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Show HN: A modern Jupyter client for macOS

satyrn.app

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Show HN: A modern Jupyter client for macOS

#1
I love Jupyter – it's how I learned to code back when I was working as a scientist. But I was always frustrated that there wasn't a simple and elegant app that I could use with my Mac. I made do by wrapping JupyterLab in a chrome app, and then more recently switching to VS Code to make use of Copilot. I've always craved a more focused and lighter-weight experience when working in a notebook. That's why I created Satyrn.

It starts up really fast (faster time-to-execution than VS Code or JupyterLab), you can launch notebooks right from the Finder, and the design is super minimalist. It's got an OpenAI integration (use your own API key) for multi-cell generation with your notebook as context (I'll add other LLMs soon). And many more useful features like a virtual environment management UI, Black code formatting, and easy image/table copy buttons.

Full disclosure: it's built with Electron. I originally wrote it in Swift but couldn't get the editor experience to where I wanted it. Now it supports autocomplete, multi-cursor editing, and moving the cursor between cells just like you'd expect from JupyterLab or VS Code.

Satyrn sits on top of the jupyter-server, so it works with all your existing python kernels, Jupyter configuration, and ipynb files. It only works with local files at the moment, but I'm planning to extend it to support remote servers as well.

I'm an indie developer, and I will try to monetize at some point, but it's free while in alpha. If you're interested, please try it out!

I'd love your feedback in the comments, or you can contact me at jack-at-satyrn-dot-app.

Show HN: A modern Jupyter client for macOS
satyrn.app

Re: Show HN: A modern Jupyter client for macOS

#2
Thanks for checking out my project. I'd love your feedback in the comments.

I'm not sure if the post text above is visible (I can't see it on my phone's HN reader) so I'm going to repost it here as a comment too:

I love Jupyter – it's how I learned to code back when I was working as a scientist. But I was always frustrated that there wasn't a simple and elegant app that I could use with my Mac. I made do by wrapping JupyterLab in a chrome app, and then more recently switching to VS Code to make use of Copilot. I've always craved a more focused and lighter-weight experience when working in a notebook. That's why I created Satyrn. It starts up really fast (faster time-to-execution than VS Code or JupyterLab), you can launch notebooks right from the Finder, and the design is super minimalist. It's got an OpenAI integration (use your own API key) for multi-cell generation with your notebook as context (I'll add other LLMs soon). And many more useful features like a virtual environment management UI, Black code formatting, and easy image/table copy buttons.

Full disclosure: it's built with Electron. I originally wrote it in Swift but couldn't get the editor experience to where I wanted it. Now it supports autocomplete, multi-cursor editing, and moving the cursor between cells just like you'd expect from JupyterLab or VS Code.

Satyrn sits on top of the jupyter-server, so it works with all your existing python kernels, Jupyter configuration, and ipynb files. It only works with local files at the moment, but I'm planning to extend it to support remote servers as well.

I'm an indie developer, and I will try to monetize at some point, but it's free while in alpha. If you're interested, please try it out!

I'd love your feedback in the comments, or you can contact me at jack-at-satyrn-dot-app.

Re: Show HN: A modern Jupyter client for macOS

#3
Cool!

Surprised to hear you started with a native UI and pivoted to electron. What was the major blocker there?

I recently got frustrated with OpenSCAD and decided to try CadQuery and Build123d. The modeling backend is a big step forward, but the GUI is not nearly as good as OpenSCAD. I managed to get it working via VSCode with a plugin, but I’m dreaming of embedding everything in a dedicated MacOS app so I can jump into CAD work without hacking through dev setup.

Re: Show HN: A modern Jupyter client for macOS

#4
I hope you consider an open source model: code available freely on GitHub & app available for purchase on your website.

I was scared about doing it this way, but it worked out for me: https://videohubapp.com/ for pay-what-you-want-$5-minimum for my app, and https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App git-clone-and-build for the code. I currently sell about 60 copies per month (same average across the last 4 years too).

Re: Show HN: A modern Jupyter client for macOS

#5
Alternatives and innovation in this space are greatly appreciated! I run Linux and Windows so I keep my eyes fixed on https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/12062#issuecommen... - - zed is a cross platform, gpu rendered, rust-based editor.. Jupyter support should arrive soonish

Re: Show HN: A modern Jupyter client for macOS

#7
post #3

Cool! Surprised to hear you started with a native UI and pivoted to electron. What was the major blocker there? I recently got frustrated with OpenSCAD and decided to try CadQuery and Build123d. The modeling backend is a big step forward, but the GUI is not nearly as good as OpenSCAD. I managed to get it working via VSCode with a plugin, but I’m dreaming of embedding everything in a dedicated MacOS app so I can jump…

There aren't many great production-ready open-source frameworks for code-editor components in Swift. I assessed quite a few but found that the feature completeness was far from what I needed. I tried to fork [CodeEditSourceEditor](https://github.com/CodeEditApp/CodeEditSourceEditor) and add the extra features I wanted, but I think it would have taken me 6-12 months to get it to an acceptable state, meanwhile not spending any time focusing on the rest of the product experience.

I decided to play around with Typescript and Electron over a weekend and ended up getting a really solid prototype so I made the heart wrenching decision to move over.

I'm messing around with writing my own text editor component in Swift now, but it's quite a big endeavour to get the standard expected for a production ready product.

I'm assuming a pure-swift CAD UI would be equally difficult. Would be really cool to see that tho.

Re: Show HN: A modern Jupyter client for macOS

#9
post #5

Alternatives and innovation in this space are greatly appreciated! I run Linux and Windows so I keep my eyes fixed on https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/12062#issuecommen... - - zed is a cross platform, gpu rendered, rust-based editor.. Jupyter support should arrive soonish

nteract (https://nteract.io/) supports windows and linux.
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