ecolab.inspect in VS Code notebook not working

[jurgisp]

I would love to use ecolab, but I interact with Jupyter notebooks from within VS Code, using their native support for notebooks. When I execute ecolab.inspect(obj) it does render an element that looks like it should expand, but the dynamic interaction is not working. If I click on the expand arrow nothing happens.

I wonder, is that a known limitation, or should it work? Any tips for a workaround, maybe it requires some settings?

[Conchylicultor]

Thanks for reporting. Indeed, at the time I created the extension, there was no communication API between Python and VSCode notebooks (see: microsoft/vscode-jupyter#13255)

Since then, it seems there's a https://github.com/manzt/anywidget module to simplify Js <> Python communication, but I didn't had time to look into it.

[PeterZhizhin]

Hi! If I make a PR that uses anywidget, how likely that it's going to be submitted?

@Conchylicultor do you have the bandwidth to review, make a release, etc? It adds another dependency into the project.

[Conchylicultor]

Hey Peter, sorry for the delay, yes that would be super valuable. I'll definitely accept your PR.

However I think unfortunately internally anywidget might not work in internal Colab, so the legacy mode would still have to be supported. Hopefully it's possible to keep the two separated.

(also don't hesitate to send a mail if I take too much time to answer, I sometime miss my emails)

[Conchylicultor]

Actually I just tested and the default example on https://github.com/manzt/anywidget works perfectly on internal Colab, so JS <> Python communication seems to works well even internally. I also tested callback (@traitlets.observe("count")) and it works great!

That would be super cool.