Embedding individual models of a server_session

What am I trying to do?

I am running a Bokeh server and embedding it currently with server_document() in a flask environment of an external webpage. My Bokeh document contains two parts, let’s say a slider and a figure; I gave both a name and added them to the bokeh document with add_root().

Now I would like to put each of these roots into a separate div when embedding, to allow the use of flexboxes to achieve a responsive design. Previously, I used Column() or Row() of Bokeh Layout, but Column() looks bad on a landscape screen and Row() looks bad on a mobile device.

What have I tried that did not work as expected?

In the reference documentation (section bokeh.embed) I found that if I use server_session() over server_document(), I can pass a model name to get individual document roots instead of the entire document. However, this does not work. I found this open github issue (Bring back the functionality needed to embed separate Bokeh roots within React · Issue #8499 · bokeh/bokeh · GitHub) that seems to be related but hasn’t seen any activity besides “is there a fix?” for about a year. After looking a bit into the source code (I am no expert by any means), it seems like the problem is the autoload_request_tag.html (bokeh.core.templates — Bokeh 2.4.2 Documentation), which does not make use of the modelid that it receives.

Is there any update on this or a suggestion to achieve my goal in another way? I am restricted to using Bokeh Server (I need Python callbacks), so embedding with components() is not an option; and because I don’t want Bokeh to serve all the content, I believe also the default Jinja2/directory template method does not work for me. I also cannot use multiple documents, because I want the two models to interact with each other, just like the Bokeh sliders example. I appreciate any advice!

@jonas I am afraid this specific scenario is not well-explored, and I can’t actually give you a definite answer beyond noting that this capability is not currently officially maintained under test or in any examples. It’s definitely possible to embed individual document roots in different places in a template when the Bokeh server is serving the page directly (as demonstrated in /examples/app/dash) but I think that server_session may need development work to support this use-case. I have put #8499 in the 2.4 milestone so that it will get some attention after the upcoming 2.3 release.

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Thank you very much for the reply and for moving the issue to 2.4! Based on the number of forum/github/stackexchange posts and replies mentioning similar setups/desires I believe quite a number of people are looking forward to that feature. As a temporary solution I serve the specific page containing the bokeh plot entirely with bokeh server, just like in the referenced dash example.