Introducing the new JupyterLab Desktop!

We are pleased to announce a major update to JupyterLab Desktop which adds many new features with main focus on the user experience. JupyterLab Desktop is the cross-platform desktop application for JupyterLab and it is the quickest and easiest way to get started with Jupyter notebooks on your personal computer.

Welcome Page

Users are now presented with the Welcome Page when the app is first launched. It contains links to several session create options on the left and the Jupyter News feed on the right. The news feed is populated using the Jupyter blog contents and is aimed to keep you up to date with the news and events related to Jupyter ecosystem projects. Clicking on a news item opens the blog post in browser.

Sessions and Projects

With this release we are introducing the concept of sessions and projects. Sessions are representations of local project launches and connections to existing JupyterLab servers. Each JupyterLab UI window in the app is associated with a separate session and sessions can be restored with the same configuration at the next launch.

Each launch of JupyterLab in a different working directory is a separate project and projects can have their own configuration such as Python environment and UI layout. You can separate your work into different projects with their own notebook files and Python environment configuration, based on the project tasks and dependency libraries.

The “Start” section on the Welcome Page provides several options to create projects and sessions.

New notebook and new session with one click

If you want to quickly get started with a new notebook, you can simply click the “New notebook…” link on the Welcome Page. It will automatically launch a new JupyterLab session in the default working directory using the default Python environment and create a new empty notebook to get you started.

“New session…” link on the Start section works similarly, it launches a new JupyterLab session with the same configuration as above but doesn’t create a notebook automatically.

Open files or folders from UI

In the Start section of the Welcome Page there are links to open files or folders directly from UI. You can use “Open…” to select files or folders you would like to start a new JupyterLab session with.

If files are chosen, selected files’ parent directory becomes the working directory and selected files are opened in the session. This is also one of the methods to create or open a project in JupyterLab Desktop. On Windows and Linux “Open Folder…” and “Open File…” options are presented as separate items due to OS requirements.

Drag and drop support to create sessions

If you drop files or a folder onto the Welcome Page then they will be opened in a new session. Dropping a folder this way is the easiest way to get started with a new notebook project in your folder of choice. Dropping files creates a new session at their parent directory and opens them when session is up and ready.

Connect to existing JupyterLab servers

JupyterLab Desktop can connect to an existing JupyterLab server running locally or remotely. JupyterLab servers that are locally running on your computer are automatically detected and listed in the Connect dialog.

Session restore

“Recent sessions” list on the Welcome Page shows the last sessions launched by the user. Clicking the items in th