Interface Customization#

Multiple elements in the JupyterLab interface are customizable to display new elements or hide default ones.

Layout#

The JupyterLab layout has two modes: the simple mode (or single document mode) and the default mode (or multiple documents mode). In both modes, the widgets are attached in one of the four area: the left or right sidebars, the main dock panel area or the down area.

The default positions of widgets can be overridden through the settings based on the type of widgets. The setting to modify is the layout one in section JupyterLab Shell.

The available widget types and their default area is listed below

Type

multiple

single

Console

main

main

CSVTable

main

main

TSVTable

main

main

Editor

main

main

HTML Viewer

main

main

Image

main

main

Image (Text)

main

main

JSON

main

main

Markdown Preview

main

main

Notebook

main

main

Cloned Output

main

down

Linked Console

main

down

Inspector

main

down

PDF

main

main

Terminal

main

main

VDOM

main

main

Vega-Lite4

main

main

Vega5

main

main

Settings

main

main

Advanced Settings

main

main

Licenses

main

main

Debugger

right

right

Debugger Variables

main

main

Debugger Sources

main

main

Property Inspector

right

right

Extension Manager

left

left

File Browser

left

left

Sessions and Tabs

left

left

Table of Contents

left

left

Log Console

down

down

 
"layout": {
  "single": {
    "Linked Console": { "area": "down" },
    "Inspector": { "area": "down" },
    "Cloned Output": { "area": "down" },
    // Add new terminals in the down area in simple mode
    "Terminal": { "area": "down" }
  },
  "multiple": {
    // Add new terminals in the right sidebar in default mode
    "Terminal": { "area": "right" }
  }
}

The above example will result in the following changes:

(Before Change) Default terminal position in "multiple" (default) mode

(Before Change) Default terminal position in “multiple” (default) mode#

(After Change) Customized terminal position in "multiple" (default) mode

(After Change) Customized terminal position in “multiple” (default) mode#

Toolbars#

Lots of toolbars are customizable. Here is a mapping of the customizable toolbars and the associated setting.

  • Cell: Cell Toolbar -> toolbar

  • CSV Viewer: CSV Viewer -> toolbar

  • File Browser: File Browser Widget -> toolbar

  • HTML Viewer: HTML Viewer -> toolbar

  • Notebook panel: Notebook Panel -> toolbar

  • Text Editor: Text Editor -> toolbar

  • TSV Viewer: TSV Viewer -> toolbar

Those settings are accessible through the interactive Settings Editor. But you may find more comfortable to use the Advanced Settings Editor (accessible by clicking on JSON Settings Editor button in the top right corner of the Settings Editor).

Your toolbar customization will be merged with the default menu bar definition (this is a different behavior as the other settings that are overriding the default settings). So to remove a default item, you will need to disable it. To do that, you will need to set the toolbar item disabled attribute to true; an item is uniquely identified by its name attribute.

"toolbar": [
  // Disable the restart and run all button
  {
    "name": "restart-and-run",
    "disabled": true
  },
  // Add a new button to clear all cell outputs
  {
    "name": "clear-all-outputs",
    "command": "notebook:clear-all-cell-outputs"
  }
]

The above example for the notebook panel, will results in the following changes:

Default notebook toolbar

Default notebook toolbar#

Customized notebook toolbar

Customized notebook toolbar#

A toolbar is defined by a list of items. Each item must have an unique name. That name will create a toolbar item if it is associated with a special widget (e.g. the cell type toolbar selector). Otherwise it will require a command that will be triggered when clicking on a toolbar button (see the available Commands list). The items are sorted by their rank.

Note

If you want to more advanced customization please refer to the Toolbar item definition.

Context Menu#

The context menu definition can be customized through the Advanced Settings Editor. You can access it by opening the Settings Editor from the Settings menu, then click on the JSON Settings Editor in the top right corner.

In the Advanced Settings Editor, you will need to the select the Application Context Menu section in the left panel. Your contextMenu customization will be merged with the default context menu definition (this is a different behavior as the other settings that are overriding the default settings). So to remove a default entry, you will need to disable it. To do that, you will need to set the menu entry disabled attribute to true; an entry is uniquely identified by its command, selector and args attributes.

New entries can be added to existing menus.

"contextMenu": [
  // Disable New notebook entry
  {
    "command": "notebook:create-new",
    "selector": ".jp-DirListing-content",
    "args": {
      "isContextMenu": true
    },
    "disabled": true
  },
  // Add new entry on notebook file to export them as Markdown
  {
    "command": "notebook:export-to-format",
    "selector": ".jp-DirListing-item[data-file-type=\"notebook\"]",
    "rank": 3,
    // Command arguments
    "args": {
      "format": "markdown",
      "label": "Export as Markdown"
    }
  }
]

The above example, will results in the following changes:

Default context menu

Default context menu#

Customized context menu

Customized context menu#

An entry can be any valid command available; see Commands list. And a CSS selector to define which elements will have that context menu entry. And the entries are sorted by their ranks.

Note

If you want to more advanced customization (e.g. changing the separators or sub-menus), please refer to the Context Menu settings definition.

File Browser#

Users can add a “Open in Simple Mode” context menu option by adding the following to Settings -> Application Context Menu -> contextMenu

{
    "command": "filebrowser:open-browser-tab",
    "args": { "mode": "single-document" },
    "selector": ".jp-DirListing-item[data-isdir=\"false\"]",
    "rank": 1.6
}

Custom CSS#

Applying Custom CSS#

To apply custom CSS, you can add a /custom/custom.css file in the jupyter config directory. You can find the path, ~/.jupyter, to this directory by running jupyter --paths. There you can create a folder named custom and create a custom.css file within the folder.

Custom CSS is not loaded by default. In the jupyter configuration directory, the ~/.jupyter/custom/custom.css file will not be loaded unless the the application is initialized with the --custom-css flag (LabApp.custom_css config).

Jupyter Styling#

You can use a custom CSS file to modify default Jupyter styling.

/* Modify Jupyter Styles */

.lm-BoxPanel-child,
.jp-FileBrowser-Panel,
.lm-StackedPanel-child,
.jp-FileBrowser-toolbar {
  background-color: #aecad4 !important;
}

#top-panel-wrapper,
#jp-top-bar {
  background-color: #aecad4 !important;
}

#menu-panel-wrapper,
#jp-MainMenu,
#menu-panel {
  background-color: #aecad4 !important;
}

.jp-NotebookPanel-toolbar {
  background-color: #aecad4 !important;
}

.lm-MenuBar-content {
  color: #02484d;
}

.lm-TabBar-content,
.jp-DirListing-content,
.lm-MenuBar-content {
  font-size: small;
}
a screenshot custom jupyter styling

Markdown#

Another potential application for custom CSS is styling markdown.

/* Styling Markdown */

/* Headings */
h1,
h2 {
  font-family: Impact, Charcoal, sans-serif;
  font-weight: bold;
  text-shadow: 2px 2px 4px #000;
}

h1 {
  font-size: 22px;
  margin-bottom: 40px;
  color: #10929e;
  text-decoration: underline;
}

h2 {
  font-size: 48px;
  margin-bottom: 32px;
  color: #76b4be;
  text-transform: uppercase;
}

/* Block Quotes */
blockquote {
  font-family: Georgia, serif;
  font-size: 16px;
  color: #19085c;
  border-left: 8px solid #effffc;
  background-color: #eafcff;
  padding: 20px;
}

/* Lists */
ul,
ol {
  font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
  font-size: 18px;
  color: #333;
  margin-bottom: 24px;
}
a screenshot of custom markdown styling