Fixes bug where Escher Python widget was not updating immediately with custom reaction scale #318

Fixes Python package to support Python versions 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7 (#316, #317)

Fixes performance for large maps with default settings: https://github.com/zakandrewking/escher/pull/302

What's new?

Since the last stable release, much of Escher has been rewritten and modernized. A lot of the changes are under the hood, but you'll notice these things in the app:

Data scale presets make it easy to quickly try out different color combinations

Vertical and horizontal align

For getting those reactions to line up nicely:

Quick access to disabling tooltips

See the little grey button that says "Disable tooltips". You can also choose to show tooltips over objects, in addition to labels, in the settings menu.

Revamped Python Package

The Python package has been completely rewritten. It now has full "widget" support in Jupyter notebook and Jupyter lab. There's a new tutorial in the docs:

https://escher.readthedocs.io/en/latest/escher-python.html

Other improvements

• No more accidental highlighting of labels on the map
• New icons
• Data scale controls are rewritten. Thanks @elliotgordonrowe.
• Now you can control the max and min values of the color scale, so colors will not change across changes in data
• No more bezier controls in image downloads
• Completely rewrote the build process and moved from Grunt to Webpack
• Allow python map validation with a standard pip installation #312. Thanks @Midnighter.
• Revamped home page with higher contrast and a link to Escher-FBA
• Rewrote UI components to remove the dependency on bootstrap. Now all you need to embed Escher is escher.min.js (or the npm package)
• Rewrote the tooltip API to use Preact components and revamped the tooltips tutorial. Thanks @elliotgordonrowe.
• Some API changes in the Python package: python -m escher.server, display_in_notebook, and display_in_browser are replaced by the new widget

Bug fixes:

• data scale presets should work everywhere now
• brought back Ctrl-m and Ctrl-o shortcuts
• allow python map validation with a standard pip installation #312 Thanks @Midnighter
• many style fixes in Settings menu

Escher Jupyter widget now supports display in NBViewer.

For example:

https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/zakandrewking/escher/blob/c2366cf8ac2d1c74e50ba3d5786fb08496547a02/docs/notebooks/Escher%20Python%20Tutorial.ipynb

New feature!! 🍾

Vertical and horizontal align:

Fixes bugs where reaction data wasn't showing when adding reactions to the map

As a bonus, you can now search for new reactions based on genes and metabolites, even when data is loaded.

Fixes a bug that prevents metabolites from being merged

This beta release includes a bunch of bug fixes and improvements. The rollout of 1.7 will be gradual, so please open an issue if you see anything unexpected.

Some things you might notice:

• Revamped home page with higher contrast and a link to Escher-FBA
• No more accidental highlighting of labels on the map
• New icons
• Data scale controls are rewritten
  • Now you can control the max and min values of the color scale, so colors will not change across changes in data
• Revamped settings page with default color scales for easy access to nice colors
• No more bezier controls in image downloads
• Lots of 🐛 fixes

Coming soon:

• Brand new Python package with support for Jupyter Lab

More details coming soon.