Jupyter Notebook: add access to cell metadata

[chrisjsewell]

Feature: Notebook Editor, Interactive Window, Python Editor cells

As an extension to #1121, to access the full notebook functionality, cell metadata should be accessible to view and modify in some manner.

Microsoft Data Science for VS Code Engineering Team: @rchiodo, @IanMatthewHuff, @DavidKutu, @DonJayamanne, @greazer

[rchiodo]

Thanks for the suggestion.

How do you access it now outside of VS code?

[chrisjsewell]

In Jupyter lab, the cell and document level metadata is available in the side-bar, which also contains controls for tags, and is interactive (i.e. you can type into the metadata boxes). This would be the ideal solution, but I'm not sure if this could be achieved in the VS Code view containers? If not, perhaps a partial solution would be a button to toggle between a metadata viewer and the current variables' viewer.

[DonJayamanne]

Thanks for the suggestion. We'll review this and get back to you.

[sverchkov]

This is essential for rendering notebooks into slides.

A simple solution for cell metadata would be to add the option to view and edit the raw json of the cell in addition to the current markdown/code options.

[nathancarter]

Well...it would be epic...

[DonJayamanne]

In the mean time you can use the following extension https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=donjayamanne.jupyterpowertools
FYI - This only works in the VS Code insiders version (ability to edit tags, slider, )
Editint raw cells, metadtaa & notebook metadta is coming (in that extesnion)

[chrisjsewell]

Awesome thanks!

[psychemedia]

Cell tags (which are found in the distinguished cell.metadata.tags metadata element are also used to support rendering of notebooks via Jupyter Book eg to hide particular content elements.

How to add such tag metadata to notebooks is described here.

[Mjvolk3]

Hi there, is this feature coming anytime soon? To edit metadata the easiest way of now is using jupyter's editor. The json can be edited in vscode, but I find it much slower.

[rchiodo]

Sorry not planned any time soon. For now you can use Don's extension mentioned above: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=donjayamanne.jupyterpowertools

It only works on insiders though.

You can check the issues that are planned for the near future by using the milestone. Here's what's coming up for October:
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-jupyter/milestone/17

[marcelo-lara]

+1
btw: the Don's extension does not work =(

[tbenthompson]

Just a comment hoping that this gets prioritized at some point. At the moment, this blocks using VSCode for several common applications of notebooks (papermill, jupyter-book, and more). Thanks!

[jesusmariajurado]

+1
This would be very very usefull

[rafagsiqueira]

This might be obvious, but for those looking for a workaround on vscode: right click on the notebook -> Open With -> Built in text editor. Then edit the metadata tag directly in the Notebook JSON.

[amirbtb]

This could be useful to parameterize notebooks for papermill which is becoming a standard.

[luukalt]

+1
This would be very nice!

[cheginit]

Ability to add cell tags is necessary for nbsphinx-gallery that sphinx uses for generating documentation websites. Adding tags to notebooks by opening it as a json file can be difficult and at time not even possible since notebooks tend to be large files. So adding tags would be very helpful for this purpose.

[vitchyr]

+1 this would be great!

[mertgoksel]

This would help tremendously. +1

[rebornix]

Hi all, thank you for the feedbacks and your interest in cell tag and metadata editing support in VS Code. We have just published two extensions

• https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-toolsai.vscode-jupyter-cell-tags
• https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-toolsai.vscode-jupyter-slideshow

which will allow you to update cell tags and slide show inside the notebook editor

Screen.Recording.2022-09-21.at.11.26.25.AM.mov

Please give them a try and feedbacks welcome ;)

If you are also interested in how it's implemented or you want to build an extension for a cell metadata that we don't support yet, you can find their source code in https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-jupyter-slideshow and https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-jupyter-cell-tags and tweak them to fit your need. We are interested in how you are using cell tags and metadata and figuring out how we can improve the experience to make you more productive. Thanks!

[psychemedia]

Re: possible applications of tags, I use them to provide custom styling for cells in JupyterLab etc.. https://github.com/innovationOUtside/jupyterlab_empinken_extension

Another use might be to customise cell rendering behaviour, a bit like IPython cell block magics. eg parse contents of a markdown cell tagged mermaid-js as:

```{mermaid}
ORIGINAL CELL CONTENT
```

[phense]

Well, it's not “perfect”, but the Cell Tag Extension does provide access to the Cell-Metadata from within VS Code.
Selecting “Edit Cell Tags (JSON)” opens the notebook in JSON format, and allows you to freely edit it (see '"metadata": {' ) on the right.

Well, better than having to switch to jupyterlab just to edit some tags and cell metadata.

Thanks, Microsoft!

Still, it would be nice to have a dedicated edit-window just for the notebook- and cell-metadata.