Backends

Select the backend with the gui= argument of @interactive_pipeline (or @interact): a string, a Backend enum value, or None for headless mode.

@interactive_pipeline(gui="qt")      # PyQt / PySide window
@interactive_pipeline(gui="mpl")     # matplotlib figure
@interactive_pipeline(gui="nb")      # Jupyter notebook widgets (works on Colab)
@interactive_pipeline(gui="gradio")  # web app (add share_gradio_app=True to share it)
@interactive_pipeline(gui="auto")    # best available backend
@interactive_pipeline(gui=None)      # headless: returns a HeadlessPipeline

Feature matrix

⭐	PyQt / PySide	Matplotlib	Jupyter notebooks incl. Google Colab	Gradio
Backend name	qt	mpl	nb	gradio
Preview
Plot curves	✅	✅	✅	✅
Change layout	✅	✅	✅	➖
Keyboard shortcuts / fullscreen	✅	✅	➖	➖
Audio support	✅	➖	➖	✅
Image buttons	✅	➖	➖	➖
Circular slider	✅	➖	➖	➖
Collapsible panels	✅	➖	➖	✅
Animations	✅	➖	➖	➖
Panels with sliders	✅	➖	➖	✅
Tables	✅	✅	✅	✅

Controls degrade gracefully: for example a KeyboardControl maps back to a regular slider on the gradio and notebook backends, and a CircularControl falls back to a straight slider outside Qt.

Headless

gui=None (or "headless") skips the GUI entirely and returns a HeadlessPipeline: the same pipeline code serves interactive tuning and batch processing, and it is what you want in unit tests. See the Quickstart.