[IPython-dev] saving base64 encoded content separately

[Voorhies, Mark]

On Thu, 2021-06-03 at 10:39 -0700, Jonathan Hess wrote:
> [The archives show this list has become very quiet.  If developers have moved to another forum, care to tell me where?]
> 
> I'm looking for an option or extension that would, for .ipynb files, replace base64 encoded data with references to an external "native" file of the same data.
> 
> For example, if an ipynb file has a matplotlib produced png image, I need that image stored in an external png file.
> 

<snip>

> A) Has anyone already done an extension like this?  My websearches have failed so far but I would be surprized if no-one has asked about such a thing before.
> 
> B) If A) is no, anyone have suggestions or guidance on making such an extension?
> 

The original HTML/XHTML export from the qtconsole had an option for externally linked images: c.f. commit aae8597d63e in the ipython repo.

That implementation depended on Qt to do the heavy lifting for HTML export, so it's not directly applicable to Jupyter notebooks.

I _would_ think that you could do something similar by adding a new HTML template to jupyter nbconvert.

--Mark