User hit ``AttributeError: module 'streamlit.elements.image' has
no attribute 'image_to_url'`` on first PDF import. Root cause:
``streamlit-drawable-canvas`` 0.9.3 (last upstream release 2023)
calls a Streamlit internal that was relocated in Streamlit
~1.30+. The function moved from ``streamlit.elements.image`` to
``streamlit.elements.lib.image_utils`` AND its signature
changed — the second positional argument is now a
``LayoutConfig`` dataclass instead of a plain ``int`` width.
Three remedies considered:
1. Downgrade Streamlit. Reverses unrelated improvements +
security fixes; not on the table.
2. Fork drawable-canvas. The maintenance hit isn't worth it for a
one-line internal API change.
3. **Ship a compatibility shim.** Re-attach a wrapper at the old
import path that adapts the old call shape to the new
function. This is the standard workaround the wider Streamlit
community has converged on for this exact regression.
``src/gui/_drawable_canvas_compat.py`` does (3). The ``install()``
helper is idempotent, opt-in (not auto-run at module import — a
grep for ``_install_canvas_compat`` shows every call site), and
no-ops if Streamlit hasn't moved the function OR if the new
function isn't where we expect (lets the canvas surface a real
error rather than papering over a different bug). The page calls
``_install_canvas_compat()`` once at module top before any
``st_canvas`` invocation; Streamlit's script-rerun model means
this fires every page load but the ``_PATCHED`` guard makes
re-runs free.
The shim wraps the old ``width=int`` arg into a default-constructed
``LayoutConfig()`` — the old ``width=-1`` sentinel meant "use
the image's natural width", which is also what an unconfigured
LayoutConfig produces. Confirmed by inspecting Streamlit 1.57.0's
``image_utils.py``.
4 new tests pin the shim contract:
- ``install()`` attaches ``image_to_url`` to the old path on modern
Streamlit
- Idempotent — calling twice doesn't double-wrap
- Doesn't clobber a future Streamlit that restores the original
at the old path
- Translates ``(image, -1, False, "RGB", "PNG", "id")`` into a
proper call to the new function with a ``LayoutConfig`` instance
If a future Streamlit upgrade moves ``image_to_url`` AGAIN, the
shim's silent-no-op fallback means the canvas error surfaces
again and points at where to look. The shim doesn't paper over
mysteries; it only patches the one specific relocation we know
about.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
