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Getting Started

PyWry is a rendering engine — not a dashboard framework like Dash, Streamlit, or Panel. You give it content (HTML, a Plotly figure, a DataFrame), and it renders that content in a native window, a Jupyter widget, or a browser tab. One API, three output targets.

How It Works

PyWry selects the rendering path automatically based on your environment:

Mode Where It Runs Backend
NEW_WINDOW / SINGLE_WINDOW / MULTI_WINDOW Native OS window PyTauri (Tauri/Rust) using OS webview
NOTEBOOK Jupyter / VS Code / Colab anywidget or IFrame + FastAPI + WebSocket
BROWSER System browser tab FastAPI server + WebSocket + Redis

Running a script from your terminal? Native window. Inside a Jupyter notebook? Widget or IFrame. Set mode=BROWSER? Opens in the system browser. You don't change your code — PyWry detects the environment and picks the right path. See Rendering Paths for details.

Architecture

Built on PyTauri (which wraps Rust's Tauri framework), PyWry uses the OS webview (WebView2 on Windows, WebKit on macOS/Linux) instead of bundling a full browser engine. This means a few MBs of overhead instead of Electron's 150 MB+.

Communication between Python and JavaScript is bidirectional. JavaScript in the webview can emit events that Python callbacks receive, and Python can push updates back to the webview. Plotly chart events and AG Grid events are pre-wired — you just register callbacks.

Layout Structure

PyWry uses declarative Pydantic components that wrap content in a nested layout targeted with CSS selectors:

HEADER → LEFT | TOP → CONTENT + INSIDE → BOTTOM | RIGHT → FOOTER

Toolbars can be placed at any of 7 positions (top, bottom, left, right, header, footer, inside) and PyWry handles the flexbox layout automatically.

Next Steps

  • Installation

    Install PyWry and platform-specific dependencies

    Installation

  • Quick Start

    Step-by-step examples with HTML, DataFrames, Plotly, and toolbars

    Quick Start

  • Rendering Paths

    Native windows, notebook widgets, and browser mode explained

    Rendering Paths

  • Event System

    Two-way Python ↔ JavaScript communication

    Events