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Python Day 9: Building Interactive Web Apps without HTML/CSS and JavaScript

Introduction

Over the past few years, HTML, CSS & JavaScript has been the go to technologies for building web applications. However, the learning curve has been a tedious and time consuming especially for python developers and data scientists. This is where Taipy comes into play.

Meet Taipy!

Taipy is an open-source Python library that enables data scientists and developers to build robust end-to-end data pipelines.

Data and AI Algorithms into Production-Ready Web Apps

GitHub Stars GitHub Issues GitHub License

Taipy GUI enables developers to create interactive web interfaces for their data pipelines without requiring HTML/CSS & JavaScript skills. It provides access to interactive widgets, controls and presentative elements to design user interfaces using Python and connect them to your data pipeline functions.

Image description

Source: Taipy Docs

Why Taipy?

Taipy provides a simple and intuitive way to build web apps with minimal coding. It offers several advantages over traditional methods. Here are some reasons why Taipy is worth considering for your next web development project:

  1. Simplicity: Taipy simplifies web development by providing an intuitive GUI and a Python API that enable developers to build web applications without the need for extensive coding skills. This makes it an ideal choice for python developers, data scientists and citizen developers who want to build web applications that meet their needs.

  2. Flexibility: Taipy's data-centric approach offers flexibility in building web applications that are optimized for performance, scalability, and adaptability. With Taipy, developers can build web applications that handle large and complex data sets with ease, making it an ideal choice for building data-driven web applications.

  3. Efficiency: Taipy's data-centric approach enables developers to focus on what really matters: the data. By prioritizing data management and analysis, Taipy streamlines the development process, making it more efficient and less time-consuming. This means that developers can build web applications faster and with fewer resources.

  4. Powerful data processing capabilities: Taipy offers powerful data processing capabilities that enable developers to perform complex data analysis and visualization tasks with ease. This makes it an ideal choice for building web applications in fields such as finance, healthcare, and science, where data analysis and visualization are critical.

  5. Easy deployment: Taipy makes it easy to deploy web applications, with support for popular cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. This means that developers can easily deploy their web applications to the cloud, without the need for extensive configuration or setup.

Explore Apps Built with Taipy

Let's explore some of the amazing applications that have been built using Taipy.

  1. Stock Visualization

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  1. COVID Dashboard

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  1. Production Planning

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  1. LLM Chatbot

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  1. TalkToTaipy

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  1. Measuring Industry Agglomeration

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  1. Real-time Face Recognition

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Click here for the project gallery.

Building Web Apps with Taipy

Requirement: Python 3.8 or later on Linux, Windows, and Mac.

Installing Taipy: Open up a terminal and run the following command, which will install Taipy with all its dependencies.



pip install taipy


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Hence, let say hello to Taipy...

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# import the library
from taipy import Gui

page = "# Hello Taipy!" 

# run the gui
Gui(page).run()


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Save the code as a Python file: e.g., app.py.
Run the code and wait for the client link http://127.0.0.1:5000 to display and pop up in your browser.

You can change the port if you want to run multiple servers at the same time with Gui(...).run(port=xxxx).

Project One: Personal Details Generator

fake

A simple GUI application that generates random user details, including a name, phone number, and address, using the Faker library.

Full code



from faker import Faker
from taipy.gui import Gui, notify

name = ""
phone = ""
address = ""

fake = Faker()

def generate_name(state):
    state.name = fake.name()
    state.phone = fake.phone_number()
    state.address = fake.address()
    notify(state, 'info', f'Here is your new details: {state.name}')

page = """
# Generate Fake Data {: .color-primary}

<|personal.png|image|> <br />
Generated name is: <|{name}|> <br />
Generated Phone Number: <|{phone}|> <br />
Generated Address: <|{address}|>

<|Generate|button|class_name=plain mt1 p1|on_action=generate_name|>
"""

Gui(page).run(debug=True, title="Fake Details")


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Q: What do you think will happen when you run the program?

Now, let's break it down and create the program step by step

Step 1: Import the required libraries

  • Import the Faker library to generate fake data.
  • Import the Gui and notify classes from taipy.gui to create the GUI and display notifications. ```python

from faker import Faker
from taipy.gui import Gui, notify

**Step 2: Initialize global variables**

Initialize three global variables `name`, `phone`, and `address` as empty strings. These variables will store the generated fake data.
```python


name = ""
phone = ""
address = ""


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Step 3: Create an instance of the Faker class

Create an instance of the Faker class to generate fake data.



fake = Faker()


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Step 4: Define the generate_name function

Define a function generate_detail that takes a state parameter. This function generates fake data using the Faker instance and updates the global variables name, phone, and address with the generated data. The notify function is used to display a notification to the user with the generated name.



def generate_detail(state):
    state.name = fake.name()
    state.phone = fake.phone_number()
    state.address = fake.address()
    notify(state, 'info', f'Here is your new details: {state.name}')


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Step 5: Define the Taipy GUI page layout

Define the Taipy GUI page layout using Markdown syntax. The layout includes a header, an image, three text fields to display the generated fake data, and a button to generate new data. The on_action attribute of the button is set to the generate_name function.



page = """
# Generate Fake Data {: .color-primary}

<|personal.png|image|> <br />
Generated name is: <|{name}|> <br />
Generated Phone Number: <|{phone}|> <br />
Generated Address: <|{address}|>

<|Generate|button|class_name=plain mt1 p1|on_action=generate_detail|>
"""


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Step 6: Run the Taipy GUI application

Finally, run the Taipy GUI application using the Gui class. The page variable is passed to the Gui constructor to set the page layout. The debug parameter is set to True to enable debug mode, and the title parameter is set to "Fake Details" to set the application title.



Gui(page).run(debug=True, title="Fake Details")


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When you run this code, the "Generate" button triggers the generate_detail function, which updates the displayed data and shows a notification with the generated name.

Project 2: Image Background Remover 🤖

Image description

Now let's create a Taipy GUI app to remove backgrounds from images

Full Code: main.py



from PIL import Image
from rembg import remove
from taipy.gui import Gui, notify
from io import BytesIO

image_upload = ""
image_download = "removebg_img.png"
old_image = None
new_image = None
bg_removed = False

def convert_image(img):
    buf = BytesIO()
    img.save(buf, format="PNG")
    byte_im = buf.getvalue()
    return byte_im

def rm_bg(state):
    notify(state, 'info', 'Uploading image...')
    image = Image.open(state.image_upload)

    notify(state, 'info', 'Removing bg...')
    new_image = remove(image)
    new_image.save("removebg_img.png")

    notify(state, 'success', 'bg removed successfully!')
    state.old_image = convert_image(image)
    state.new_image = convert_image(new_image)
    state.bg_removed = True

page = """
# Image Background Remover {: .color-primary}
Upload an Image: <|{image_upload}|file_selector|extensions=.png,.jpg|on_action=rm_bg|> <br />
<|{old_image}|image|>
<|{new_image}|image|><br/>
<|{image_download}|file_download|label=Download Image|active={bg_removed}|>
"""

Gui(page).run(debug=True)


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Now, let's break it down and create the program step by step

Step 1: Import necessary libraries

In this step, we import the necessary libraries for working with images, removing backgrounds, creating a GUI, and working with binary data.



from PIL import Image
from rembg import remove
from taipy.gui import Gui, notify
from io import BytesIO


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Step 2: Initialize variables

In this step, we initialize variables for storing the uploaded image file, the name of the downloaded image file, the original and processed images, and a boolean variable for indicating whether the background has been removed.



image_upload = ""
image_download = "removebg_img.png"
old_image = None
new_image = None
bg_removed = False


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Step 3: Define the convert_image function

In this step, we define a function for converting an image to binary data. This function takes an image as input and returns its binary data.



def convert_image(img):
    buf = BytesIO()
    img.save(buf, format="PNG")
    byte_im = buf.getvalue()
    return byte_im


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Step 4: Define the rm_bg function

In this step, we define a function for removing the background from an image and displaying notifications to the user. This function takes a state object as input and performs the following operations:

  • Displays a notification indicating that the image is being uploaded.
  • Opens the uploaded image using the Image.open method from the PIL library.
  • Displays a notification indicating that the background is being removed.
  • Removes the background from the image using the remove function from the rembg library.
  • Saves the processed image to a file using the save method from the PIL library.
  • Displays a notification indicating that the background has been removed successfully.
  • Converts the original and processed images to binary data using the convert_image function.
  • Sets the old_image, new_image, and bg_removed attributes of the state object to the original image data, processed image data, and True respectively. ```python

def rm_bg(state):
notify(state, 'info', 'Uploading image...')
image = Image.open(state.image_upload)

notify(state, 'info', 'Removing bg...')
new_image = remove(image)
new_image.save("removebg_img.png")

notify(state, 'success', 'bg removed successfully!')
state.old_image = convert_image(image)
state.new_image = convert_image(new_image)
state.bg_removed = True
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**Step 5: Define the GUI layout**

In this step, we define the layout of the GUI using a string. The layout consists of a file upload widget, two image display widgets, and a file download widget.
```python


page = """
# Image Background Remover {: .color-primary}
Upload an Image: <|{image_upload}|file_selector|extensions=.png,.jpg|on_action=rm_bg|> <br />
<|{old_image}|image|>
<|{new_image}|image|><br/>
<|{image_download}|file_download|label=Download Image|active={bg_removed}|>
"""


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Step 6: Run the GUI

In this step, we create a Gui object using the page string and run it in debug mode.



Gui(page).run(debug=True)


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Conclusions

In this article, we introduced Taipy, an open-source Python library that enables data scientists and developers to build robust end-to-end data pipelines and interactive web interfaces without requiring HTML/CSS & JavaScript skills. We discussed the advantages of using Taipy, such as simplicity, flexibility, efficiency, powerful data processing capabilities, and easy deployment.

We also provided a step-by-step guide to building web apps with Taipy and explored some examples of applications built with Taipy. Taipy provides a simple and intuitive way to build web apps with minimal coding, making it an ideal choice for python developers, data scientists, and citizen developers who want to build web applications that meet their needs.

We encourage you to explore Taipy and see how it can help you build data-driven web applications with ease. You can start by checking out the official Taipy repository on GitHub and adding a star to show your support.

Thank you for reading, and happy coding!

Don't Forget to ⭐️ the Official Repo

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Top comments (2)

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sreno77 profile image
Scott Reno

This looks awesome! Does it render actual html/js files that are saved?

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jr_shittu profile image
Blackie

Thank you! With taipy gui you have the options of creating the web app using actual HTML/CSS, markdown syntax or python code. You can learn more about taipy gui here: docs.taipy.io/en/release-3.1/tutor...