Allow to load pages from package

[rnestler]

This allows to load the pages from an imported python package which is recursively scanned. This is useful if one compiles an application using Cython where the modules are then not .py files anymore, but compiled .so files.

In our application we compile everything with Cython in the end, to get some performance gains. Since the current implementation of the pages feature only searches for .py files in the pages folder I worked around it in our application using this approach.

Would this be a feature of general interest? IMO it is nice, since the implementation is way simpler and it uses built in tools to load the modules.

Contributor Checklist

• I have broken down my PR scope into the following TODO tasks
  • Agree that this is a useful feature
  • Agree on the naming of the new parameter
  • Add documentation for the new parameter
  • Add more tests
• I have run the tests locally and they passed. (refer to testing section in contributing)
• I have added tests, or extended existing tests, to cover any new features or bugs fixed in this PR

optionals

• I have added entry in the CHANGELOG.md
• If this PR needs a follow-up in dash docs, community thread, I have mentioned the relevant URLS as follows
  • this GitHub #PR number updates the dash docs
  • here is the show and tell thread in Plotly Dash community

[gvwilson]

Related: #2968 2968

[rnestler]

So any feedback on this?

[T4rk1n]

Sorry this PR flew under my radar, this is interesting.

I think we could use the walk for the regular pages and not add another pages_package in the dash init if that works for both regular files.

There could be improvement too by allowing the pages_folder to be a list of directory to look in.

[T4rk1n]

@AnnMarieW Can you take a look at this?

[AnnMarieW]

Would the solution in this PR work? #2392

It's been available for a while but didn't get documented.

When running inside a package and the name param of the Dash instance is set to package, the module name of auto imported Pages modules will now be prefixed with the package name. ie myproj/pages/page1.py -> myproj.pages.page1 (previously would have been pages.page1). Fixes #2263

[rnestler]

Would the solution in this PR work? #2392

I don't think so. It still seems to search for .py files, just loading them differntly. In my case there aren't any .py files available, since we compile it with Cython.

I think we could use the walk for the regular pages and not add another pages_package in the dash init if that works for both regular files.

I think this should work as long as there is an __init__.py in the folder where the pages are.

But I'm not currently actively working on the project were we needed this, so I don't have a lot of capacity to work on this.