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Articles / Quick Jupyter Notebook Launcher for KDE >


categories computer hack tags kde python
Right click menu with an item saying 'New jupyter Notebook'

History

I was tired to have to make new scripts everytime I need to do a quick thing on some files or test a new library.

Function

Adds a menu entry to launch Docker-based Jupyter notebooks directly from KDE’s file manager. The notebook runs in a container with the current directory mounted.

Setup

Create the KDE service menu directory:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/kio/servicemenus/

Create two files:

  1. Service menu definition (~/.local/share/kio/servicemenus/jupyter-notebook.desktop):
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Service
MimeType=inode/directory;
Actions=startNotebook;
X-KDE-Priority=TopLevel

[Desktop Action startNotebook]
Name=New Jupyter Notebook
Icon=text-x-python
Exec=konsole -e ~/.local/bin/start-notebook.sh
  1. Launcher script (~/.local/bin/start-notebook.sh):
#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Function to check if port is in use
port_in_use() {
    lsof -i:$1 >/dev/null 2>&1
    return $?
}

# Find first available port starting from 8888
port=8888
while port_in_use $port; do
    ((port++))
    if [ $port -gt 8899 ]; then
        echo "No available ports in range 8888-8899"
        exit 1
    fi
done

# Start container with available port
container_id=$(docker run --rm -d -p $port:8888 -v "$(pwd)":/home/jovyan/work jupyter/scipy-notebook)

# Wait for container to start and get URL
max_attempts=10
attempt=0
while [ $attempt -lt $max_attempts ]; do
    url=$(docker logs $container_id 2>&1 | grep -o "http://127.0.0.1:8888/lab?token=[^[:space:]]*" | tail -n1)
    if [ ! -z "$url" ]; then
        # Replace default port with our actual port
        url=${url/8888/$port}
        xdg-open "$url"
        exit 0
    fi
    sleep 1
    ((attempt++))
done

echo "Failed to start Jupyter notebook"
exit 1

Refresh KDE’s service menu cache:

kbuildsycoca6

Features

  • Port selection: 8888-8899 (auto-detects what’s used)
  • Directory mounting (mounts current directory into work)
  • Local-only access
  • Browser auto-launch

Planned Features

  • requirements.txt integration
  • Persistent containers? (currently ephemeral)
  • Environment configurations
  • Clean-up

TL;DR

Launch Jupyter notebooks from any directory through the right-click menu.

For more details about KDE service menus, see the KDE Development documentation. KDE is great you should use it and give them money.

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