Launch buttons for interactivity

Launch buttons for interactivity#

You can automatically add buttons that allow users to interact with your book’s content. This is either by directing them to a BinderHub or JupyterHub that runs in the cloud, or by making your page interactive using Thebe.

To use either Binder or JupyterHub links, you’ll first need to configure your documentation’s repository url:

html_theme_options = {
    ...
    "repository_url": "https://github.com/{your-docs-url}",
    "repository_branch": "{your-branch}",
    "path_to_docs": "{path-relative-to-site-root}",
    ...
}

Binder / BinderHub#

To add Binder links your page, add the following configuration:

html_theme_options = {
    ...
    "launch_buttons": {
        "binderhub_url": "https://{your-binderhub-url}"
    },
    ...
}

JupyterHub#

To add JupyterHub links to your page, add the following configuration:

html_theme_options = {
    ...
    "launch_buttons": {
        "jupyterhub_url": "https://{your-binderhub-url}"
    },
    ...
}

Google Colab#

To add Google Colab links to your page, add the following configuration:

html_theme_options = {
    ...
    "launch_buttons": {
        "colab_url": "https://colab.research.google.com"
    },
    ...
}

Deepnote#

To add Deepnote links to your page, add the following configuration:

html_theme_options = {
    ...
    "launch_buttons": {
        "deepnote_url": "https://deepnote.com"
    },
    ...
}

Warning

This will create a new Deepnote project every time you click the launch button.

Live code cells with Thebe#

Thebe converts your static code blocks into interactive code blocks powered by a Jupyter kernel. It does this by asking for a BinderHub kernel under the hood and converts all of your code cells into interactive code cells. This allows users to run the code on your page without leaving the page.

You can use the Sphinx extension sphinx-thebe to add live code functionality to your documentation. You can install sphinx-thebe from pip, then activate it by putting it in your conf.py extensions list:

extensions = [
    ...
    "sphinx_thebe"
    ...
]

If you’d like to activate UI elements for sphinx-thebe in the sphinx-book-theme, add the following theme configuration:

html_theme_options = {
    ...
    "launch_buttons": {
        "thebe": True,
    },
    ...
}

This will add a custom launch button and some UI elements will be added for Thebe.

If you also specify a repository_url with your theme configuration, sphinx-thebe will use this repository for its environment:

html_theme_options = {
    ...
    "repository_url": "https://github.com/{your-docs-url}",
    ...
}

Tip

You can also manually customize Thebe with the thebe_config dictionary. This will over-ride any configuration that is pulled from your html_theme_options configuration. See the sphinx-thebe documentation for what you can configure.

Configure a relative path to your source file#

To configure a relative path to your documentation, add the following configuration:

html_theme_options = {
    ...
    "path_to_docs" = "{path-relative-to-repo-root}"
    ...
}

Control the user interface that is opened#

You can control the interface that is opened when somebody clicks on a launch button. To do so, add the following configuration:

html_theme_options = {
    ...
    "launch_buttons": {
        "notebook_interface": "jupyterlab",
    },
    ...
}