Unable to set width='container' in jupyterlab

[LinuxIsCool]

Unable to set property width to container as described here: https://altair-viz.github.io/user_guide/customization.html#adjusting-chart-size

versions:

altair==5.0.0rc1
jupyterlab==4.0.0b1

alt.Chart(cars).mark_bar().encode(
    x='Origin',
    y='count()',
).properties(
    width='container',
    height=200
)

Javascript Error: Unrecognized signal name: "container"
This usually means there's a typo in your chart specification. See the javascript console for the full traceback.

[joelostblom]

Not sure what is going on. I tested in jupyterlab 3.3.4 and there is no error but the plot that is displayed is empty.

[mattijn]

There is an open PR on the zero-width plot when using width="container": #2867 (comment).

But I think this issue is related to the new v4 beta release of JupyterLab. We have an open issue here to keep an eye on this here: #2585 (comment) because of @ChristopherDavisUCI his work on this here: jupyterlab/jupyterlab#13893.

Maybe it is also related to this comment and connected discussion jupyterlab/jupyterlab#13893 (comment).

Can you reproduce this in the v4 beta release of JupyterLab @ChristopherDavisUCI?

[ChristopherDavisUCI]

Thanks for reporting this @LinuxIsCool

@mattijn Thanks for pointing this out to me. I tried running the original code posted above after pip install jupyterlab==v4.0.0b0 and pip install altair==5.0.0rc1 and also got a blank display.

I also tried switching the renderer using alt.renderers.enable('mimetype') and JupyterLab (or the web browser tab, it's hard for me to tell the difference) froze. I tried both Chrome and Safari.

Is this what you had meant for me to try, @mattijn, or did you mean I should try something without the width="container" part?

[mattijn]

Thanks for checking @ChristopherDavisUCI! So probably something going on with the beta-release of JupyterLab v4?

No, no need to check width="container", that won't work anyway.

[mattijn]

Oh wait, I didn't read good enough. It seems you can't reproduce the issue.

[ChristopherDavisUCI]

Hi @mattijn I had misunderstood! I tried just now with

alt.Chart(cars).mark_bar().encode(
    x='Origin',
    y='count()',
)

both with the default renderer and with the 'mimetype' renderer and didn't have any problems at first glance.

[mattijn]

This is supported in the second release candidate of Altair v5 (pip install altair==5.0.0rc2).
See animated gif:

Resizing in jupyterlab only works by resizing the browser. Resizing by panel handle doesn't work, as far as I can understand ist that a feature of jupyterlab (the code cells are also not changing in width). Suggestions how we can improve this are welcome.