[AstroPy] AstroPy Digest, Vol 81, Issue 12

[Perry Greenfield]

On Jun 21, 2013, at 8:35 AM, Timothy Pickering wrote:

>> Yes, I've long felt that was a critical element to a good GUI. They are great to play with the data, and how to view the data. But at some point, one wants to be able to repeat that easily, either to do batch processing, replicate the results (perhaps to tweak a bit more), or be consistent in the processing of other similar data. It would be even better if the GUI could save a script that effectively recreates what was done without requiring any interaction (rather than a lot of hidden machinery to recreate the state).
> 
> you mean like a .ipynb file? :)  ipython notebooks aren't that far from being a viable platform for building and distributing GUIs.  what's needed, though, are tools for better interactivity using javascript, D3, and the like.  even so, their current incarnation provides a much greater level of interactivity than a normal script while retaining portability and flexibility.  
> 
> tim

Well, partly. What IPython doesn't provide is interactive selections on graphics and such, yet (at least entirely within the browser). For example, if I want to plot a spectrum and then select features to fit, or mark initial guesses for centers, etc, IPython doesn't do that. I do think that may be within reach in a year or two.

Perry