No interative window to run python script

[Naman-Agrawal19]

This SS if from VS code. I can run python script line by line or whole script in an interactive window which is nothing but a jupyter notebook.

But i can't do this in Positron IDE. Kindly inbuilt this feature in IDE too,

[juliasilge]

Instead of the Jupyter interactive window, Positron has its own fully featured interactive console:

You can send code line-by-line to the console using Cmd/Ctrl+Enter, or you can run the whole script or a selection:

Let me know if that doesn't answer your question!

[ntluong95]

I think what they meant is not just about detaching the console, but also some treatment applied in the output. So far I have seen Positron has worked very hard to styling the input and output in the console.
One thing I would like to request again, is to improve dataframe printing, as requested in #3802
At least it should look like rendered HTML table in Jupyter notebook in VSCode, or having some functions, for example a button to quick open the Data Explorer, exporting button for example.

[LukaNeg]

@juliasilge
Not sure what stage this is at, so just re-pinging this thread. As a die-hard Rstudio lover that has had to convert over to VS-Code for Python, I can definitely +1 the value of having output go to an interactive console as described above. Here are some of the advantages:

• The the code sent to the interactive console (IC) can be expanded or contracted (default contracted) if you need to see what you had sent to the console without it instantly taking up all the space. In the screenshots above, the three dots to the left of each block allow you to expand it.
• When running code that takes longer, there is a timer counting the minutes and seconds that it has been running for, and I can even go back to a previous run to remember "ahh that took 2 min to run, ok". You can see in the examples above the "0.0s" under each block.
• Any dataframes are displayed in a visually appealing format. I know we can explore the data in the data explorer, but sometimes I just want to run a df and see a quick summary of what the table looks like without having to open it up completely.
• The blocks of each code run are clearly defined "blocks" in a notebook-style
• You can delete previous blocks to organize what your output looks like. This isn't for creating a pretty notebook by any means, it's just for quick organization when, for example, you might want to compare some numbers that you ran earlier.
• In VSCode the plot outputs also get sent here, but in the case of Positron, you could leave that to go into the Plot viewer with maybe a link that you could click in the IC to take you directly to that plot in the viewer. Just a thought there, but there might be a better way to integrate IC with the plot viewer.
• Finally, the green check mark is a silly but really satisfying UX feature. It's very nice to see the code blocks with the check mark knowing nothing broke haha

Hope this is helpful! CC @LucasFRChaves

[LukaNeg]

I'll just add that the interactive console in VS Code comes from this: https://github.com/ipython/ipython

Maybe that helps for how you could integrate this into Positron

[juliasilge]

Thank you for this feedback, @LukaNeg! I added some of your thoughts to #3660 (comment) where we are tracking styling improvements to the Positron console.

I'll restate that we are all in on the fully interactive Positron console for use cases where you might in VS Code use the Jupyter interactive window. We really appreciate you highlighting what you miss from the Jupyter interactive window, so we can think about how to support those needs!

[LukaNeg]

Thank you so much! Really appreciate you taking this feedback into account 🙏

[FritzZuhl]

I very much miss the interactive window in VS Code. Please return it. I have been using the 'console' but it just is not the same.

[juliasilge]

Can you share more about what you miss from the Jupyter interactive window compared to the Positron console? Is it styling of inputs and output as described in #3660? Or something else?

[jthomasmock]

Hi @FritzZuhl -- following up here, it would be great to hear about features you are missing or wish were available. 🙏