We want Livebook to be accessible to as many people as possible. Before this release, installing Livebook on your machine could be considered easy, especially if you already had Elixir installed.

But imagine someone who's not an Elixir developer. They had to either install Docker or Elixir before getting started with Livebook. And if they are in their first steps as developers, even using a terminal could be demanding.

That's why we built Livebook desktop. It's the simplest way to install Livebook on your machine.

Livebook desktop doesn't require the person to have Elixir previously installed on their machine. And it works both on the Mac and Windows.

We hope that the desktop app enables way more people to try Livebook. 

For example, let's say you want to help your friend to start learning Elixir. You can tell that person to download Livebook desktop and follow the built-in "Distributed portals with Elixir" notebook, a fast-paced introduction to Elixir.

Or maybe for the data scientist that heard about Livebook and wants to try it. That person can download Livebook desktop and learn how to do data visualization in Livebook with the built-in "Plotting with VegaLite" and  "Maps with MapLibre" notebooks.

If you want to try the Livebook desktop app, it's just one click away.

We hope you enjoy it! 😊

Livebook v0.6 is out with a number of exciting features! Join us, as we go from a database connection to charting the data in a few simple steps:

Below is a quick overview of the biggest features in this new version.

Smart cells

Livebook v0.6 introduces a new type of cells to help you automate and master entire coding workflows! Smart cells are UI components for performing high-level tasks, such as charting your data:

We already have a couple Smart cells - including connection to PostgreSQL and MySQL - but the best part is that anyone can create new Smart cells and share with the community. We can't wait to automate workflows from HTTP requests to Machine Learning models!

Package search

The new version also brings a much more integrated dependency management, including the new package search and the setup cell:

Error highlighting

You will also find better error reporting! Spot typos and syntax errors right away with the new squiggly lines:

Streamlined diagrams

In the previous release we introduced support for Mermaid.js diagrams in Markdown cells. It's now even easier with the new Diagram button:

There's more

There are many other notable features, including "code zen" and persistent configuration. Check out the technical release notes for the complete list of changes.

Livebook v0.5 is out with a number of goodies! We have recorded a video showing how to use those features to build chat apps, multiplayer games, and more:

In case you can't watch it, here is a rundown of the biggest features.

Flowcharts with Mermaid.js

Many teams are using Livebook for documentation. v0.5 improves on this use case by allowing users to embed Mermaid.js diagrams and visualizations:

Define your Mermaid.js definitions inside ```mermaid blocks and you are good to go!

Custom widgets

You can now add your own widgets to Livebook, known as Kinos in Livebook terminology. Build chat apps, multiplayer games, interactive maps, and more! It doesn't matter what is your domain area, you can now make Livebook as powerful as you want.

We have revamped our Explore guides to include a complete course on Kino with several examples:

Other improvements

• You can now increase the editor font-size and pick a high-contrast theme. We also improved the contrast and accessibility in several places.
  
  
• The code editor now supports auto-completion of structs fields and shows additional metadata about functions, such as which version they were added and deprecation notices.

Check out the technical release notes for the complete list of changes.

We are glad to announce Livebook, an open source web application for writing interactive and collaborative code notebooks in Elixir and implemented with Phoenix LiveView. Livebook is an important step in our journey to enable the Erlang VM and its ecosystem to be suitable for numerical and scientific computing.

José Valim has recorded a screencast that highlights some Livebook features, which you can watch below. It also showcases the Axon library, for building Neural Networks in Elixir, as well as some improvements coming in Elixir v1.12:

Features

If you can’t yet watch the video, here is a summary of Livebook features:

• A deployable web app built with Phoenix LiveView where users can create, fork, and run multiple notebooks.
  
  
• Each notebook is made of multiple sections: each section is made of Markdown and Elixir cells. Code in Elixir cells can be evaluated on demand. Mathematical formulas are also supported via KaTeX.
  
  
• Persistence: notebooks can be persisted to disk through the .livemd format, which is a subset of Markdown. This means your notebooks can be saved for later, easily shared, and they also play well with version control.
  
  
• Sequential evaluation: code cells run in a specific order, guaranteeing future users of the same Livebook see the same output. If you re-execute a previous cell, following cells are marked as stale to make it clear they depend on outdated notebook state.
  
  
• Custom runtimes: when executing Elixir code, you can either start a fresh Elixir process, connect to an existing node, or run it inside an existing Elixir project, with access to all of its modules and dependencies. This means Livebook can be a great tool to provide live documentation for existing projects.
  
  
• Explicit dependencies: if your notebook has dependencies, they are explicitly listed and installed with the help of the Mix.install/2 command in Elixir v1.12+.
  
  
• Collaborative features allow multiple users to work on the same notebook at once. Collaboration works either in single-node or multi-node deployments - without a need for additional tooling.