Customizing Jupyter Lab Shortcuts

Written by Adam Green.

Notebooks are a popular tool among data scientists - many data professionals write all their Python code in notebooks.

Jupyter Lab is a web application used by data scientists to run Jupyter Notebooks.

This article shows how to customize shortcuts in Jupyter Lab and gives you a starter template for useful shortcuts.

We will setup custom shortcuts for:

  • restarting the iPython kernel,
  • running all cells above this cell,
  • opening a terminal,
  • moving between tabs.

Why Customize Shortcuts?

The default shortcuts in Jupyter Lab are good (take a look at our Jupyter Lab guide for a list of the most important default shortcuts), but there are a few parts of the data science workflow that the default shortcuts don't cover.

Adding just a few custom shortcuts will lead to an increase in the speed & accuracy of your workflow.

How to Customize Shortcuts in Jupyter Lab

You can access the Keyboard Shortcuts menu using:

  1. Menu Bar -> Settings
  2. Settings -> Advanced Settings Editor
  3. Advanced Settings Editor -> Keyboard Shortcuts
  4. Keyboard Shortcuts -> User Preferences

If you haven't edited your Jupyter Lab shortcuts before, you'll have nothing in the User Preferences section.

There are a few strategies for setting up User Preferences:

  • copy all the System Defaults into User Preferences, and then modify the shortcuts you want to change
  • only put the shortcuts we want to change into User Preferences, which is what we will do in this article

Either way, you'll benefit from having a copy of System Defaults open in a text editor, for easier searching (the Jupyter Lab search can leave a little wanting :).

Restarting the Kernel & Running All Cells Above

The most important custom shortcuts are those that make restarting the kernel quicker. Its something you do a lot when using notebooks.

Which shortcut is best for you depends on how you like to restart the kernel - we use Restart Kernel & Run All the most. The full shortcuts we use for managing the kernel are:

  • restart & run all -> F6,
  • restart & clear -> F7,
  • run all above -> F8.

Copying the JSON below directly into your User Preferences will give you these three custom shortcuts:

json

{
    "shortcuts": [
        {
            "command": "runmenu:restart-and-run-all",
            "keys": [
                "F6"
            ],
            "selector": "[data-jp-code-runner]"
        },
        {
            "command": "kernelmenu:restart-and-clear",
            "keys": [
                "F7"
            ],
            "selector": "[data-jp-kernel-user]:focus"
        },
        {
            "command": "kernelmenu:run-all-above",
            "keys": [
                "F8"
            ],
            "selector": "[data-jp-kernel-user]:focus"
        }
    ]
}

You'll notice that we don't use F5 - because this is often used as a Refresh Page shortcut in browsers.

Open a Terminal

A good option here is Alt T (like on Ubuntu).

A common workflow for with this shortcut is:

  • Alt T to open a terminal,
  • do some work,
  • Alt ArrowUp to switch back and forth with previous tab (usually a notebook),
  • Ctrl W to close the terminal window.

Alt ArrowUp is a custom shortcut as well - see the Move between tabs section below.

json

{
    "shortcuts": [
        {
            "command": "terminal:open",
            "keys": [
                "Alt T"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        }
    ]
}

Move Between Tabs

The final shortcuts are to make moving around between open tabs using Alt + arrow keys:

  • Alt ArrowUp -> previously used,
  • Alt ArrowLeft -> previous tab,
  • Alt ArrowRight -> next tab.
json

{
    "shortcuts": [
        {
            "command": "tabsmenu:activate-previously-used-tab",
            "keys": [
                "Alt ArrowUp"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        },
        {
            "command": "application:activate-previous-tab",
            "keys": [
                "Alt ArrowLeft"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        },
        {
            "command": "application:activate-next-tab",
            "keys": [
                "Alt ArrowRight"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        }
    ]
}

Full Custom Shortcuts JSON

Below is a copy of the full JSON we use to customize our shortcuts - you can copy this directly into User Preferences:

json

{
    "shortcuts": [
        {
            "command": "sidebar:toggle",
            "keys": [
                "F9"
            ],
            "selector": ".jp-SideBar"
        },
        {
            "command": "runmenu:restart-and-run-all",
            "keys": [
                "F6"
            ],
            "selector": "[data-jp-code-runner]"
        },
        {
            "command": "kernelmenu:restart-and-clear",
            "keys": [
                "F7"
            ],
            "selector": "[data-jp-kernel-user]:focus"
        },
        {
            "command": "kernelmenu:run-all-above",
            "keys": [
                "F8"
            ],
            "selector": "[data-jp-kernel-user]:focus"
        },
        {
            "command": "terminal:open",
            "keys": [
                "Alt T"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        },
        {
            "command": "tabsmenu:activate-previously-used-tab",
            "keys": [
                "Alt ArrowUp"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        },
        {
            "command": "application:activate-previous-tab",
            "keys": [
                "Alt ArrowLeft"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        },
        {
            "command": "application:activate-next-tab",
            "keys": [
                "Alt ArrowRight"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        },
        {
            "command": "notebook:change-cell-to-code",
            "keys": [
                "W"
            ],
            "selector": ".jp-Notebook:focus"
        },
        {
            "command": "notebook:change-cell-to-markdown",
            "keys": [
                "M"
            ],
            "selector": ".jp-Notebook:focus"
        }
    ]
}

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