the template directory. You also get to choose which directory the plugin will pick the templates from.