Problem

When using jupyter-collaboration, it could be helpful to distinguish users from their names. Several features/applications could benefit from it, like collaborative edition, suggestions or chat.

AFAIU, the user name is provided by JupyterHub (cookie) or generated as an Anonymous one.

In the case of an generated one, it is not possible to change it from the UI, but there is also no method to update it from the API.

Would it make sense to make the user name editable in certain situation ?

Proposed Solution

• Add a config entry to allow editing the names. Maybe this could be automatically disabled if using JupyterHub (not sure how).
• Add a put method in the api/me handler to update the user name if the flag is true. Probably we should ensure that the username property cannot be updated, as this property must be the one used across applications to distinguish users from each others.

Additional context

Related issues:

• Allow users to edit the name "Anonymous .*" jupyterlab/jupyterlab#14327
• Changing Username in Jupyter Lab and Setting User-Specific Colors jupyterlab/jupyter-collaboration#350

It has also been briefly discussed during a frontend weekly meeting, and this solution has been suggested by @krassowski.