Hi Beam Devs, I'm currently working on improving the usability and packaging experience of the Beam JupyterLab Sidepanel extension. Today, installing JupyterLab extensions typically requires calling jupyter labextension install, which:
- is deprecated in JupyterLab 4.x, - adds friction for end users, - and is not compatible with modern Python packaging practices. To address this, I opened a PR that adds support for pip-based installation of the apache-beam-jupyterlab-side panel extension: π PR: https://github.com/apache/beam/pull/35399 With this change, users can simply run: ```bash pip install apache-beam-jupyterlab-sidepanel ``` β¦and the extension is immediately available in JupyterLab β no manual labextension install step required. This is implemented using pyproject.toml, hatchling, and hatch-jupyter-builder, following the JupyterLab prebuilt extension standard. The goal is to make the sidepanel more accessible to users (especially new ones), reduce installation errors, and improve integration with CI/CD systems. If you have thoughts on this approach β naming, packaging standards, or longer-term integration into Beam releases β Iβd appreciate the feedback. Thanks, Canyu