The example notebook does not work on Google Colab

[miohtama]

Describe the issue

The example notebook fails on Google Colab

1. Click https://colab.research.google.com/github/matplotlib/ipympl/blob/master/examples/ipympl.ipynb
2. Add and run !pip install ipympl
3. Click Runtime > Restart and run all

Versions

 ipympl in /usr/local/lib/python3.7/dist-packages (0.7.0)

The ipympl fails in the section of Interactions with other widgets and layouting.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

TraitError                                Traceback (most recent call last)

<ipython-input-13-4a044b406030> in <module>()
     13     center=fig.canvas,
     14     footer=widgets.Button(icon='check'),
---> 15     pane_heights=[0, 6, 1]
     16 )

9 frames

/usr/local/lib/python3.7/dist-packages/traitlets/traitlets.py in error(self, obj, value, error, info)
    688                     e = "The '%s' trait expected %s, not %s." % (
    689                         self.name, self.info(), describe("the", value))
--> 690                 raise TraitError(e)
    691 
    692     def get_metadata(self, key, default=None):

TraitError: The 'center' trait of an AppLayout instance expected a Widget or None, not the FigureCanvasAgg at '0x7f0ec0de9750'.

[martinRenou]

Yep. Unfortunately ipywidgets is supported in colab but not sub-widgets-packages like ipympl.

[ianhi]

See googlecolab/colabtools#498 and a follow up issue with much more detailed info here: googlecolab/colabtools#1524

[martinRenou]

ipympl now works in colab!

[thomasaarholt]

@martinRenou I think it no longer works? Running !pip install ipympl at the beginning of this notebook and then restarting the kernel does not yield an interactive figure after running the plt.figure() cell.

https://colab.research.google.com/github/matplotlib/ipympl/blob/master/examples/ipympl.ipynb#scrollTo=rIZyNlcKJJ1k

[martinRenou]

You need to run the following for it to work:

from google.colab import output
output.enable_custom_widget_manager()

[thomasaarholt]

Ah! Thanks!

[shaunc]

I'm getting this same error in a notebook in vscode. Is there a known workaround?