[IPython-dev] IPython notebook rocks (and some new ideas)

Ian Bell ian.h.bell at gmail.com
Wed Jan 22 18:41:32 EST 2014


First off, I just want to tell you how much I love the IPython notebooks.
They are absolutely fantastic.  I'm a Python missionary and this helps me
to share work that I am doing with non-python folks. I especially like how
easy it is to integrate LaTeX into the notebook as the
edit-compile-edit-compile cycles with LaTeX can be quite time consuming if
you use the full LaTeX ecosystem.  And then we take several notebooks, use
nbconvert, and *voila*, a beautiful document.  Brilliant.

Two sample notebooks that I have put together:
iPeng-Robinson-Soave
EOS<http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/ibell/coolprop/blob/master/Web/iPRSV.ipynb?create=1>
Implementation of phase envelope for
mixtures<http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/ibell/coolprop/blob/master/Web/mixtures/phase_envelope.ipynb?create=1>

I have a couple of modifications that I would love to see; I'm not sure how
feasible they are:

   - Cross-referencing.  I have a lot of equations (think tens to hundreds)
   and several equations and tables and it is nice to be link to other
   equations within one notebook, but ideally I would like to be able to refer
   to equations/tables/figures in another notebook (that might be more
   difficult I know)
   - Hiding of the code blocks.  Generating figures sometimes requires a
   lot of hacking around, and its nice to not have the hacking be completely
   visible, but only after a click through.  Sort of how in Sphinx+MPL, there
   is a link to download the source for the figure, but the source is not
   automatically embedded.  If this is already possible, how can I enable it?
   - Block folding/formatting.  For longer documents, the spacing for the
   heading 1, heading 2, etc. blocks becomes quite significant, and it would
   be nice if we could fold blocks within a heading.  Also, it would be nice
   if we could have more condensed spacing for the headings, or at least,
   heading 2 spacing much less than heading 1 spacing.

I guess that's it for tonight's ideas.

Kind Regards,

Ian
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