installing inside a virtualenv drops random data into my home folder

[RonnyPfannschmidt]

seriously, wtf - thats a no go

[Lull3rSkat3r]

@RonnyPfannschmidt, what is created in the home folder (Source files, bower components, etc.) ?

[RonnyPfannschmidt]

Afair the bower components
Please avoid overriding the install command, that workflow will be removed from python packaging

[parente]

If it's the JS parts of the extension, we're calling the Jupyter API for installing extensions to get that put in place:

https://github.com/jupyter-incubator/dashboards/blob/master/setup.py#L29

I did just test it in an virtualenv and noticed that it still prefers to write to the user home directory (in a subpath). Even if we stop overriding the install command, that extension method is still going to want to install outside the virtualenv by default, e.g. on Mac:

$ jupyter --paths
config:
    /Users/parente/.jupyter
    /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/etc/jupyter
    /usr/local/etc/jupyter
    /etc/jupyter
data:
    /Users/parente/Library/Jupyter
    /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/share/jupyter
    /usr/local/share/jupyter
    /usr/share/jupyter
runtime:
    /Users/parente/Library/Jupyter/runtime

None of those are the path of my active virtualenv, which is:

$ which python
/Users/parente/.virtualenv/dashboards/bin/python

Sounds like it needs to be opened as a notebook bug to respect the virtual env. Might be some workaround we can do here in the meantime ...

EDIT: Full output of jupyter --paths

[parente]

Notebook ref: jupyter/notebook#331

[parente]

Work is underway to provide a common way of doing nbextension installs and configuration in notebook 4.2: jupyter/notebook#878. Not clear yet if this is going to allow notebook to discover JS extensions and config beyond ~/.jupyter and ~/.local/jupyter or not.

In the meantime, we will:

1. Only install the assets to the proper Python prefix on pip install.
2. Implement a small script like nbgrader, nbsetuptools, and other extensions do to copy/symlink/whatever the JS bits and configuration into the jupyter notebook required locations in the user home (e.g., python -m jupyter_dashboards.install)
3. Implement the equivalent uninstall script python -m jupyter_dashboards.uninstall

At least this way there's no surprises on pip install. It still requires the user to run a command that will put JS and config in a subdir of the user home because that's what notebook requires today.

A side effect of this work will probably be the renaming of the package from the urth moniker we were using before we made the first public release. Otherwise, the steps for the user get darn confusing with pip install jupyter_dashboards; python -m urth.dashboards.install.

[parente]

Implemented the install vs activate separation across various repos:

• Separate extension install from pip install jupyter-incubator/contentmanagement#24
• Separate pip install from extension activation dashboards_bundlers#7
• Separate pip install from extension activation kernel_gateway_bundlers#2

EDIT: also

• Separate pip install from extension install #166
• Separate extension install from pip install declarativewidgets#167

[parente]

@nitind if you could give the new README steps in PR #166 a try and one of the others linked here, that would help. Mostly looking to confirm that (1) it works for someone else and (2) that you can decode the extra steps in the README.

[nitind]

@parente I found PR #166 to have pretty clear instructions for when it's available through pip (that the pip install doesn't also install it into Jupyter takes a moment to think through and understand). It took a bit longer to test with the pull request itself, but I was able to install without automatically activating the extension, and activate and deactivate the extension properly.

[parente]

Thanks for testing @nitind. We'll synchronize a release across all the above real-soon-now.