Every Textual application is now a web application.
With 3 lines of code, any Textual app can run in the browser.
This is Posting running in the terminal. |
|
This is Posting running in the browser. |
|
First, install (or upgrade) Textual.
Then install textual-serve
from PyPI:
pip install textual-serve
First import the Server class:
from textual_serve.server import Server
Then create a Server
instance and pass the command that launches your Textual app:
server = Server("python -m textual")
The command can be anything you would enter in the shell, as long as it results in a Textual app running.
Finally, call the serve
method:
server.serve()
You will now be able to click on the link in the terminal to run your app in a browser.
Run this code, visit https://localhost:8000
from textual_serve.server import Server
server = Server("python -m textual")
server.serve()
The Server
class has the following parameters:
parameter | description |
---|---|
command | A shell command to launch a Textual app. |
host | The host of the web application (defaults to "localhost"). |
port | The port for the web application (defaults to 8000). |
title | The title show in the web app on load, leave as None to use the command. |
public_url | The public URL, if the server is behind a proxy. None for the local URL. |
statics_path | Path to statics folder, relative to server.py. Default uses directory in module. |
templates_path | Path to templates folder, relative to server.py. Default uses directory in module. |
The Server.serve
method accepts a debug
parameter.
When set to True
, this will enable textual devtools.
When you visit the app URL, the server launches an instance of your app in a subprocess, and communicates with it via a websocket.
This means that you can serve multiple Textual apps across all the CPUs on your system.
Note that Textual-serve uses a custom protocol to communicate with Textual apps. It does not simply expose a shell in your browser. There is no way for a malicious user to do anything the app-author didn't intend.
See also textual-web which serves Textual apps on a public URL.
You can consider this project to essentially be a self-hosted equivalent of Textual-web.