Custom jupyter-server templates

[GeorgianaElena]

Context

Currently we are able to provide custom templates for the hubs through https://github.com/2i2c-org/default-hub-homepage.

But a recent request to customize the look of the single user's server from #1439 (comment) generated this issue.

Do we want to provide customizations for jupyter-server templates? If so, where should we host this custom templates:?

• in a new repo similar to https://github.com/2i2c-org/default-hub-homepage
• or in the same one?

Proposal

No response

Updates and actions

No response

[damianavila]

@GeorgianaElena come up with a compromised solution in #1710.

But as I mentioned in the comments above, this implementation is a compromise. This was my own take on making this to work given the available time and feedback (at that time I considered this to be a time sensitive request, but turns out it wasn't).

In that PR I raised this comment:

Regardless of the specifics of the implementation, I have the feeling we are entering into the user image territory... It should relatively easy for them to self-serve the customization of the templates on the user image itself, right?

When I saw the problem I was immediately thinking about customization of the templates at the user image level.
Now re-reading the first message of this thread, I understand there might be a second option to allow community customization but still own the template repo as we do with the default-hub-homepage.

I am still not convinced about the second option because the tree and notebook, IMHO, belong to the user territory but happy to be convinced otherwise :wink.

[GeorgianaElena]

It is possible to use singleuser.extraFiles config to customize certain jupyter templates. That is not suitable for complex UIs, but since we weren't requested to make complex changes, let's close this and reopen/open a new issue when/if this will be needed.