Notebooks are useful for experimenting and prototyping code. Here is a list of basic commands to get you started.
Look in the menu and click Help > User Interface Tour.
# Press ESC h to see a list of keyboard shortcuts
Use command mode to operate on cells. Use edit mode to modify contents of cells.
# Press ESC or CTRL-M for command mode
# Press ENTER or click in a cell for edit mode
Use CTRL-ENTER, SHIFT-ENTER, ALT-ENTER to run cells.
# Press CTRL-ENTER to run this cell and stay in this cell
# Press SHIFT-ENTER to run this cell and go to the next cell
# Press ALT-ENTER to run this cell and insert a new cell
x = 1
x + 1
# Press CTRL-ENTER to run this cell and stay in this cell
# Press SHIFT-ENTER to run this cell and go to the next cell
# Press ALT-ENTER to run this cell and insert a new cell
x + 2
# Press ESC a to insert a cell above
# Press ESC b to insert a cell below
Save yourself from typing by using tab completion as often as possible.
# Type Exc<TAB>
# Press SHIFT-ENTER to run this cell and go to the next cell
import IPython
# Type IPython.<TAB> to see what you can do with the IPython module
# Type IPython.v<TAB>
Use SHIFT-TAB to see documentation hints.
# Type zip and press SHIFT-TAB to see a hint
Use ? to see documentation.
# Type zip? and press CTRL-ENTER to see documentation
# Press ESC to exit the documentation
Use ?? to see source code.
# Press SHIFT-ENTER to run this cell and go to the next cell
import this
# Type this?? and press CTRL-ENTER to see source code
# Press ESC to exit
Comment and uncomment lines.
# Type CTRL-/ to comment and uncomment this line
# Select multiple lines and type CTRL-/
Indent and unindent lines.
# Type CTRL-] to indent this line
# Type CTRL-[ to unindent this line
# Select multiple lines and type CTRL-[ and CTRL-]
Split cells.
# Place your cursor below this line and press SHIFT-CTRL--
# Wheee!
Please see Terminal Basics for more shell commands.
ls
paths = !ls
paths