from __future__ import print_function
The Button is not used to represent a data type. Instead the button widget is used to handle mouse clicks. The on_click method of the Button can be used to register function to be called when the button is clicked. The doc string of the on_click can be seen below.
import ipywidgets as widgets
print(widgets.Button.on_click.__doc__)
Since button clicks are stateless, they are transmitted from the front-end to the back-end using custom messages. By using the on_click method, a button that prints a message when it has been clicked is shown below.
from IPython.display import display
button = widgets.Button(description="Click Me!")
display(button)
def on_button_clicked(b):
print("Button clicked.")
button.on_click(on_button_clicked)
The Text also has a special on_submit event. The on_submit event fires when the user hits return.
text = widgets.Text()
display(text)
def handle_submit(sender):
print(text.value)
text.on_submit(handle_submit)
Widget properties are IPython traitlets and traitlets are eventful. To handle changes, the on_trait_change method of the widget can be used to register a callback. The doc string for on_trait_change can be seen below.
print(widgets.Widget.on_trait_change.__doc__)
Mentioned in the doc string, the callback registered can have 4 possible signatures:
Using this method, an example of how to output an IntSlider's value as it is changed can be seen below.
int_range = widgets.IntSlider()
display(int_range)
def on_value_change(name, value):
print(value)
int_range.on_trait_change(on_value_change, 'value')
Often, you may want to simply link widget attributes together. Synchronization of attributes can be done in a simpler way than by using bare traitlets events.
The first method is to use the link and directional_link functions from the traitlets module.
import traitlets
caption = widgets.Latex(value = 'The values of slider1, slider2 and slider3 are synchronized')
sliders1, slider2, slider3 = widgets.IntSlider(description='Slider 1'),\
widgets.IntSlider(description='Slider 2'),\
widgets.IntSlider(description='Slider 3')
l = traitlets.link((sliders1, 'value'), (slider2, 'value'), (slider3, 'value'))
display(caption, sliders1, slider2, slider3)
caption = widgets.Latex(value = 'Changes in source values are reflected in target1 and target2')
source, target1, target2 = widgets.IntSlider(description='Source'),\
widgets.IntSlider(description='Target 1'),\
widgets.IntSlider(description='Target 2')
traitlets.dlink((source, 'value'), (target1, 'value'), (target2, 'value'))
display(caption, source, target1, target2)
Function traitlets.link returns a Link object. The link can be broken by calling the unlink method.
# l.unlink()
When synchronizing traitlets attributes, you may experience a lag because of the latency dues to the rountrip to the server side. You can also directly link widgets attributes, either in a unidirectional or a bidirectional fashion using the link widgets.
caption = widgets.Latex(value = 'The values of range1, range2 and range3 are synchronized')
range1, range2, range3 = widgets.IntSlider(description='Range 1'),\
widgets.IntSlider(description='Range 2'),\
widgets.IntSlider(description='Range 3')
l = widgets.jslink((range1, 'value'), (range2, 'value'), (range3, 'value'))
display(caption, range1, range2, range3)
caption = widgets.Latex(value = 'Changes in source_range values are reflected in target_range1 and target_range2')
source_range, target_range1, target_range2 = widgets.IntSlider(description='Source range'),\
widgets.IntSlider(description='Target range 1'),\
widgets.IntSlider(description='Target range 2')
widgets.jsdlink((source_range, 'value'), (target_range1, 'value'), (target_range2, 'value'))
display(caption, source_range, target_range1, target_range2)
Function widgets.jslink returns a Link widget. The link can be broken by calling the unlink method.
# l.unlink()