IPython Custom Launcher Example

notebook-custom.py

import sys
import os
import IPython
from IPython.html import notebookapp

join = lambda *x: os.path.realpath(os.path.join(*x))
join_dir = lambda f, *x: join(os.path.dirname(f), *x)


def start(*args):
    app = notebookapp.NotebookApp()
    app.tornado_settings.update(
        template_path=[
            join_dir(__file__, "my-custom-templates"),
            join_dir(notebookapp.__file__, "templates"),
            join_dir(notebookapp.__file__) ## load it twice, so you can extend `templates/`
        ]
    )
    app.extra_static_paths = [
        join_dir(__file__, "my-custom-static")
    ]
    app.initialize((
        "--notebook-dir", "/my-custom-starting-dir"
        # other configuration
    ) + args)
    app.start()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    start(*sys.argv[1:])

page.html

<!-- this would go in `my-custom-templates` -->
% extends "templates/page.html" %}

{% block logo %}
  <img src='{{static_url("logo.svg") }}' alt='My Custom Notebook Experience'/>
{% endblock %}