Skip to main content

Use the IPython notebook as an interactive Markdown editor

Project description

[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/rossant/ipymd.svg?branch=travis)](https://travis-ci.org/rossant/ipymd)
[![Coverage Status](https://coveralls.io/repos/rossant/ipymd/badge.svg)](https://coveralls.io/r/rossant/ipymd)

# Replace .ipynb with .md in the IPython Notebook

The goal of ipymd is to replace `.ipynb` notebook files like:

```json
{
"cells": [
{
"cell_type": "markdown",
"source": [
"Here is some Python code:"
]
},
{
"cell_type": "code",
"outputs": [
{
"name": "stdout",
"output_type": "stream",
"text": [
"Hello world!\n"
]
}
],
"source": [
"print(\"Hello world!\")"
]
}
...
]
}
```

with:

Here is some Python code:

```python
>>> print("Hello world!")
Hello world!
```

The JSON `.ipynb` are removed from the equation, and the conversion happens on the fly. The IPython Notebook becomes an interactive Markdown text editor!

A drawback is that you lose prompt numbers and images (for now).

This is useful when you write technical documents, blog posts, books, etc.

![image](https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/1942359/5570181/f656a484-8f7d-11e4-8ec2-558d022b13d3.png)

## Installation

1. Install ipymd:

To install the latest release version:

```shell
pip install ipymd
```

Alternatively, to install the development version:

```shell
pip install git+https://github.com/rossant/ipymd
```

2. **Optional:**
To interact with `.ipynb` files:

```shell
pip install jupyter ipython
```

To interact with `.odt` files:

```shell
pip install git+https://github.com/eea/odfpy
```

3. Open your `jupyter_notebook_config.py`. Here's how to find it:


```
jupyter notebook --generate-config # generate a default config file
jupyter --config-dir # find out the path to the config file
```

4. Add the following in `jupyter_notebook_config.py`:

```python
c.NotebookApp.contents_manager_class = 'ipymd.IPymdContentsManager'
```

5. Now, you can open `.md` files in the Notebook.

## Why?

### IPython Notebook

Pros:

* Excellent UI for executing code interactively *and* writing text

Cons:

* `.ipynb` not git-friendly
* Cannot easily edit in a text editor
* Cannot easily edit on GitHub's web interface


### Markdown

Pros:

* Simple ASCII/Unicode format to write code and text
* Can easily edit in a text editor
* Can easily edit on GitHub's web interface
* Git-friendly

Cons:

* No UI to execute code interactively


### ipymd

All pros of IPython Notebook and Markdown, no cons!


## How it works

* Write in Markdown in `document.md`
* Either in a text editor (convenient when working on text)
* Or in the Notebook (convenient when writing code examples)
* Markdown cells, code cells and (optionally) notebook metadata are saved in
the file
* Collaborators can work on the Markdown document using GitHub's web interface.
* By convention, a **notebook code cell** is equivalent to a **Markdown code block with explicit `python` syntax highlighting**:

```
>>> print("Hello world")
Hello world
```

* **Notebook metadata** can be specified in [YAML](http://yaml.org/) inside
Jekyll-style [front-matter](http://jekyllrb.com/docs/frontmatter/) dashes
at the beginning of a document:

```markdown
---
kernelspec:
name: some-non-native-kernel
---

First cell content
```

Native kernel metadata will be elided by default: non-python kernels haven't
been tested yet, but support is planned.

* **Cell metadata** is specified with YAML stream documents with dashes and
periods, such as to create slides:

```markdown
# Previous slide

---
slideshow:
slide_type: slide
...

# Some Slide Content
```

> NOTE: You probably shouldn't use `---` to mean an `<hr/>`: `***`
could be a suitable substitute.

* Null metadata (i.e. splitting a markdown cell) can be created with just
three dashes. This is useful when adding slideshow notes or skipped cells.

```markdown
A cell

---

Another cell
```

* The back-and-forth conversion is not strictly the identity function:
* Extra line breaks in Markdown are discarded
* Text output and standard output are combined into a single text output (stdout lines first, output lines last)


## Caveats

**WARNING**: use this library at your own risks, backup your data, and version-control your notebooks and Markdown files!

* Renaming doesn't work yet (issue #4)
* New notebook doesn't work yet (issue #5)
* Only nbformat v4 is supported currently (IPython 3.0)


## Formats

ipymd uses a modular architecture that lets you define new formats. The following formats are currently implemented, and can be selected by modifying `~/.ipython/profile_<whichever>/ipython_notebook_config.py`:

* IPython notebook (`.ipynb`)
* Markdown (`.md`)
* `c.IPymdContentsManager.format = 'markdown'`
* [O'Reilly Atlas](http://odewahn.github.io/publishing-workflows-for-jupyter/#1) (`.md` with special HTML tags for code and mathematical equations)
* `c.IPymdContentsManager.format = 'atlas'`
* Python (`.py`): code cells are delimited by double line breaks. Markdown cells = Python comments. [TODO: this doesn't work well, see #28 and #31]
* Opendocument (`.odt`). You need to install the [development version of odfpy](https://github.com/eea/odfpy/).

You can convert from any supported format to any supported format. This works by converting to an intermediate format that is basically a list of notebook cells.

### ipymd cells

An **ipymd cell** is a Python dictionary with the following fields:

* `cell_type`: `markdown`, `code` or `notebok_metadata` (if implemented)
* `input`: a string with the code input (code cell only)
* `output`: a string with the text output and stdout (code cell only)
* `source`: a string containing Markdown markup (markdown cell only)
* `metadata`: a dictionary containing cell (or notebook) metadata

### Kernel Metadata

By default, notebook metadata for the native kernel (usually `python2` or
`python3`) won't be written to markdown. Since ipymd doesn't yet support other
kernels, this doesn't matter much, but if you would like to pick a non-native
python kernel to be interpreted as the default for ipymd, and store
`kernelspec` and `language_info` for the other, you can add this to your
`ipython_notebook_config.py` file:
* `c.IPymdContentsManager.default_kernel_name = 'python2'`

Or, to always remember all notebook-level metadata:
* `c.IPymdContentsManager.verbose_metadata = True`

### Customize the Markdown format

You can customize the exact way the notebook is converted from/to Markdown by deriving from `BaseMarkdownReader` or `MarkdownReader` (idem with writers). Look at `ipymd/formats/markdown.py`.

### Implement your own format

You can also implement your own format by following these instructions:

* Create a `MyFormatReader` class that implements:
* `self.read(contents)`: yields ipymd cells from a `contents` string
* Create a `MyFormatWriter` class that implements:
* `self.write(cell)`: append an ipymd cell
* (optional) `self.write_notebook_metadata(cell)`: write the notebook
metadata dictionary
* `self.contents`: return the contents as a string

* To activate this format, call this at Notebook launch time (not in a kernel!), perhaps in your `ipython_notebook_config.py`:

```python
from ipymd import format_manager
format_manager().register(
name='my_format',
reader=MyFormatReader,
writer=MyFormatWriter,
file_extension='.md', # or anything else
file_type='text', # or JSON
)
```

* Now you can convert contents: `ipymd.convert(contents, from_='notebook', to='my_format')` or any other combination.

### Contributing a new ipymd format
* To further integrate your format in ipymd, create a `ipymd/formats/my_format.py` file.
* Put your reader and writer class in there, as well as a top-level variable:

```python
MY_FORMAT = dict(
reader=MyFormatReader,
writer=MyFormatWriter,
file_extension='.md',
file_type='text',
)
```

* In `setup.py`, add this to `entry_points`:

```python
...
entry_points={
'ipymd.format': [
...
'my_format=myformat:MY_FORMAT',
...
]
}
```

> Note that the `entry_point` name will be used by default. you may override
it, if you like, but Don't Repeat Yourself.

* Add some unit tests in `ipymd/formats/tests`.
* Propose a PR!

Look at the existing format implementations for more details.


### Packaging a format
* If you want to be able to redistribute your format without adding it to ipymd proper (i.e. in-house or experimental), implement all your code in a real python module.
* Someplace easy to import, e.g. `myformat.py` or `myformat/__init__.py`, add:

```python
MY_FORMAT = dict(
reader=MyFormatReader,
writer=MyFormatWriter,
file_extension='.md', # or anything else
file_type='text', # or JSON
)
```

and this to your `setup.py`:

```python
...
entry_points={
'ipymd.format': [
'my_format=myformat:MY_FORMAT',
],
},
...
```

* Publish on pypi!
* Your users will now be able to `pip install myformat`, then configure their Notebook to use your format with the name `my_format`.

Project details


Download files

Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.

Source Distribution

ipymd-0.1.3.tar.gz (59.2 kB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distribution

ipymd-0.1.3-py3-none-any.whl (64.9 kB view details)

Uploaded Python 3

File details

Details for the file ipymd-0.1.3.tar.gz.

File metadata

  • Download URL: ipymd-0.1.3.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 59.2 kB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? No

File hashes

Hashes for ipymd-0.1.3.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 cb39ca10dc605160b9d131aa702217c6e432897b790f8c7ad8d9a1b8cc5ad46c
MD5 9ddb20c17be40d55b0ad2f0dd9e7226e
BLAKE2b-256 7e5223dc02566ce89ec6d255ef39f6919722ed9b1684c556166fa4cecde4aa20

See more details on using hashes here.

File details

Details for the file ipymd-0.1.3-py3-none-any.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for ipymd-0.1.3-py3-none-any.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 c40adf1c2ecb17d5df839f5bde0e52e3508c4e070ef63c2f4a9bfa1885cf69eb
MD5 00beb9bdf87803a72356622f50f0927d
BLAKE2b-256 a975073ab703f642c5cf3ae61e51d0f998ac7b68295a52887c27678394455b0c

See more details on using hashes here.

Supported by

AWS AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Datadog Monitoring Fastly Fastly CDN Google Google Download Analytics Microsoft Microsoft PSF Sponsor Pingdom Pingdom Monitoring Sentry Sentry Error logging StatusPage StatusPage Status page