Simplify markdown table generation in magic command - %ai list

[keerthi-swarna]

Issue Reference: Issue-118

Description

Refactored the code responsible for generating markdown tables by replacing custom imperative logic with the py-markdown-table library.

• Closes Simplify Markdown table generation in magic commands #118.

Changes

• Updated the _ai_list_command_markdown method in magics.py to generate markdown tables using the py-markdown-table library.
• Modified the _ai_env_status_for_provider_markdown method to return the env_variable alongside its status in emoji form, replacing the previous approach where the emoji was appended to the env_variable string.
• Added the py-markdown-table library as a dependency in pyproject.toml.
• Updated the help text in the aws.py file to address an issue where markdown was not rendering correctly within a markdown table cell. To resolve this, markdown syntax was replaced with HTML tags to ensure proper rendering.

Testing

• Verified the changes by running Jupyter Lab in a local environment setup.
• Attached screenshots from the local environment for reference.

[dlqqq]

@keerthi-swarna Great work! I left some feedback for you below.

One other issue I noticed is that the py-markdown-table dependency is not available on Conda Forge. Conda Forge is an alternative package registry that allows users to install jupyter-ai using conda, mamba, or micromamba. We can't merge this PR until that is available on Conda Forge, as otherwise installing Jupyter AI from Conda Forge would be broken.

Creating a new Conda Forge package from an existing PyPI package will be a challenge. I would love for you to own this because it is a great opportunity to develop a unique & useful skill. However, I also understand if you need more time before tackling this. Let's talk about this in our next 1:1.

[dlqqq]

As you called out, we need to simplify the Markdown output of %ai list considerably in order for it to render well within ipython.

One reason the Markdown table is so complicated is because it is poorly structured. Each row (listing a single provider) actually contains several rows of model IDs in the "model IDs" column. The rows of this table really should just be model IDs, not providers.

Here's how I recommend that we move forward on this:

1. Create 1 Markdown table, where each row is a unique model ID.

2. This table should have 3 columns in this order: "Provider name, model ID, environment variable."

3. The emoji that indicates whether it is set (✅/❌) should be in the "Environment variable" column, i.e. we should merge these 2 columns into 1 to save horizontal space.

[keerthi-swarna]

From above conversation

sharing the images based on the recommendation. Just wanted to confirm if this meets the expectations.
If it does, the alignment in the IPython output is still off due to the help text being too large. We’ll need to either replace the help text with a default message, regardless of the model, or consider using a different approach to generate the text output.

Notebook Output

Ipython Output

Ipython Output with Default Text

[dlqqq]

@keerthi-swarna Thanks for diving deep and experimenting. In the _ai_list_command_markdown() method, we use row_sep="markdown" to strictly follow the Markdown spec and allow JupyterLab to render our table in the browser. However, this fails for tables with large columns (like bedrock-custom) when displayed in IPython, since we show the literal string value of the table there.

To render a table row with a very long string in one column in IPython, you could explore using py_markdown_table and set row_sep="always" in _ai_list_command_text(). This would allow for table rows to occupy multiple lines, which would solve the issue you're reporting in IPython. The documentation page includes examples of how setting row_sep="always" can produce readable large tables in IPython. Can you try that and let me know how it goes?

[keerthi-swarna]

Got it. But still it has some issues with help text being displayed. Let us have a working session offline and close this discussion.