feature: Add browser renderer to open charts in external browser and update chart.show() to display chart

altair/utils/_show.py

@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+import webbrowser
+from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
+from typing import Union, Iterable, Optional
+
+
+def open_html_in_browser(
+    html: Union[str, bytes],
+    using: Union[str, Iterable[str], None] = None,
+    port: Optional[int] = None,
+):
+    """
+    Display an html document in a web browser without creating a temp file.
+
+    Instantiates a simple http server and uses the webbrowser module to
+    open the server's URL
+
+    Based on
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    html: str
+        HTML string to display
+    using: str or iterable of str
+        Name of the web browser to open (e.g. "chrome", "firefox", etc.).
+        If an iterable, choose the first browser available on the system.
+        If none, choose the system default browser.
+    port: int
+        Port to use. Defaults to a random port
+    """
+    # Encode html to bytes
+    if isinstance(html, str):
+        html_bytes = html.encode("utf8")
+    else:
+        html_bytes = html
+
+    browser = None
+
+    if using is None:
+        browser = webbrowser.get(None)
+    else:
+        # normalize using to an iterable
+        if isinstance(using, str):
+            using = [using]
+
+        for browser_key in using:
+            try:
+                browser = webbrowser.get(browser_key)
+                if browser is not None:
+                    break
+            except webbrowser.Error:
+                pass
+
+        if browser is None:
+            raise ValueError("Failed to locate a browser with name in " + str(using))
+
+    class OneShotRequestHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
+        def do_GET(self):
+            self.send_response(200)
+            self.send_header("Content-type", "text/html")
+            self.end_headers()
+
+            bufferSize = 1024 * 1024
+            for i in range(0, len(html_bytes), bufferSize):
+                self.wfile.write(html_bytes[i : i + bufferSize])
+
+        def log_message(self, format, *args):
+            # Silence stderr logging
+            pass
+
+    # Use specified port if provided, otherwise choose a random port (port value of 0)
+    server = HTTPServer(
+        ("127.0.0.1", port if port is not None else 0), OneShotRequestHandler
+    )
+    browser.open("http://127.0.0.1:%s" % server.server_port)
+    server.handle_request()

altair/vegalite/v5/api.py

@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
     using_vegafusion as _using_vegafusion,
     compile_with_vegafusion as _compile_with_vegafusion,
 )
+from ...utils._show import open_html_in_browser as _open_html_in_browser
 from ...utils.core import DataFrameLike
 from ...utils.data import DataType
 
@@ -2678,29 +2679,29 @@ def serve(
         )
 
     def show(
-        self, embed_opt: Optional[dict] = None, open_browser: Optional[bool] = None
+        self,
+        embed_options: Optional[dict] = None,
+        using: Union[str, Iterable[str], None] = None,
+        port: Optional[int] = None,
     ) -> None:
-        """Show the chart in an external browser window.
+        """Show the chart in an external browser tab.
 
-        This requires a recent version of the altair_viewer package.
+        This requires the vl-convert-python package to be installed
 
         Parameters
         ----------
-        embed_opt : dict (optional)
+        embed_options : dict (optional)
             The Vega embed options that control the display of the chart.
-        open_browser : bool (optional)
-            Specify whether a browser window should be opened. If not specified,
-            a browser window will be opened only if the server is not already
-            connected to a browser.
+        using: str or iterable of str
+            Name of the web browser to open (e.g. "chrome", "firefox", etc.).
+            If an iterable, choose the first browser available on the system.
+            If None, choose the system default browser.
+        port: int
+            Port to use. Defaults to a random port
         """
-        try:
-            import altair_viewer
-        except ImportError as err:
-            raise ValueError(
-                "'show' method requires the altair_viewer package. "
-                "See http://github.com/altair-viz/altair_viewer"
-            ) from err
-        altair_viewer.show(self, embed_opt=embed_opt, open_browser=open_browser)
+        buffer = io.StringIO()
+        self.save(buffer, format="html", embed_options=embed_options, inline=True)
+        _open_html_in_browser(buffer.getvalue(), using=using, port=port)
 
     @utils.use_signature(core.Resolve)
     def _set_resolve(self, **kwargs):