[FIXED] Extend spyder namespace browser for other data types

Issue

Is there a recommended way to extend the namespace browser of spyder to show data types beyond the offered ones ?

I have an application with a data type representing mass-spectroscopy data and also a Qt app / widget for visualisation. The goal would be to:

• show variables of this type in the namespace browser
• to show my app / widget when the user clicks on such a variable.

In the worst case I would have to subclass the existing plugins. But: can I override the default plugins with a customized plugin ?

Solution

(Spyder maintainer here) My answers:

Is there a recommended way to extend the namespace browser of spyder to show data types beyond the offered ones ?

Right now (February 2019) there's no way to extend the Variable Explorer to support custom data types. However, we're considering how to create a public API to allow that in Spyder 4, to be released later this year.

But: can I override the default plugins with a customized plugin ?

No, you can't do that either. Until there's a public API you'd basically have to modify Spyder's source code to support other data types.

Answered By - Carlos Cordoba