Use of nbconvert TemplateExporter to exclude input/output and/or the related in/out prompts

[keluc]

In order to use this for every notebook at once I'm still trying some things out (see #15) for my earlier comments)

As suggested there, I'v added some nbsphinx options and used the global setting in conf.py

def setup(app):
  ...
    #hide or display input, output,....
    app.add_config_value('nbsphinx_exclude_output', False, rebuild='env')
    app.add_config_value('nbsphinx_exclude_input', False, rebuild='env')
    app.add_config_value('nbsphinx_exclude_input_prompt', False, rebuild='env')
    app.add_config_value('nbsphinx_exclude_output_prompt', False, rebuild='env')
    app.add_config_value('nbsphinx_exclude_markdown', False, rebuild='env')
    app.add_config_value('nbsphinx_exclude_code_cell', False, rebuild='env')

which is used then in the config setting of Exporter(nbconvert.RSTExporter)

class Exporter(nbconvert.RSTExporter):
...
    def __init__(self, execute='auto', kernel_name='', execute_arguments=[],
                 allow_errors=False, timeout=30, codecell_lexer='none',
                 exclude_output = False, exclude_input = False, 
                 exclude_input_prompt = False, exclude_output_prompt = False, 
                 exclude_markdown = False, exclude_code_cell = False):
       ...
        self._exclude_output = exclude_output
        self._exclude_input = exclude_input
        self._exclude_input_prompt = exclude_input_prompt
        self._exclude_output_prompt = exclude_output_prompt
        self._exclude_markdown = exclude_markdown
        self._exclude_code_cell = exclude_code_cell 
        
        super(Exporter, self).__init__(
            template_file='nbsphinx-rst.tpl', extra_loaders=[loader],
            config=traitlets.config.Config(
                {'HighlightMagicsPreprocessor': {'enabled': True},
                'TemplateExporter':{
                "exclude_output": exclude_output,
                "exclude_input": exclude_input,
                "exclude_input_prompt": exclude_input_prompt,
                "exclude_output_prompt": exclude_output_prompt,
                "exclude_markdown": exclude_markdown,
                "exclude_code_cell": exclude_code_cell}}),
            filters={
                'convert_pandoc': convert_pandoc,
                'markdown2rst': markdown2rst,
                'get_empty_lines': _get_empty_lines,
                'extract_toctree': _extract_toctree,
                'get_output_type': _get_output_type,
                'json_dumps': json.dumps,
            })

This works fine but not for every output prompt.
I tried to solve it but apparently in class NbOutput(rst.Directive) I don't seem to be able to get hold of the "exclude_output_prompt" setting.
With a global variable I can tackle this but still trying to figure out how to do it correctly without using this 'dirty hack':

class NbOutput(rst.Directive):
 ...
    def run(self):
           ....
            global nbsphinx_args_output_prompt
            if nbsphinx_args_output_prompt:
                text = ''
            else:
                text = 'Out [{}]:'.format(execution_count)

See: changes
Any Idea how I can pass env.config.nbsphinx_exclude_output_prompt to the run method of the class NbOutput?

[mgeier]

You can try to access it with self.state.document.settings.env.config.nbsphinx_exclude_output_prompt.
There is probably a shorter way to get it ...

[keluc]

This does indeed work and is sufficient to hide the output prompt. So with this we can hide input code, input and output prompts. If ok for you, I'll be happy to create a pull request and an addition to the documentation (e.g. with a notebook 'Options2HideInformation.ipynb' explaining how to use these options)

[mgeier]

I'm not very enthusiastic about hiding stuff, but several people already asked for something like that, so I guess I'll have to accept it if you make a nice PR.

[keluc]

I understand your remark but it's how you look at it.
If your audience are other technicians than you want to show also the code, but if your audience are reports to non-technicians, to management, ... than the code is not of interest to the reader. What I'd also like to add is to have the possibility to include a hyperlink to a 'mirror' page where in- and output is shown (or a show/hide button on every page to show the input). Finally the source code option gives you a also a sort of 'audit trail'

[mgeier]

IMHO if you don't want to show the code, Jupyter notebook is the wrong tool for you.

There are tons of tools for automated document generation and many different templating languages available for you to choose from, you don't have to use Jupyter.

But of course, every tool can be abused, and to a certain degree that's OK.

And if those nbsphinx_exclude_* options help some people in doing what they think they want, I'm willing to include them, as I said above.

[rddaz2013]

first...nbsphinx is an nice tool and great work...!

IMHO if you don't want to show the code, Jupyter notebook is the wrong tool for you.

There are some situations where the source code in the report or presentation is not desired - but for the editing must be present.

The fine thing is with nbsphinx I have code for generating charts and normal text together in one document. But for the paper version I do not need every line of the source code.

Is there now a way for nbsphinx to 'disappear' the source code but to print the output?

[mgeier]

@rddaz2013 The situation here is unchanged. I still think it's a bad thing, nobody has shown me an example that would change my mind, but I'm still open to accepting a PR nevertheless. Nobody has created such a PR yet.

I think in the meantime nbconvert supports "tag-based filtering", but I don't know if and how this works together with nbsphinx.

[rddaz2013]

From the point of view of the idea of Jupyter, 'suppressing' the source code is certainly not a good reason to do it. I am completely on your side @mgeier

But for the 'Old World' who want a report without calculation and just want to see the graphs on a printable paper - it would be incredibly practical.

Practically because I have only one workflow to produce the document with source or without.

[DavidPowell]

Is there any update on this? Being able to hide code and output prompts is vital for my use case.

@rddaz2013 There are plenty of valid use cases for hiding input that do not violate the idea of Jupyter. For example, I may generate tikz schematic figures with ipython-tikz, but I do not want the tikz source code appearing in my output.

[keluc]

A quick update from my end. I used my simple solution in a project that lasted about 10 months for about 15 fully automated runs. I encountered no issues. I didn't come up with a PR due to my current workload and also a little bit because of the given remarks. I think that the ideal solution would be both options : hiding input all together, only for a certain (set of) pages and tag-based filtering. I was thinking of finding a solution for all these options at once. So I have to dig in the tag-based filtering first (hopefully after may). PS. an example in favor of this possibility: see also what people in the R-world are doing with R-markdown, R-notebooks, R-bookdown,... In addition to that the reticulate package recently gives one the possibility to use Python code in those solutions (not optimal yet imho). In Python you have pweave but it misses the overall functionality of sphinx

[mapio]

Any progress on this? I agree with @DavidPowell that this would be very useful!

[mgeier]

Tag-based filtering works if nbconvert 5.3 or newer is installed (see #125). Other than that, I don't know of any news.

[mapio]

Sorry for being unclear. I know (and use) the feature of nbconvert. What I was asking is if there is a plan to somehow integrate such functionality with nbsphinx (that is, a way of configuring nbsphinx to respect tag driven exclusion/inclusion of cells, inputs and/or outputs).

[mgeier]

Sorry, I was unclear: tag-based filtering should also work in nbsphinx (given that the installed nbconvert version supports it).
If it doesn't work for you, please create a new issue.