Release notes *3.0.5*

docker run -it \
  -v ~/wljs:"/home/wljs/WLJS Notebooks" \
  -v ~/wljs/Licensing:/home/wljs/.WolframEngine/Licensing \
  -v ~/wljs/tmp:/tmp \
  -p 8000:3000 \
  --name wljs \
  ghcr.io/wljsteam/wljs-notebook:main

brew install --cask wljs-notebook

Human-, LLM- and GIT-friendly Notebook Format

We silently introduced a new version of .wln notebook format. The structure is minimal, and easy to read and parse by people and machines, but most importantly, it solves issues with versioning systems being unable to correctly identify the differences

.md

%----%Notebook%---%
Quick: true
%-----------------%

%-----%Cells%-----%
Type: Input
%-----------------%
1+1

%-----------------%
Type: Output
%-----------------%
2

%---%EndOfCells%--%

%-%EndOfNotebook%-%

It looks like YAML in headers and was definitely inspired by it. After the corresponding separators the data can be any valid Wolfram Language expression.

Unicode support

We did some hard work to keep all special symbols of Wolfram intact, while exporting and importing unicode characters. For example, this one will be written as a normal UTF8 string to a file

Куры 🐔

Content hot-reloading support

In addition to a new format we enabled hot-reloading of a notebook content if it was modified outside WLJS Notebook. You will be prompted to approve changes or decline them.

Farewell to AI Copilot 🪦

We decided to discontinue our built-in AI copilot in favour of support for external tools like coding agents Claude, Codex and others. Our custom copilot was too expensive in terms of tokens and not quite reliable. This also saves a lot of resources for our team, since we provide notebook tools as a service for other apps and do not have to update the providers manually, tweak system prompts and so on.

However, we prepared something better instead...

MCP Server ✨

We added a background MCP server to interact with the notebook in the same way as our copilot. It can run cells, edit, create and do all autonomous tasks.

It also includes skills, documentation and consumes ~4-5 times fewer tokens compared to our former copilot.

You can add it to your favourite coding tool as follows:

Claude

claude mcp add --transport http --scope user wljs-notebook http://127.0.0.1:20564/

Codex

codex mcp add wljs-notebook --url http://127.0.0.1:20564/

CLI ✨

We updated our wljs cli, that acts like a proxy to our API exposed via MCP server. You can do things like:

wljs focused

returns focused notebook ID

then add a new cell

wljs add 'notebookId' --content-escaped '.md\n# Hi'

It is also LLM-friendly, use help command for more.

Ask community

Something isn't working? Try this command

This will automatically copy your cell and create a post on Github Discussions.

InputColor element

We added new input element to the standard library:

InputColor // Options

{"Label"->"Color","Description"->"","Style"->"","Class"->"","LabelClass"->"","LabelStyle"->"","ShowAlpha"->False,"Topic"->"Default","Event":>CreateUUID[]}

Module[{col = {1,0,0}},
  {
    EventHandler[InputColor[col], (col=#)&],
    Graphics[{
      RGBColor[col//Offload], 
      Triangle[],
      RGBColor[({1,1,1}-col)//Offload],
      Disk[{0,0},0.2]
    }]
  } // Column 
]

Image with HTMLView

If you wrap any Image with HTMLView, it will be automatically serialized to a file and embedded as native img element. This helps if you have many rasterized images in the notebook

ExampleData[{"TestImage", "Lena"}] // HTMLView 

TeXView update

We added support for live updates in TeXView as well as new option ImageSize to set the size explicitly:

str = TeXForm[Integrate[f[x], x]];
TeXView[str//Offload]

(*VB[*)(Null)(*,*)(*"1:eJxTTMoPSmNkYGAoZgESHvk5KRAeO5AISY0Iy0wtRwj4p6Xl5CemFDODBEqKAGYDDKI="*)(*]VB*)

try to update

str = TeXForm[Integrate[f[x] x, x]];

Button["Generate", Then[TeXFormAsync[Series[Sin[x] Cos[x], {x, 0, RandomInteger[{1, 30}]}]], (str = #1)&]]

You can also easily place it on any plot:

Plot%5Bx%2C%20%7Bx%2C0%2C1%7D%2C%20Epilog-%3E%7B%0A%20%20Inset%5BTeXView%5BTeXForm%5By%3D%3Dx%5D%2C%20ImageSize-%3EMedium%5D%2C%20%7B0.5%60%2C0.5%60%7D%5D%0A%7D%5D%20

(*VB[*)(FrontEndRef["1716324f-9dc8-4ab7-aa0c-95f4f214e4dc"])(*,*)(*"1:eJxTTMoPSmNkYGAoZgESHvk5KRCeEJBwK8rPK3HNS3GtSE0uLUlMykkNVgEKG5obmhkbmaTpWqYkW+iaJCaZ6yYmGiTrWpqmmaQZGZqkmqQkAwB/chXR"*)(*]VB*)

Project cell to a window (Update)

We improved this feature: Ctrl-Shift-Enter. It now automatically copies all output HTML or JavaScript cells to a new window as well.

Why?

Imagine you have created a presentation with custom styles defined in separate HTML cells, along with some components, and you do not want to present it directly from the same notebook. You could still package all scripts using WLX cells and embed them into one of the slides, but this may not be ideal for every case.

Now, you can simply project your slides as usual, and everything else happens in the background.

Image3D Update

We added support for colors (in RGB format) in Image3D!

Image3D[RandomReal[1, {5, 10, 10, 3}]]

And it also now supports updates using Offload wrapper. Here is a rotating human brain (voxelized)

img3d = ImageResize[Image3D[ExampleData[{"TestImage3D","MRbrain"}]], 4 {15,15,15}];
buf3d = ImageData[img3d, "Real32"];
angle = 0.0;

Image3D[buf3d//Offload, "Real32", BoxRatios->{1,1,1/1.65}, ColorFunction->"XRay", Epilog->{
  EventHandler[AnimationFrameListener[buf3d//Offload], Function[Null,
    buf3d = ImageData[ImageRotate[img3d, {angle, {1,1,1}}, ImageDimensions[img3d]], "Real32"];
    angle+=0.1;
  ]]
}]

Inset expression update

We added the missing size argument to Inset, which is useful for embedding other objects into 2D graphics. Here is an updated example:

g = Plot[Sin[x], {x, 0, 10}, Frame -> True, FrameTicks -> None, 
   AspectRatio -> Full];
   Table[Graphics[{Inset[g, Automatic, Automatic, {s, s}], 
   Circle[{0, 0}, 2]}, Frame -> True, ImageSize->150], {s, {1, 2, 3}}]

Codebase Refactor

Another refactoring sweep has happened, unifying the architecture and modules structure.

Stability of kernels connection was significantly improved by switching from TCP/IP communication to WTSP + shared memory.

Breaking changes

CreateFrontEndObject does not run automatically in the output cells, i.e.

CreateFrontEndObject[1+1]

FrontEndRef["cc7d56fc-6559-4a1c-bd5b-a2b6182a2a51"]

We removed it to dedicate this task solely to ViewBox avoiding any implicit conventions. In this sense frontend objects serve only the purpose of storing things. For an average user this does not mean anything, since it only affects custom written Javascript symbols. Here is an example:

.js
core.Deco = async (args, env) => {
  env.element.style.background = 'red';
  env.element.style.height = '1rem';
  env.element.style.width = '1rem';
}

core.Deco%20%3D%20async%20%28args%2C%20env%29%20%3D%3E%20%7B%0A%20%20env.element.style.background%20%3D%20%27red%27%3B%0A%20%20env.element.style.height%20%3D%20%271rem%27%3B%0A%20%20env.element.style.width%20%3D%20%271rem%27%3B%0A%7D

Deco /: MakeBoxes[d_Deco, StandardForm] := ViewBox[d,d]

Deco[] + 1(*BB[*)(**)(*,*)(*"1:eJxTTMoPSmNhYGAo5gcSAUX5ZZkpqSn+BSWZ+XnFaYwgCS4g4Zyfm5uaV+KUXxEMUqxsbm6exgSSBPGCSnNSg9mAjOCSosy8dLBYSFFpKpoKkDkeqYkpEFXBILO1sCgJSczMQVYCAOFrJEU="*)(*]BB*)

1+(*VB[*)(Deco[])(*,*)(*"1:eJxTTMoPSmNkYGAoZgESHvk5KWkMMJ5LanI+AGKYBgI="*)(*]VB*)