Introducing the Jupyter Notebook

What is it?

An open-source web application that allows you to create and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations and explanatory text.

The "document", aka "notebook", is composed of Code and Markdown cells, which you interact with using Command and Edit mode.

Command mode

Show keyboard shortcuts: h
Move up and down: j/Down and k/Up
Insert cell above or below: a or b
Run cell: Shift+Enter
Save: S
Switch to Edit mode: Enter

Markdown cells

We're already using these!

Code cells

Similar to running Python from the command line, but each one is a mini-editor with syntax highlighting, auto-indent, and more.

Autocomplete: Tab
Help: Shift+Tab (repeat for more)
Run cell: Shift+Enter
Switch to Command mode: Esc



In [1]:

    
hello = 'Hello, {}!'
who = input('Who? ')
hello.format(who)









    



Who? Django Boston






    Out[1]:





'Hello, Django Boston!'



In [ ]:

IPython?

IPython is a powerful replacement for the standard Python shell, which spawned the IPython Notebook. Eventually, the developers extracted the language-independent features of notebook web application to create the Jupyter Notebook. This "Big Split" occurred almost 2 years ago, but you'll still find lots of references to IPython in documentation and examples.

IPython still serves as the backend (aka "kernel") for running Python code in the Notebook
"Jupyter" is an amalgamation of "Julia", "Python", and "R", which were the most popular languages used with the Notebook.

Getting started with Django

Django Extensions makes this easy. From within your virtual environment:

(venv)$ pip install django-extensions jupyter
(venv)$ cd /path/to/notebooks
(venv)$ /path/to/manage.py shell_plus --notebook

This will start the Notebook server, then open the Notebook Dashboard in your default web browser. The Dashboard lists the contents of the directory, and provides tools for starting and managing individual notebooks.

Open an existing notebook by clicking on a .ipynb file
Create a new notebook by selecting "Django Shell-Plus" from the "New" menu in the upper-right corner.

NOTE: There's a known issue with manage.py shell_plus --notebook for users who want to use the Notebook with multiple Django projects. Hopefully there will be a fix or a documented alternative soon.



In [ ]: