jupyterlab_drag_and_drop_path_extension

Drag a file or folder from the file browser and drop it onto a terminal, Python file, or notebook to insert its path - no copy-pasting, no typing.

Features

• Drop onto a terminal - inserts the path as a shell-escaped argument and brings the terminal tab to the foreground
• Drop onto a Python file or notebook code cell - inserts a quoted string literal, or a pathlib expression joined with the / operator (e.g. pathlib.Path('/home/me') / 'data' / 'file.csv')
• Drop onto any other file - markdown, text, JSON and the rest receive the bare path, with no quoting
• Absolute or relative paths - configurable; relative is computed against the terminal's working directory or the open document's directory
• Master on/off switch - disable the extension without uninstalling

Usage

1. Open a target alongside the file browser - a terminal, a Python file, or a notebook
2. Drag a single file or folder from the file browser onto the target
3. The path is inserted - shell-escaped in terminals, as a quoted string or a pathlib.Path(...) expression in Python contexts, or as plain text elsewhere

In notebooks the path lands in the cell you drop it on, at that cell's cursor position; a drop away from any cell goes to the active cell. One file or folder at a time: a drag carrying several items is refused and the cursor shows no-drop. Whether the path is absolute or relative, and how Python output is formatted, is controlled by the settings below.

Settings

Open Settings → Settings Editor → Drag and Drop Path. Each entry below leads with the label the editor shows, with the JSON key in brackets for anyone editing the raw settings:

• Enable drag-and-drop path insertion (enabled) - master on/off, default on
• Path type (pathType) - relative (default) or absolute
• Python path style (pythonPathStyle) - posix inserts a quoted string literal (default), pathlib inserts a Path(...) expression
• Pathlib constructor (pathlibConstructor) - pathlib.Path (default) or Path; choose Path only in files that already do from pathlib import Path, because the extension inserts no import

Requirements

• JupyterLab >= 4.0.0
• The wheel also installs and auto-enables a jupyter_server extension, which supplies the server root and each terminal's working directory
• Relative paths in a terminal need that server extension and a readable process table - /proc on Linux, lsof on macOS. Where it is unavailable the extension inserts nothing rather than a wrong path; absolute paths and all editor and notebook drops are unaffected

Install

To install the extension, execute:

pip install jupyterlab_drag_and_drop_path_extension

Uninstall

To remove the extension, execute:

pip uninstall jupyterlab_drag_and_drop_path_extension

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Paul Romer for the inspiration and the discussions about reducing user friction when working with hierarchical folder structures in JupyterLab.