Welcome to Kivy

Welcome to Kivy’s documentation. Kivy is an open source software library for the rapid development of applications equipped with novel user interfaces, such as multi-touch apps.

We recommend that you get started with Getting Started. Then head over to the Programming Guide. We also have Create an application if you are impatient.

You are probably wondering why you should be interested in using Kivy. There is a document outlining our Philosophy that we encourage you to read, and a detailed Architectural Overview.

If you want to contribute to Kivy, make sure to read Contributing. If your concern isn’t addressed in the documentation, feel free to Contact Us.

User’s Guide

This part of the documentation explains the basic ideas behind Kivy’s design and why you’d want to use it. It goes on with a discussion of the architecture and shows you how to create stunning applications in a short time using the framework.

Installation

We try not to reinvent the wheel, but to bring something innovative to the market. As a consequence, we’re focused on our own code and use pre-existing, high quality third-party libraries where possible.

To support the full, rich set of features that Kivy offers, several other libraries are required. If you do not use a specific feature (e.g. video playback), you don’t need the corresponding dependency.

That said, there is one dependency that Kivy does require: Cython.

In addition, you need a Python 2.x (2.7 <= x < 3.0) or 3.x (3.4 <= x) interpreter. If you want to enable features like windowing (i.e. open a Window), audio/video playback or spelling correction, additional dependencies must be available. For these, we recommend SDL2, Gstreamer 1.x and PyEnchant respectively.

Other optional libraries (mutually independent) are:

That said, DON’T PANIC!

We don’t expect you to install all those things on your own. Instead, we have created nice portable packages that you can use directly, and they already contain the necessary packages for your platform. We just want you to know that there are alternatives to the defaults and give you an overview of the things Kivy uses internally.

Dependencies

Here are listed dependencies required for Kivy to run and have/had issues in specific versions that broke our core functionality and Kivy either doesn’t compile or can throw errors:

Cython

Kivy 1.11.0.dev0 requires at least Cython version 0.23, and has been tested through 0.28.3. Later versions may work, but as they have not been tested there is no guarantee. The following versions of Cython have known issues and cannot be used with Kivy: 0.27, 0.27.2

Working versions
  • Kivy 1.11.0.dev0 -> Cython==0.28.3
  • Kivy 1.10.1 -> Cython==0.28.2
  • Kivy 1.10.0 -> Cython==0.25.2
  • Kivy 1.9.1 -> Cython==0.23.1
  • Kivy 1.9.0 -> Cython==0.21.2

To force a version of cython, use:

$ sudo pip install -U --force-reinstall Cython==<version>

where <version> is the appropriate version number.

Known issues
  • 0.27 -> Kivy Cython declaration bug in 1.10.0 causes failing compilation
Unsupported
  • 0.27 - 0.27.2 -> Kivy doesn’t compile on Python 3.4 with MinGWPy because of a used unexported symbol during the compilation. For more details see this issue.

Stable Version

The latest stable version can be found on Kivy’s website at http://kivy.org/#download. Please refer to the installation instructions for your specific platform:

Installation on Windows
Prerequisites

Kivy is written in Python and as such, to use Kivy, you need an existing installation of Python. Multiple versions of Python can be installed side by side, but Kivy needs to be installed in each Python version that you want to use Kivy in.

Beginning with 1.9.1 we provide binary wheels for Kivy and all its dependencies to be used with an existing Python installation. See Installation.

We also provide nightly wheels generated using Kivy master. See Nightly wheel installation. See also Upgrading from a previous Kivy dist. If installing kivy to an alternate location and not to site-packages, please see Installing Kivy to an alternate location.

Note

For Python < 3.5 we use the MinGW compiler. However, for Python 3.5+ on Windows we currently only support the MSVC compiler because of the following Python issue 4709 about MinGW. Generally this should make no difference when using precompiled wheels.

Installation

Now that python is installed, open the Command line and make sure python is available by typing python --version. Then, do the following to install.

  1. Ensure you have the latest pip and wheel:

    python -m pip install --upgrade pip wheel setuptools

  2. Install the dependencies (skip gstreamer (~120MB) if not needed, see Kivy’s dependencies):

    python -m pip install docutils pygments pypiwin32 kivy.deps.sdl2 kivy.deps.glew
python -m pip install kivy.deps.gstreamer

    Note

    If you encounter a MemoryError while installing, add after pip install an option –no-cache-dir.

    For Python 3.5+, you can also use the angle backend instead of glew. This can be installed with:

    python -m pip install kivy.deps.angle

  3. Install kivy:

    python -m pip install kivy

  4. (Optionally) Install the kivy examples:

    python -m pip install kivy_examples

    The examples are installed in the share directory under the root directory where python is installed.

That’s it. You should now be able to import kivy in python or run a basic example if you installed the kivy examples:

python share\kivy-examples\demo\showcase\main.py

Note

If you encounter any permission denied errors, try opening the Command prompt as administrator and trying again.

What are wheels, pip and wheel

In Python, packages such as Kivy can be installed with the python package manager, pip. Some packages such as Kivy require additional steps, such as compilation, when installing using the Kivy source code with pip. Wheels (with a .whl extension) are pre-built distributions of a package that has already been compiled and do not require additional steps to install.

When hosted on pypi one installs a wheel using pip, e.g. python -m pip install kivy. When downloading and installing a wheel directly, python -m pip install wheel_file_name is used, such as:

python -m pip install C:\Kivy-1.9.1.dev-cp27-none-win_amd64.whl
Nightly wheel installation

Warning

Using the latest development version can be risky and you might encounter issues during development. If you encounter any bugs, please report them.

Snapshot wheels of current Kivy master are created on every commit to the master branch of kivy repository. They can be found here. To use them, instead of doing python -m pip install kivy we’ll install one of these wheels as follows.

  1. Perform steps 1 and 2 of the above Installation section.
  2. Download the appropriate wheel for your system.
  3. Install it with python -m pip install wheel-name where wheel-name is the name of the renamed file and add deps to the PATH.

Kivy examples are separated from the core because of their size. The examples can be installed separately on both Python 2 and 3 with this single wheel:

Kivy’s dependencies

We offer wheels for Kivy and its dependencies separately so only desired dependencies need be installed. The dependencies are offered as optional sub-packages of kivy.deps, e.g. kivy.deps.sdl2.

Currently on Windows, we provide the following dependency wheels:

One can select which of these to use for OpenGL use using the KIVY_GL_BACKEND envrionment variable by setting it to glew (the default), angle, or sdl2. angle is currently in an experimental phase as a substitute for glew on Python 3.5 only.

gstreamer is an optional dependency which only needs to be installed if video display or audio is desired. ffpyplayer is an alternate dependency for audio or video.

Command line

Know your command line. To execute any of the pip or wheel commands, one needs a command line tool with python on the path. The default command line on Windows is Command Prompt, and the quickest way to open it is to press Win+R on your keyboard, type cmd in the window that opens, and then press enter.

Alternate linux style command shells that we recommend is Git for Windows which offers a bash command line as well as git. Note, CMD can still be used even if bash is installed.

Walking the path! To add your python to the path, simply open your command line and then use the cd command to change the current directory to where python is installed, e.g. cd C:\Python27. Alternatively if you only have one python version installed, permanently add the python directory to the path for cmd or bash.

Use development Kivy

Warning

Using the latest development version can be risky and you might encounter issues during development. If you encounter any bugs, please report them.

To compile and install kivy using the kivy source code or to use kivy with git rather than a wheel there are some additional steps:

  1. Both the python and the Python\Scripts directories must be on the path. They must be on the path every time you recompile kivy.

  2. Ensure you have the latest pip and wheel with:

    python -m pip install --upgrade pip wheel setuptools

  3. Get the compiler. For Python < 3.5 we use mingwpy as follows.

    1. Create the python\Lib\distutils\distutils.cfg file and add the two lines:

      [build]
compiler = mingw32

    2. Install MinGW with:

      python -m pip install -i https://pypi.anaconda.org/carlkl/simple mingwpy

    For Python 3.5 we use the MSVC compiler. For 3.5, Visual Studio 2015 is required, which is availible for free. Just download and install it and you’ll be good to go.

    Visual Studio is very big so you can also use the smaller, Visual C Build Tools instead.

  4. Set the environment variables. On windows do:

    set USE_SDL2=1
set USE_GSTREAMER=1

    In bash do:

    export USE_SDL2=1
export USE_GSTREAMER=1

    These variables must be set everytime you recompile kivy.

  5. Install the other dependencies as well as their dev versions (you can skip gstreamer and gstreamer_dev if you aren’t going to use video/audio):

    python -m pip install Cython==0.28.3 docutils pygments pypiwin32 kivy.deps.sdl2 kivy.deps.glew kivy.deps.gstreamer kivy.deps.glew_dev kivy.deps.sdl2_dev kivy.deps.gstreamer_dev

  6. If you downloaded or cloned kivy to an alternate location and don’t want to install it to site-packages read the next section.

  7. Finally compile and install kivy with pip install filename, where filename can be a url such as https://github.com/kivy/kivy/archive/master.zip for kivy master, or the full path to a local copy of a kivy.

Compile Kivy

  1. Start installation of Kivy cloned from GitHub:

    python -m pip install kivy\.

If the compilation succeeds without any error, Kivy should be good to go. You can test it with running a basic example:

python share\kivy-examples\demo\showcase\main.py
Installing Kivy to an alternate location

In development Kivy is often installed to an alternate location and then installed with:

python -m pip install -e location

That allows Kivy to remain in its original location while being available to python, which is useful for tracking changes you make in Kivy for example directly with Git.

To achieve using Kivy in an alternate location extra tweaking is required. Due to this issue wheel and pip install the dependency wheels to python\Lib\site-packages\kivy. So they need to be moved to your actual kivy installation from site-packages.

After installing the kivy dependencies and downloading or cloning kivy to your favorite location, do the following:

  1. Move the contents of python\Lib\site-packages\kivy\deps to your-path\kivy\deps where your-path is the path where your kivy is located. That means if you cloned from GitHub, the deps have to end up in the inner kivy folder.
  2. Remove the python\Lib\site-packages\kivy directory altogether.
  3. From python\Lib\site-packages move all kivy.deps.*.dist-info directories to your-path right next to kivy.

Now you can safely compile kivy in its current location with one of these commands:

> make
> mingw32-make
> python -m pip install -e .
> python setup.py build_ext --inplace

If kivy fails to be imported, you probably didn’t delete all the *.dist-info folders and and the kivy or kivy.deps* folders from site-packages.

Making Python available anywhere

There are two methods for launching python on your *.py files.

Double-click method

If you only have one Python installed, you can associate all *.py files with your python, if it isn’t already, and then run it by double clicking. Or you can only do it once if you want to be able to choose each time:

  1. Right click on the Python file (.py file extension) of the application you want to launch
  2. From the context menu that appears, select Open With
  3. Browse your hard disk drive and find the file python.exe that you want to use. Select it.
  4. Select “Always open the file with…” if you don’t want to repeat this procedure every time you double click a .py file.
  5. You are done. Open the file.
Send-to method

You can launch a .py file with our Python using the Send-to menu:

  1. Browse to the python.exe file you want to use. Right click on it and copy it.
  2. Open Windows explorer (File explorer in Windows 8), and to go the address ‘shell:sendto’. You should get the special Windows directory SendTo
  3. Paste the previously copied python.exe file as a shortcut.
  4. Rename it to python <python-version>. E.g. python27-x64

You can now execute your application by right clicking on the .py file -> “Send To” -> “python <python-version>”.

Upgrading from a previous Kivy dist

To install the new wheels to a previous Kivy distribution all the files and folders, except for the python folder should be deleted from the distribution. This python folder will then be treated as a normal system installed python and all the steps described in Installation can then be continued.

Installation on OS X

Note

This guide describes multiple ways for setting up Kivy.

Using Wheels

Wheels are precompiled binaries for the specific platform you are on. All you need to do to install kivy using wheels on osx is

$ python -m pip install kivy

If you would like to use media playback with kivy, you should install ffpyplayer like so

$ python -m pip install ffpyplayer

Make sure to set KIVY_VIDEO=ffpyplayer env variable before running the app.

Gstreamer Wheels would be uploaded to pypi shortly.

Using Conda

If you use Anaconda; you first need to activate conda-forger like so

$ conda config --add channels conda-forge

Then you can install kivy using

$ conda install kivy
Using The Kivy.app

Note

This method has only been tested on OS X 10.7 and above (64-bit). For versions prior to 10.7 or 10.7 32-bit, you have to install the components yourself.

For OS X 10.7 and later, we provide packages with all dependencies bundled in a virtual environment, including a Python interpreter for python3 version. These bundles are primarily used for rapid prototyping, and currently serve as containers for packaging Kivy apps with Buildozer.

To install Kivy, you must:

  1. Navigate to the latest Kivy release at https://kivy.org/downloads/ and download Kivy-*-osx-python*.dmg.
  2. Open the dmg
  3. Copy the Kivy.app to /Applications.
  4. Create a symlink by running the makesymlinks in the window that opens when you open the dmg
  5. Examples and all the normal kivy tools are present in the Kivy.app/Contents/Resources/kivy directory.

You should now have a kivy script that you can use to launch your kivy app from the terminal.

You can just drag and drop your main.py to run your app too.

Installing modules

The Kivy SDK on OS X uses its own virtual env that is activated when you run your app using the kivy command. To install any module you need to install the module like so:

$ kivy -m pip install <modulename>
Where are the modules/files installed?

Inside the portable venv within the app at:

Kivy.app/Contents/Resources/venv/

If you install a module that installs a binary for example like kivy-garden. That binary will be only available from the venv above, as in after you do:

kivy -m pip install kivy-garden

The garden lib will be only available when you activate this env:

source /Applications/Kivy.app/Contents/Resources/venv/bin/activate
garden install mapview
deactivate
To install binary files

Just copy the binary to the /Applications/Kivy.app/Contents/Resources/venv/bin/ directory.

To include other frameworks

Kivy.app comes with SDL2 and Gstreamer frameworks provided. To include frameworks other than the ones provided do the following:

git clone http://github.com/tito/osxrelocator
export PYTHONPATH=~/path/to/osxrelocator
cd /Applications/Kivy.app
python -m osxrelocator -r . /Library/Frameworks/<Framework_name>.framework/ \
@executable_path/../Frameworks/<Framework_name>.framework/

Do not forget to replace <Framework_name> with your framework. This tool osxrelocator essentially changes the path for the libs in the framework such that they are relative to the executable within the .app, making the Framework portable with the .app.

Start any Kivy Application

You can run any Kivy application by simply dragging the application’s main file onto the Kivy.app icon. Just try this with any python file in the examples folder.

Start from the Command Line

If you want to use Kivy from the command line, double-click the Make Symlinks script after you have dragged the Kivy.app into the Applications folder. To test if it worked:

  1. Open Terminal.app and enter:

    $ kivy

    You should get a Python prompt.

  2. In there, type:

    >>> import kivy

    If it just goes to the next line without errors, it worked.

  3. Running any Kivy application from the command line is now simply a matter of executing a command like the following:

    $ kivy yourapplication.py
Using Homebrew with pip

You can install Kivy with Homebrew and pip using the following steps:

  1. Install the requirements using homebrew:

    $ brew install pkg-config sdl2 sdl2_image sdl2_ttf sdl2_mixer gstreamer

  2. Install Cython and Kivy using pip:

    $ pip install Cython==0.28.3
$ pip install kivy

  • To install the development version, use this in the second step:

    $ pip install https://github.com/kivy/kivy/archive/master.zip
Using MacPorts with pip

Note

You will have to manually install gstreamer support if you wish to support video playback in your Kivy App. The latest port documents show the following py-gst-python port.

You can install Kivy with macports only:

  1. Install Macports

  2. Choose python versions for Kivy, available version 2.7, 3.5, 3.6

    $ port install py35-kivy # for python 3.5 $ port install py36-kivy # for python 3.6

  3. Check if kivy is available

    $ python3.5 $ >>> import kivy

You can install Kivy with Macports and pip using the following steps:

  1. Install Macports

  2. Install and set Python 3.4 as the default:

    $ port install python34
$ port select --set python python34

  3. Install and set pip as the default:

    $ port install pip-34
$ port select --set pip pip-34

  4. Install the requirements using Macports:

    $ port install libsdl2 libsdl2_image libsdl2_ttf libsdl2_mixer

  5. Install Cython and Kivy using pip:

    $ pip install Cython==0.28.3
$ pip install kivy

  • To install the development version, use this in the second step:

    $ pip install https://github.com/kivy/kivy/archive/master.zip
Installation on Linux
Using software packages

For installing distribution relative packages .deb/.rpm/…

Ubuntu / Kubuntu / Xubuntu / Lubuntu (Saucy and above)

  1. Add one of the PPAs as you prefer

    stable builds:$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kivy-team/kivy
    nightly builds:$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kivy-team/kivy-daily
  2. Update your package list using your package manager

    $ sudo apt-get update

  3. Install Kivy

    Python2 - python-kivy:
     $ sudo apt-get install python-kivy
    Python3 - python3-kivy:
     $ sudo apt-get install python3-kivy
    optionally the examples - kivy-examples:
     $ sudo apt-get install kivy-examples
Debian (Jessie or newer)

  1. Add one of the PPAs to your sources.list in apt manually or via Synaptic

    stable builds:deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kivy-team/kivy/ubuntu xenial main
    daily builds:deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kivy-team/kivy-daily/ubuntu xenial main

    Notice: Wheezy is not supported - You’ll need to upgrade to Jessie at least!

  2. Add the GPG key to your apt keyring by executing

    as user:

    sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys A863D2D6

    as root:

    apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys A863D2D6

  3. Refresh your package list and install python-kivy and/or python3-kivy and optionally the examples found in kivy-examples

Linux Mint
  1. Find out on which Ubuntu release your installation is based on, using this overview.
  2. Continue as described for Ubuntu above, depending on which version your installation is based on.
Bodhi Linux

  1. Find out which version of the distribution you are running and use the table below to find out on which Ubuntu LTS it is based.

    Bodhi 1:Ubuntu 10.04 LTS aka Lucid (No packages, just manual install)
    Bodhi 2:Ubuntu 12.04 LTS aka Precise
    Bodhi 3:Ubuntu 14.04 LTS aka Trusty
    Bodhi 4:Ubuntu 16.04 LTS aka Xenial
  1. Continue as described for Ubuntu above, depending on which version your installation is based on.
OpenSuSE
  1. To install kivy go to http://software.opensuse.org/package/python-Kivy and use the “1 Click Install” for your openSuse version. You might need to make the latest kivy version appear in the list by clicking on “Show unstable packages”. We prefer to use packages by ” devel:languages:python”.
  2. If you would like access to the examples, please select python-Kivy-examples in the upcoming installation wizard.
Gentoo

  1. There is a kivy ebuild (kivy stable version)

    emerge Kivy

  2. available USE-flags are:

    cairo: Standard flag, let kivy use cairo graphical libraries. camera: Install libraries needed to support camera. doc: Standard flag, will make you build the documentation locally. examples: Standard flag, will give you kivy examples programs. garden: Install garden tool to manage user maintained widgets. gstreamer: Standard flag, kivy will be able to use audio/video streaming libraries. spell: Standard flag, provide enchant to use spelling in kivy apps.

Other

For other distros, we recommend installing via pip as shown below.

Installation in a Virtual Environment
Common dependencies
Cython

Different versions of Kivy have only been tested up to a certain Cython version. It may or may not work with a later version.

Kivy Cython
1.9 0.21.2
1.9.1 0.23.1
1.10.0 0.25.2
1.10.1 0.28.2
Dependencies with SDL2
Ubuntu example

In the following command use “python” and “python-dev” for Python 2, or “python3” and “python3-dev” for Python 3.

# Install necessary system packages
sudo apt-get install -y \
    python-pip \
    build-essential \
    git \
    python \
    python-dev \
    ffmpeg \
    libsdl2-dev \
    libsdl2-image-dev \
    libsdl2-mixer-dev \
    libsdl2-ttf-dev \
    libportmidi-dev \
    libswscale-dev \
    libavformat-dev \
    libavcodec-dev \
    zlib1g-dev

# Install gstreamer for audio, video (optional)
sudo apt-get install -y \
    libgstreamer1.0 \
    gstreamer1.0-plugins-base \
    gstreamer1.0-plugins-good

Note: Depending on your Linux version, you may receive error messages related to the “ffmpeg” package. In this scenario, use “libav-tools ” in place of “ffmpeg ” (above), or use a PPA (as shown below):

- sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/trusty-media
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
Installation 
# Make sure Pip, Virtualenv and Setuptools are updated
sudo pip install --upgrade pip virtualenv setuptools

# Then create a virtualenv named "kivyinstall" by either:

# 1. using the default interpreter
virtualenv --no-site-packages kivyinstall

# or 2. using a specific interpreter
# (this will use the interpreter in /usr/bin/python2.7)
virtualenv --no-site-packages -p /usr/bin/python2.7 kivyinstall

# Enter the virtualenv
. kivyinstall/bin/activate

# Use correct Cython version here
pip install Cython==0.28.3

# Install stable version of Kivy into the virtualenv
pip install kivy
# For the development version of Kivy, use the following command instead
# pip install git+https://github.com/kivy/kivy.git@master
Dependencies with legacy PyGame
Ubuntu example 
# Install necessary system packages
sudo apt-get install -y \
    python-pip \
    build-essential \
    mercurial \
    git \
    python \
    python-dev \
    ffmpeg \
    libsdl-image1.2-dev \
    libsdl-mixer1.2-dev \
    libsdl-ttf2.0-dev \
    libsmpeg-dev \
    libsdl1.2-dev \
    libportmidi-dev \
    libswscale-dev \
    libavformat-dev \
    libavcodec-dev \
    zlib1g-dev
Fedora 
$ sudo yum install \
    make \
    mercurial \
    automake \
    gcc \
    gcc-c++ \
    SDL_ttf-devel \
    SDL_mixer-devel \
    khrplatform-devel \
    mesa-libGLES \
    mesa-libGLES-devel \
    gstreamer-plugins-good \
    gstreamer \
    gstreamer-python \
    mtdev-devel \
    python-devel \
    python-pip
OpenSuse 
$ sudo zypper install \
    python-distutils-extra \
    python-gstreamer-0_10 \
    python-enchant \
    gstreamer-0_10-plugins-good \
    python-devel \
    Mesa-devel \
    python-pip
$ sudo zypper install -t pattern devel_C_C++
Installation 
# Make sure Pip, Virtualenv and Setuptools are updated
sudo pip install --upgrade pip virtualenv setuptools

# Then create a virtualenv named "kivyinstall" by either:

# 1. using the default interpreter
virtualenv --no-site-packages kivyinstall

# or 2. using a specific interpreter
# (this will use the interpreter in /usr/bin/python2.7)
virtualenv --no-site-packages -p /usr/bin/python2.7 kivyinstall

# Enter the virtualenv
. kivyinstall/bin/activate

pip install numpy

pip install Cython==0.28.3

# If you want to install pygame backend instead of sdl2
# you can install pygame using command below and enforce using
# export USE_SDL2=0. If kivy's setup can't find sdl2 libs it will
# automatically set this value to 0 then try to build using pygame.
pip install hg+http://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame



# Install stable version of Kivy into the virtualenv
pip install kivy
# For the development version of Kivy, use the following command instead
pip install git+https://github.com/kivy/kivy.git@master
Install additional Virtualenv packages 
# Install development version of buildozer into the virtualenv
pip install git+https://github.com/kivy/buildozer.git@master

# Install development version of plyer into the virtualenv
pip install git+https://github.com/kivy/plyer.git@master

# Install a couple of dependencies for KivyCatalog
pip install -U pygments docutils
Start from the Command Line

We ship some examples that are ready-to-run. However, these examples are packaged inside the package. This means you must first know where easy_install has installed your current kivy package, and then go to the examples directory:

$ python -c "import pkg_resources; print(pkg_resources.resource_filename('kivy', '../share/kivy-examples'))"

And you should have a path similar to:

/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/Kivy-1.0.4_beta-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg/share/kivy-examples/

Then you can go to the example directory, and run it:

# launch touchtracer
$ cd <path to kivy-examples>
$ cd demo/touchtracer
$ python main.py

# launch pictures
$ cd <path to kivy-examples>
$ cd demo/pictures
$ python main.py

If you are familiar with Unix and symbolic links, you can create a link directly in your home directory for easier access. For example:

  1. Get the example path from the command line above

  2. Paste into your console:

    $ ln -s <path to kivy-examples> ~/

  3. Then, you can access to kivy-examples directly in your home directory:

    $ cd ~/kivy-examples

If you wish to start your Kivy programs as scripts (by typing ./main.py) or by double-clicking them, you will want to define the correct version of Python by linking to it. Something like:

$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python2.7 /usr/bin/kivy

Or, if you are running Kivy inside a virtualenv, link to the Python interpreter for it, like:

$ sudo ln -s /home/your_username/Envs/kivy/bin/python2.7 /usr/bin/kivy

Then, inside each main.py, add a new first line:

#!/usr/bin/kivy

NOTE: Beware of Python files stored with Windows-style line endings (CR-LF). Linux will not ignore the <CR> and will try to use it as part of the file name. This makes confusing error messages. Convert to Unix line endings.

Device permissions

When you app starts, Kivy uses Mtdev to scan for available multi-touch devices to use for input. Access to these devices is typically restricted to users or group with the appropriate permissions.

If you do not have access to these devices, Kivy will log an error or warning specifying these devices, normally something like:

Permission denied:'/dev/input/eventX'

In order to use these devices, you need to grant the user or group permission. This can be done via:

$ sudo chmod u+r /dev/input/eventX

for the user or:

$ sudo chmod g+r /dev/input/eventX

for the group. These permissions will only be effective for the duration of your current session. A more permanent solution is to add the user to a group that has these permissions. For example, in Ubuntu, you can add the user to the ‘input’ group:

$ sudo adduser $USER input

Note that you need to log out then back in again for these permissions to be applied.

Installation on Android

Kivy is a Python framework, and simply installing it on an Android device the same way as on a desktop machine will do nothing. However, you can compile a Kivy application to a standard Android APK that will run just like a normal java app on (more or less) any device.

We provide several different tools to help you run code on an Android device, covered fully in the Android packaging documentation. These include creating a fully standalone APK that may be released on an Android store, as well as the ability to run your Kivy apps without a compilation step using our pre-prepared Kivy Launcher app.

Installation on Raspberry Pi

You can install Kivy manually, or you can download and boot KivyPie on the Raspberry Pi. Both options are described below.

Manual installation (On Raspbian Jessie/Stretch)

  1. Install the dependencies:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev libsdl2-image-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev \
   pkg-config libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev \
   python-setuptools libgstreamer1.0-dev git-core \
   gstreamer1.0-plugins-{bad,base,good,ugly} \
   gstreamer1.0-{omx,alsa} python-dev libmtdev-dev \
   xclip xsel

  2. Install a new enough version of Cython:

    sudo pip install -U Cython==0.28.3

  3. Install Kivy globally on your system:

    sudo pip install git+https://github.com/kivy/kivy.git@master

  4. Or build and use kivy inplace (best for development):

    git clone https://github.com/kivy/kivy
cd kivy

make
echo "export PYTHONPATH=$(pwd):\$PYTHONPATH" >> ~/.profile
source ~/.profile

Note

On versions of kivy prior to 1.10.1, Mesa library naming changes can result in “Unable to find any valuable Window provider” errors. If you experience this issue, please upgrade or consult ticket #5360.

Manual installation (On Raspbian Wheezy)

  1. Add APT sources for Gstreamer 1.0 in /etc/apt/sources.list:

    deb http://vontaene.de/raspbian-updates/ . main

  2. Add APT key for vontaene.de:

    gpg --recv-keys 0C667A3E
gpg -a --export 0C667A3E | sudo apt-key add -

  3. Install the dependencies:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev libsdl2-image-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev \
   pkg-config libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev \
   python-setuptools libgstreamer1.0-dev git-core \
   gstreamer1.0-plugins-{bad,base,good,ugly} \
   gstreamer1.0-{omx,alsa} python-dev

  4. Install pip from source:

    wget https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py
sudo python get-pip.py

  5. Install Cython from sources (debian packages are outdated):

    sudo pip install Cython==0.28.3

  6. Install Kivy globally on your system:

    sudo pip install git+https://github.com/kivy/kivy.git@master

  7. Or build and use kivy inplace (best for development):

    git clone https://github.com/kivy/kivy
cd kivy

make
echo "export PYTHONPATH=$(pwd):\$PYTHONPATH" >> ~/.profile
source ~/.profile
KivyPie distribution

KivyPie is a compact and lightweight Raspbian based distribution that comes with Kivy installed and ready to run. It is the result of applying the manual installation steps described above, with a few more extra tools. You can download the image from http://kivypie.mitako.eu/kivy-download.html and boot it on a Raspberry PI.

Running the demo

Go to your kivy/examples folder, you’ll have tons of demo you could try.

You could start the showcase:

cd kivy/examples/demo/showcase
python main.py

3d monkey demo is also fun too see:

cd kivy/examples/3Drendering
python main.py
Change the default screen to use

You can set an environment variable named KIVY_BCM_DISPMANX_ID in order to change the display used to run Kivy. For example, to force the display to be HDMI, use:

KIVY_BCM_DISPMANX_ID=2 python main.py

Check Controlling the environment to see all the possible values.

Using Official RPi touch display

If you are using the official Raspberry Pi touch display, you need to configure Kivy to use it as an input source. To do this, edit the file ~/.kivy/config.ini and go to the [input] section. Add this:

mouse = mouse
mtdev_%(name)s = probesysfs,provider=mtdev
hid_%(name)s = probesysfs,provider=hidinput

For more information about configuring Kivy, see Configure Kivy

Where to go ?

We made few games using GPIO / physical input we got during Pycon 2013: a button and a tilt. Checkout the https://github.com/kivy/piki. You will need to adapt the GPIO pin in the code.

A video to see what we were doing with it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVM09gaX6pQ

Development Version

The development version is for developers and testers. Note that when running a development version, you’re running potentially broken code at your own risk. To use the development version, you will first need to install the dependencies. Thereafter, you will need to set up Kivy on your computer in a way that allows for easy development. For that, please see our Contributing document.

Installing Dependencies

To install Kivy’s dependencies, follow the guide below for your platform. You might also need these packages for the RST and lexing components:

$ sudo pip install pygments docutils
Ubuntu

For Ubuntu 12.04 and above (tested to 14.04), simply enter the following command that will install all necessary packages:

$ sudo apt-get install python-setuptools python-pygame python-opengl \
  python-gst0.10 python-enchant gstreamer0.10-plugins-good python-dev \
  build-essential libgl1-mesa-dev-lts-quantal libgles2-mesa-dev-lts-quantal\
  python-pip

For Ubuntu 15.04 and versions older than 12.04, this one should work:

$ sudo apt-get install python-setuptools python-pygame python-opengl \
  python-gst0.10 python-enchant gstreamer0.10-plugins-good python-dev \
  build-essential libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev zlib1g-dev python-pip

For Ubuntu 16.04:

$ sudo apt-get install python-setuptools python-pygame python-opengl \
  python-gst0.10 python-enchant gstreamer0.10-plugins-good python-dev \
  build-essential python-pip libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev zlib1g-dev

For Ubuntu 17.10 and 18.04:

$ sudo apt-get install python-setuptools python-pygame python-opengl \
  python-enchant python-dev build-essential python-pip libgl1-mesa-dev \
  libgles2-mesa-dev zlib1g-dev

Kivy requires a recent version of Cython, so you might need to update your Cython installation.

$ sudo pip install --upgrade Cython==0.28.3

If you experience compilation problems, please check your version of Cython against those in the Cython dependencies section.

OS X

Without using brew you can install the dependencies for kivy by manually pasting the following commands in a terminal:

curl -O -L https://www.libsdl.org/release/SDL2-2.0.4.dmg
curl -O -L https://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/release/SDL2_image-2.0.1.dmg
curl -O -L https://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/release/SDL2_mixer-2.0.1.dmg
curl -O -L https://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_ttf/release/SDL2_ttf-2.0.13.dmg
curl -O -L http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/pkg/osx/1.7.1/gstreamer-1.0-1.7.1-x86_64.pkg
curl -O -L http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/pkg/osx/1.7.1/gstreamer-1.0-devel-1.7.1-x86_64.pkg
hdiutil attach SDL2-2.0.4.dmg
sudo cp -a /Volumes/SDL2/SDL2.framework /Library/Frameworks/

This should ask you for your root password, provide it and then paste the following lines in your terminal:

hdiutil attach SDL2_image-2.0.1.dmg
sudo cp -a /Volumes/SDL2_image/SDL2_image.framework /Library/Frameworks/
hdiutil attach SDL2_ttf-2.0.13.dmg
sudo cp -a /Volumes/SDL2_ttf/SDL2_ttf.framework /Library/Frameworks/
hdiutil attach SDL2_mixer-2.0.1.dmg
sudo cp -a /Volumes/SDL2_mixer/SDL2_mixer.framework /Library/Frameworks/
sudo installer -package gstreamer-1.0-1.7.1-x86_64.pkg -target /
sudo installer -package gstreamer-1.0-devel-1.7.1-x86_64.pkg -target /
pip install --upgrade --user Cython==0.28.3 pillow

Now that you have all the dependencies for kivy, you need to make sure you have the command line tools installed:

xcode-select --install

Go to an appropriate dir like:

mkdir ~/code
cd ~/code

You can now install kivy itself:

git clone http://github.com/kivy/kivy
cd kivy
make

This should compile kivy, to make it accessible in your python env just point your PYTHONPATH to this dir:

export PYTHONPATH=~/code/kivy:$PYTHONPATH

To check if kivy is installed, type the following command in your terminal:

python -c "import kivy"

It should give you an output similar to the following:

$ python -c "import kivy"
[INFO   ] [Logger      ] Record log in /Users/quanon/.kivy/logs/kivy_15-12-31_21.txt
[INFO   ] [Screen      ] Apply screen settings for Motorola Droid 2
[INFO   ] [Screen      ] size=480x854 dpi=240 density=1.5 orientation=portrait
[INFO   ] [Kivy        ] v1.9.1-stable
[INFO   ] [Python      ] v2.7.10 (default, Oct 23 2015, 18:05:06)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 7.0.0 (clang-700.0.59.5)]
OSX HomeBrew

If you prefer to use homebrew: install the requirements using homebrew:

$ brew install sdl2 sdl2_image sdl2_ttf sdl2_mixer gstreamer
Windows

See Use development Kivy.

Installing Kivy for Development

Now that you’ve installed all the required dependencies, it’s time to download and compile a development version of Kivy:

Download Kivy from GitHub:

$ git clone git://github.com/kivy/kivy.git
$ cd kivy

Compile:

$ python setup.py build_ext --inplace -f

If you have the make command available, you can also use the following shortcut to compile (does the same as the last command):

$ make

Warning

By default, versions 2.7 to 2.7.2 of Python use the gcc compiler which ships with earlier versions of XCode. As of version 4.2, only the clang compiler is shipped with XCode by default. This means that if you build using XCode 4.2 or above, you need to ensure you have at least Python 2.7.3 installed, but preferably the latest version (2.7.5 at the time of writing).

If you want to modify the Kivy code itself, set up the PYTHONPATH environment variable to point at your clone. This way you don’t have to install (setup.py install) after every tiny modification. Python will instead import Kivy from your clone.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to make any changes to Kivy itself, you can also run (as admin, e.g. with sudo):

$ python setup.py install

If you want to contribute code (patches, new features) to the Kivy codebase, please read Contributing.

Running the test suite

To help detect issues and behaviour changes in Kivy, a set of unittests are provided. A good thing to do is to run them just after your Kivy installation, and every time you intend to push a change. If you think something was broken in Kivy, perhaps a test will show this. (If not, it might be a good time to write one.)

Kivy tests are based on nosetest, which you can install from your package manager or using pip:

$ pip install nose

To run the test suite, do:

$ make test
Uninstalling Kivy

If you are mixing multiple Kivy installations, you might be confused about where each Kivy version is located. Please note that you might need to follow these steps multiple times if you have multiple Kivy versions installed in the Python library path. To find your current installed version, you can use the command line:

$ python -c 'import kivy; print(kivy.__path__)'

Then, remove that directory recursively.

If you have installed Kivy with easy_install on linux, the directory may contain a “egg” directory. Remove that as well:

$ python -c 'import kivy; print(kivy.__path__)'
['/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Kivy-1.0.7-py2.7-linux-x86_64.egg/kivy']
$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Kivy-1.0.7-py2.7-linux-x86_64.egg

If you have installed with apt-get, do:

$ sudo apt-get remove --purge python-kivy

Philosophy

In case you are wondering what Kivy is all about and what sets it apart from other solutions, this document is for you.

Why bother?

Why would you want to use Kivy? After all, there are many great toolkits (or frameworks, or platforms) available out there – for free. You have Qt and Flash, to name just two good choices for application development. Many of these numerous solutions already support Multi-Touch, so what is it that makes Kivy special and worth using?

Fresh

Kivy is made for today and tomorrow. Novel input methods such as Multi-Touch have become increasingly important. We created Kivy from scratch, specifically for this kind of interaction. That means we were able to rethink many things in terms of human computer interaction, whereas older (not to mean ‘outdated’, rather ‘well-established’) toolkits carry their legacy, which is often a burden. We’re not trying to force this new approach to using a computer into the corset of existing models (say single-pointer mouse interaction). We want to let it flourish and let you explore the possibilities. This is what really sets Kivy apart.

Fast

Kivy is fast. This applies to both application development and application execution speeds. We have optimized Kivy in many ways. We implement time-critical functionality on the C level to leverage the power of existing compilers. More importantly, we also use intelligent algorithms to minimize costly operations. We also use the GPU wherever it makes sense in our context. The computational power of today’s graphics cards surpasses that of today’s CPUs by far for some tasks and algorithms, especially drawing. That’s why we try to let the GPU do as much of the work as possible, thus increasing performance considerably.

Flexible

Kivy is flexible. This means it can be run on a variety of different devices, including Android powered smartphones and tablets. We support all major operating systems (Windows, Linux, OS X). Being flexible also means that Kivy’s fast-paced development allows it to adapt to new technologies quickly. More than once have we added support for new external devices and software protocols, sometimes even before they were released. Lastly, Kivy is also flexible in that it is possible to use it in combination with a great number of different third-party solutions. For example, on Windows we support WM_TOUCH, which means that any device that has Windows 7 Pen & Touch drivers will just work with Kivy. On OS X you can use Apple’s Multi-Touch capable devices, such as trackpads and mice. On Linux, you can use HID kernel input events. In addition to that, we support TUIO (Tangible User Interface Objects) and a number of other input sources.

Focused

Kivy is focused. You can write a simple application with a few lines of code. Kivy programs are created using the Python programming language, which is incredibly versatile and powerful, yet easy to use. In addition, we created our own description language, the Kivy Language, for creating sophisticated user interfaces. This language allows you to set up, connect and arrange your application elements quickly. We feel that allowing you to focus on the essence of your application is more important than forcing you to fiddle with compiler settings. We took that burden off your shoulders.

Funded

Kivy is actively developed by professionals in their field. Kivy is a community-influenced, professionally developed and commercially backed solution. Some of our core developers develop Kivy for a living. Kivy is here to stay. It’s not a small, vanishing student project.

Free

Kivy is free to use. You don’t have to pay for it. You don’t even have to pay for it if you’re making money out of selling an application that uses Kivy.

Contributing

There are many ways in which you can contribute to Kivy. Code patches are just one thing amongst others that you can submit to help the project. We also welcome feedback, bug reports, feature requests, documentation improvements, advertisement & advocating, testing, graphics contributions and many other ideas. Just talk to us if you want to help, and we will help you help us.

Discussions

Discussions around Kivy development happens on Github’s issues and pull requests for specific things. For things that don’t fit in either, discussions happen on the #kivy-dev irc channel of the freenode network, and on the kivy-dev google group. Please come ask for guidance if you are unsure about how to contribute, or you want confirmation about your ideas fitting in the project before working on them. If you want to ask for — or contribute — support, you can join the #kivy irc channel, and the kivy-users google group.

Code of Conduct

In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming community, we as contributors and maintainers need to ensure participation in our project and our sister projects is a harassment-free and postive experience for everyone.

As such, it is vital that all interaction is conducted in a manner conveying respect, open-mindedness and gratitude. For a more comprehensive discussion of these guidelines, please refer to the Contributor Covenant. This document provides an accurate description of what is expected of you, both as a core developer or a first time contributor.

Feedback

This is by far the easiest way to contribute something. If you’re using Kivy for your own project, don’t hesitate sharing. It doesn’t have to be a high-class enterprise app, obviously. It’s just incredibly motivating to know that people use the things you develop and what it enables them to do. If you have something that you would like to tell us, please don’t hesitate. Screenshots and videos are also very welcome! We’re also interested in the problems you had when getting started. Please feel encouraged to report any obstacles you encountered such as missing documentation, misleading directions or similar. We are perfectionists, so even if it’s just a typo, let us know.

Reporting an Issue

If you found anything wrong, a crash, segfault, missing documentation, invalid spelling or just weird examples, please take 2 minutes to report the issue.

  1. Move your logging level to debug by editing <user_directory>/.kivy/config.ini:

    [kivy]
log_level = debug

  2. Execute your code again, and copy/paste the complete output to http://gist.github.com/, including the log from Kivy and the python backtrace.

  3. Open https://github.com/kivy/kivy/issues/

  4. Set the title of your issue

  5. Explain exactly what to do to reproduce the issue and paste the link of the output posted on http://gist.github.com/

  6. Validate the issue and you’re done!

If you are feeling up to it, you can also try to resolve the bug, and contribute by sending us the patch :) Read the next section to find out how to do this.

Code Contributions

Code contributions (patches, new features) are the most obvious way to help with the project’s development. Since this is so common we ask you to follow our workflow to most efficiently work with us. Adhering to our workflow ensures that your contribution won’t be forgotten or lost. Also, your name will always be associated with the change you made, which basically means eternal fame in our code history (you can opt-out if you don’t want that).

Coding style

  • If you haven’t done it yet, read the PEP8 about coding style in python.

  • Activate the pep8 check on git commits like this:

    make hook

This will pass the code added to the git staging zone (about to be committed) through a pep8 checker program when you do a commit, and ensure that you didn’t introduce pep8 errors. If you did, the commit will be rejected: please correct the errors and try again.

Performance
  • take care of performance issues: read Python performance tips
  • cpu intensive parts of Kivy are written in cython: if you are doing a lot of computation, consider using it too.
Git & GitHub

We use git as our version control system for our code base. If you have never used git or a similar DVCS (or even any VCS) before, we strongly suggest you take a look at the great documentation that is available for git online. The Git Community Book or the Git Videos are both great ways to learn git. Trust us when we say that git is a great tool. It may seem daunting at first, but after a while you’ll (hopefully) love it as much as we do. Teaching you git, however, is well beyond the scope of this document.

Also, we use GitHub to host our code. In the following we will assume that you have a (free) GitHub account. While this part is optional, it allows for a tight integration between your patches and our upstream code base. If you don’t want to use GitHub, we assume you know what you are doing anyway.

Code Workflow

So here is the initial setup to begin with our workflow (you only need to do this once to install Kivy). Basically you follow the installation instructions from Installing Kivy for Development, but you don’t clone our repository, you fork it. Here are the steps:

  1. Log in to GitHub

  2. Create a fork of the Kivy repository by clicking the fork button.

  3. Clone your fork of our repository to your computer. Your fork will have the git remote name ‘origin’ and you will be on branch ‘master’:

    git clone https://github.com/username/kivy.git

  4. Compile and set up PYTHONPATH or install (see Installing Kivy for Development).

  5. Install our pre-commit hook that ensures your code doesn’t violate our styleguide by executing make hook from the root directory of your clone. This will run our styleguide check whenever you do a commit, and if there are violations in the parts that you changed, your commit will be aborted. Fix & retry.

  6. Add the kivy repo as a remote source:

    git remote add kivy https://github.com/kivy/kivy.git

Now, whenever you want to create a patch, you follow the following steps:

  1. See if there is a ticket in our bug tracker for the fix or feature and announce that you’ll be working on it if it doesn’t yet have an assignee.

  2. Create a new, appropriately named branch in your local repository for that specific feature or bugfix. (Keeping a new branch per feature makes sure we can easily pull in your changes without pulling any other stuff that is not supposed to be pulled.):

    git checkout -b new_feature

  3. Modify the code to do what you want (e.g. fix it).

  4. Test the code. Try to do this even for small fixes. You never know whether you have introduced some weird bug without testing.

  5. Do one or more minimal, atomic commits per fix or per feature. Minimal/Atomic means keep the commit clean. Don’t commit other stuff that doesn’t logically belong to this fix or feature. This is not about creating one commit per line changed. Use git add -p if necessary.

  6. Give each commit an appropriate commit message, so that others who are not familiar with the matter get a good idea of what you changed.

  7. Once you are satisfied with your changes, pull our upstream repository and merge it with you local repository. We can pull your stuff, but since you know exactly what’s changed, you should do the merge:

    git pull kivy master

  8. Push your local branch into your remote repository on GitHub:

    git push origin new_feature

  9. Send a Pull Request with a description of what you changed via the button in the GitHub interface of your repository. (This is why we forked initially. Your repository is linked against ours.)

Warning

If you change parts of the code base that require compilation, you will have to recompile in order for your changes to take effect. The make command will do that for you (see the Makefile if you want to know what it does). If you need to clean your current directory from compiled files, execute make clean. If you want to get rid of all files that are not under version control, run make distclean (Caution: If your changes are not under version control, this command will delete them!)

Now we will receive your pull request. We will check whether your changes are clean and make sense (if you talked to us before doing all of this we will have told you whether it makes sense or not). If so, we will pull them and you will get instant karma. Congratulations, you’re a hero!

Documentation Contributions

Documentation contributions generally follow the same workflow as code contributions, but are just a bit more lax.

  1. Following the instructions above,

    1. Fork the repository.
    2. Clone your fork to your computer.
    3. Setup kivy repo as a remote source.

  2. Install python-sphinx. (See docs/README for assistance.)

  3. Use ReStructuredText_Markup to make changes to the HTML documentation in docs/sources.

To submit a documentation update, use the following steps:

  1. Create a new, appropriately named branch in your local repository:

    git checkout -b my_docs_update

  2. Modify the documentation with your correction or improvement.

  3. Re-generate the HTML pages, and review your update:

    make html

  4. Give each commit an appropriate commit message, so that others who are not familiar with the matter get a good idea of what you changed.

  5. Keep each commit focused on a single related theme. Don’t commit other stuff that doesn’t logically belong to this update.

  6. Push to your remote repository on GitHub:

    git push

  7. Send a Pull Request with a description of what you changed via the button in the GitHub interface of your repository.

We don’t ask you to go through all the hassle just to correct a single typo, but for more complex contributions, please follow the suggested workflow.

Docstrings

Every module/class/method/function needs a docstring, so use the following keywords when relevant:

  • .. versionadded:: to mark the version in which the feature was added.
  • .. versionchanged:: to mark the version in which the behaviour of the feature was changed.
  • .. note:: to add additional info about how to use the feature or related feature.
  • .. warning:: to indicate a potential issue the user might run into using the feature.

Examples:

def my_new_feature(self, arg):
    """
    New feature is awesome

    .. versionadded:: 1.1.4

    .. note:: This new feature will likely blow your mind

    .. warning:: Please take a seat before trying this feature
    """

Will result in:

def my_new_feature(self, arg):

New feature is awesome

New in version 1.1.4.

Note

This new feature will likely blow your mind

Warning

Please take a seat before trying this feature

When referring to other parts of the api use:

  • :mod:`~kivy.module` to refer to a module
  • :class:`~kivy.module.Class` to refer to a class
  • :meth:`~kivy.module.Class.method` to refer to a method
  • :doc:`api-kivy.module` to refer to the documentation of a module (same for a class and a method)

Obviously replacing module Class and method with their real name, and using using ‘.’ to separate modules referring to imbricated modules, e.g:

:mod:`~kivy.uix.floatlayout`
:class:`~kivy.uix.floatlayout.FloatLayout`
:meth:`~kivy.core.window.WindowBase.toggle_fullscreen`
:doc:`/api-kivy.core.window`

Will result in:

:doc: and :mod: are essentially the same, except for an anchor in the url which makes :doc: preferred for the cleaner url.

To build your documentation, run:

make html

If you updated your kivy install, and have some trouble compiling docs, run:

make clean force html

The docs will be generated in docs/build/html. For more information on docstring formatting, please refer to the official Sphinx Documentation.

Unit tests contributions

For the testing team, we have the document Unit tests that explains how Kivy unit tests work and how you can create your own. Use the same approach as the Code Workflow to submit new tests.

Unit tests

Tests are located in the kivy/tests folder. If you find a bug in Kivy, a good thing to do can be to write a minimal case showing the issue and to ask core devs if the behaviour shown is intended or a real bug. If you write your code as a unittest , it will prevent the bug from coming back unnoticed in the future, and wil make Kivy a better, stronger project. Writing a unittest may be a really good way to get familiar with Kivy while doing something useful.

Unit tests are separated into two cases:

  • Non graphical unit tests: these are standard unit tests that can run in a console
  • Graphical unit tests: these need a GL context, and if requested, work via image comparison

To be able to run unit tests, you need to install nose (http://code.google.com/p/python-nose/), and coverage (http://nedbatchelder.com/code/coverage/). You can use easy_install for that:

sudo easy_install nose coverage

Then, in the kivy directory:

make test
How it works

All the tests are located in kivy/tests, and the filename starts with test_<name>.py. Nose will automatically gather all the files and classes inside this folder, and use them to generate test cases.

To write a test, create a file that respects the previous naming, then start with this template:

import unittest

class XXXTestCase(unittest.TestCase):

    def setUp(self):
        # import class and prepare everything here.
        pass

    def test_YYY(self):
        # place your test case here
        a = 1
        self.assertEqual(a, 1)

Replace XXX with an appropriate name that covers your tests cases, then replace ‘YYY’ with the name of your test. If you have any doubts, check how the other tests have been written.

Then, to execute them, just run:

make test

If you want to execute that file only, you can run:

nosetests kivy/tests/test_yourtestcase.py

or include this simple unittest.main() call at the end of the file and run the test with python test_yourtestcase.py:

if __name__ == '__main__':
    unittest.main()
Graphical unit tests

While simple unit tests are fine and useful to keep things granular, in certain cases we need to test Kivy after the GL Window is created to interact with the graphics, widgets and to test more advanced stuff such as widget, modules, various cases of input and interaction with everything that becomes available only after the Window is created and Kivy properly initialized.

These tests are executed the same way like the ordinary unit tests i.e. either with nosetests or via unittest.main().

Here are two similar examples with different approaches of running the app. In the first one you are setting up the required stuff manually and the tearDown() of the GraphicUnitTest may only attempt to clean it after you:

from kivy.tests.common import GraphicUnitTest

class MyTestCase(GraphicUnitTest):

    def test_runtouchapp(self):
        # non-integrated approach
        from kivy.app import runTouchApp
        from kivy.uix.button import Button

        button = Button()
        runTouchApp(button)

        # get your Window instance safely
        from kivy.base import EventLoop
        EventLoop.ensure_window()
        window = EventLoop.window

        # your asserts
        self.assertEqual(window.children[0], button)
        self.assertEqual(
            window.children[0].height,
            window.height
        )

In the second test case both setUp() and tearDown() work together with GraphicUnitTest.render(). This is the basic setup it does automatically:

  • Window is sized to 320 x 240 px
  • Only the default Config is used during the test, it’s restricted with the KIVY_USE_DEFAULTCONFIG environment variable
  • Any input (mouse/touch/…) is removed and if you need to test it, either mock it or manually add it
  • Window’s canvas is cleared before displaying any widget tree

Warning

Do NOT use absolute numbers in your tests to preserve the functionality across the all resolutions. Instead, use e.g. relative position or size and multiply it by the Window.size in your test.

from kivy.tests.common import GraphicUnitTest, UnitTestTouch

class MyTestCase(GraphicUnitTest):

    def test_render(self):
        from kivy.uix.button import Button

        # with GraphicUnitTest.render() you basically do this:
        # runTouchApp(Button()) + some setup before
        button = Button()
        self.render(button)

        # get your Window instance safely
        from kivy.base import EventLoop
        EventLoop.ensure_window()
        window = EventLoop.window

        touch = UnitTestTouch(
            *[s / 2.0 for s in window.size]
        )

        # bind something to test the touch with
        button.bind(
            on_release=lambda instance: setattr(
                instance, 'test_released', True
            )
        )

        # then let's touch the Window's center
        touch.touch_down()
        touch.touch_up()
        self.assertTrue(button.test_released)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    import unittest
    unittest.main()

Note

Make sure you check the source of kivy.tests.common before writing comprehensive test cases.

GL unit tests

GL unit test are more difficult. You must know that even if OpenGL is a standard, the output/rendering is not. It depends on your GPU and the driver used. For these tests, the goal is to save the output of the rendering at frame X, and compare it to a reference image.

Currently, images are generated at 320x240 pixels, in png format.

Note

Currently, image comparison is done per-pixel. This means the reference image that you generate will only be correct for your GPU/driver. If somebody can implement image comparison with “delta” support, patches are welcome :)

To execute GL unit tests, you need to create a directory:

mkdir kivy/tests/results
KIVY_UNITTEST_SCREENSHOTS=1 make test

The results directory will contain all the reference images and the generated images. After the first execution, if the results directory is empty, no comparison will be done. It will use the generated images as reference. After the second execution, all the images will be compared to the reference images.

A html file is available to show the comparison before/after the test, and a snippet of the associated unit test. It will be generated at:

kivy/tests/build/index.html

Note

The build directory is cleaned after each call to make test. If you don’t want that, just use nosetests command.

Writing GL Unit tests

The idea is to create a root widget, as you would do in build(), or in kivy.base.runTouchApp(). You’ll give that root widget to a rendering function which will capture the output in X frames.

Here is an example:

from kivy.tests.common import GraphicUnitTest

class VertexInstructionTestCase(GraphicUnitTest):

    def test_ellipse(self):
        from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
        from kivy.graphics import Ellipse, Color
        r = self.render

        # create a root widget
        wid = Widget()

        # put some graphics instruction on it
        with wid.canvas:
            Color(1, 1, 1)
            self.e = Ellipse(pos=(100, 100), size=(200, 100))

        # render, and capture it directly
        r(wid)

        # as alternative, you can capture in 2 frames:
        r(wid, 2)

        # or in 10 frames
        r(wid, 10)

Each call to self.render (or r in our example) will generate an image named as follows:

<classname>_<funcname>-<r-call-count>.png

r-call-count represents the number of times that self.render is called inside the test function.

The reference images are named:

ref_<classname>_<funcname>-<r-call-count>.png

You can easily replace the reference image with a new one if you wish.

Coverage reports

Coverage is based on the execution of previous tests. Statistics on code coverage are automatically calculated during execution. You can generate an html report of the coverage with the command:

make cover

Then, open kivy/htmlcov/index.html with your favorite web browser.

GSOC

Google Summer of Code - 2017
Introduction

Kivy is a cross-platform, business friendly, GPU accelerated open source Python library for rapid development of applications that make use of innovative user interfaces, such as multi-touch apps.

The Kivy Organization oversees several major projects:

  • The Kivy GUI Library
  • The Python-For-Android compilation tool.
  • The Kivy-iOS compilation tool.
  • The PyJNIus library for interfacing with Java from Python.
  • The PyOBJus library for interfacing with Objective-C from Python.
  • The Plyer platform-independent Python wrapper for platform dependent APIs.
  • Buildozer - A generic Python packager for Android, iOS, and desktop.
  • KivEnt - A 2d Game Engine that provides optimized methods of handling large amounts of dynamic visual data.
  • Kivy Designer - A graphical GUI designer for Kivy built in Kivy.

Altogether, these projects allow the user to create applications for every major operating system that make use of any native APIs present. Our goal is to enable development of Python applications that run everywhere off the same codebase and make use of platform dependent APIs and features that users of specific operating systems have come to expect.

Depending on which project you choose you may need to know Cython, OpenGL ES2, Java, Objective-C, or C in addition to Python. We make heavy use of Cython and OpenGL for computational and graphics performance where it matters, and the other languages are typically involved in accessing OS or provider level APIs.

We are hoping to participate in Google Summer of Code 2017. This page showcases some ideas for GSoC projects and corresponding guidelines for students contributing to the Kivy Framework.

Requirements

It is assumed that the incoming student meets some basic requirements as highlighted here:

  • Intermediate level familiarity with Python.
  • Comfortable with git and github (Kivy and its sister projects are all managed on github) If you have never used github before you may be interested in this tutorial.
  • Comfortable with event driven programming.
  • Has suitable tools/environment for Kivy or the sister project you are going to work on. For example to be able to work on PyOBJus you would need access to an iOS device, OS X with Xcode and a developer license, to work on PyJNIus you would need an Android device, and to work on plyer you would need access to hardware for both platforms.

Additional desired skills may be listed with specific projects.

Familiarize yourself with the contribution guide We can help you get up to speed, however students demonstrating ability in advance will be given preference.

How to get started

For Kivy, the easiest way is to follow the installation instructions for the development version for your specific platform:

http://kivy.org/docs/installation/installation.html#development-version

For the rest it’s usually sufficient to install the relevant project from git and add it to your PYTHONPATH.

e.g. for PyJNIus:

git clone http://github.com/kivy/pyjnius
export PYTHONPATH=/path/to/pyjnius:$PYTHONPATH
Project Ideas

Here are some prospective ideas sourced from the Kivy development team, if none of these projects interest you come talk to us in #kivy-dev about a project idea of your own.

Beginner Projects

These projects should be suitable for anyone with a college level familiarity with Python and require little knowledge of platform specifics.

Intermediate Projects

These projects may involve cursory level knowledge of several OS level details, some OpenGL interaction, or other topics that may be a bit out of the wheelhouse of the average Pythonista.

Plyer:

Description:

Plyer is a platform-independent Python API to use features commonly found on the desktop and mobile platforms supported by Kivy. The idea is to provide a stable API to the user for accessing features of their desktop or mobile device.

The student would replace some .java code currently in the p4a project to a more appropriate place in Plyer. In addition, the student would work on improving access to platform specific features through Plyer, including accessibility, Bluetooth Low Energy, accessing and editing contacts, sharing, NFC, in-app browser, Wi-Fi (enable, disable, access to Wi-Fi services (Wi-Fi direct, network accessibility, current IP info on network etc.), Camera capture (video), camera display, Google Play integration, launch phone call interface, sms interface, geolocation, interaction with notifications, internationalization (I18N), and all the missing platform implementations from existing features.

Under the hood you’ll use PyJNIus on Android, PyOBJus on OS X and iOS, ctypes on Windows, and native APIs on Linux. This probably would also include improving PyOBJus and PyJNIus to handle interfaces that they can’t right now.

References:
Expected outcome:
A successful outcome would include moving the Java/PyOBJus code from p4a/kivy-ios to plyer and implementing some or all of the new facades to be decided with the student.
  • Mentors: Akshay Arora
  • Requirements: Access to Linux, Windows, OS X, iOS device, Android device.
  • Task level: Intermediate
  • Desired Skills: Familiarity with PyJNIus, PyOBJus.

Font Reshaping and Font Fallback Support

Description:

Currently Kivy does not support reshaping for alphabets such as Arabic, Persian, Thai, or Devanagari. The solution is to integrate a text shaping and layout engine (Pango and Harfbuzz). You would need to ensure that Pango and Harfbuzz can be compiled on every platform, and integrate it as a core text provider.

The second part of the same project would involve font fallback support. If a particular character/glyph is missing, currently we show a [] box. The solution for this would involve either using an OS API if available or maintaining a hashtable for the default fonts on each OS which can be used for glyph fallback.

References:
Expected outcome:
Font fallback and text reshaping support in Kivy, compilation recipes for Python-For-Android and packaging on desktop platforms.
  • Mentors: Akshay Arora, Jacob Kovac, Matthew Einhorn
  • Requirements: Access to a desktop OS and ideally at least one mobile platform
  • Task level: Intermediate
  • Desired Skills: Familiarity with text rendering, Pango, HarfBuzz and Kivy’s provider abstraction.
Advanced Projects

These projects may involve very in-depth knowledge of Kivy’s existing internals, the hairy details of cross-platform compilation, or other fairly advanced topics. If you are comfortable with the internals of Python, working with C code, and using Cython to build your own C extensions these projects may appeal to you.

Kivent: Chipmunk 7 Integration

Description:

KivEnt is a modular entity-component based game engine built on top of Kivy. KivEnt provides a highly performant approach to building games in Python that avoids some of the worst overhead of Python using specialized Cython constructs.

At the moment, KivEnt internally makes use of the cymunk library (https://github.com/tito/cymunk) for physics simulation and collision detection. Cymunk is based on Chipmunk2d 6.x, recently Chipmunk 7 has released and brought many previously premium features into the core library. In addition to the API changes present in the newest Chipmunk, the KivEnt - Cymunk bridging does not make most efficient use of the KivEnt API for handling C level objects and data. The student will be responsible for creating a new wrapper over Chipmunk2d 7 that better matches KivEnt’s approach to handling game data.

References:
Expected Outcome:
A successful outcome involves a new kivent_tiled module being released for the KivEnt game engine.
  • Mentors: Jacob Kovac
  • Requirements: Access to at least one Kivy platform.
  • Task level: Advanced
  • Desired Skills: Familiarity with Cython, Python, and game dev related math concepts.

KV Compiler: A compiler for the KV language

Description:

The KV language is a fundamental component of Kivy. The KV language allows one to describe a GUI; from the creation of a Widget tree to the actions that should be taken in response value changes and events. In effect it is a concise way to create rule bindings using the Kivy properties and events. Internally, python code that reflects these rules are created and bound to the properties and events. Currently, these bindings are not at all optimized because upon each widget creation all of these rules are re-evaluated and bound. This process can be significantly optimized by pre-compiling the kv code, especially the bindings. A compiler would also allow us to update and fix some of the long-standing kv language issues.

Work on a kv-compiler has already progressed quite far, in fact a PR in the pre-alpha stage, is currently open. However, it is out of sync with the current codebase due to some unrelated kv changes in the meantime. Also, that PR would require a significant re-write to make things more modular, self-contained, and extensible. So there is much work still to be done on it.

Theming has also been a prepatual issue in Kivy, a KV compiler may help implement bindings that facilitate theming.

References:
Expected Outcome:
A successful outcome would be a compiler which compiles kv code into python code. The compiler should be modular and extensible so that we can continue to improve the kv language. The compiler should have the common debug/optimization options. The compiled code should also be human readable so issues could be traced back to the original kv code. The compiler should also be a drop in replacement for the current KV runtime compiler, and would require extensive testing.
  • Mentors: Matthew Einhorn
  • Requirements: Access to at least one Kivy platform.
  • Task level: Advanced
  • Desired Skills: Familiarity with Cython, Python, and Kivy. Familiarity with typical computer science concepts and data structures is also desired.
How to Contact devs

All communication must happen via public channels, private emails and IRC messages are discouraged.

Ask your questions on the Kivy Users forum https://groups.google.com/group/kivy-users or send a mail at kivy-users@googlegroups.com

Make sure to join the kivy-dev user group too: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/kivy-dev.

You can also try to contact us on IRC (online chat), to get the IRC handles of the devs mentioned above visit https://kivy.org/#aboutus.

Make sure to read the IRC rules before connecting. Connect to webchat.

Most of our developers are located in Europe, India, and North America so keep in mind typical waking hours for these areas.

How to be a good student

If you want to participate as a student and want to maximize your chances of being accepted, start talking to us today and try fixing some smaller problems to get used to our workflow. If we know you can work well with us, you will have much better chances of being selected.

Here’s a checklist:

  • Make sure to read through the website and at least skim the documentation.
  • Look at the source code.
  • Read our contribution guidelines.
  • Make a contribution! Kivy would like to see how you engage with the development process. Take a look at the issue tracker for a Kivy project that interests you and submit a Pull Request. It can be a simple bug or a documentation change. We are looking to get a feel for how you work, not evaluating your capabilities. Don’t worry about trying to pick something to impress us.
  • Pick an idea that you think is interesting from the ideas list or come up with your own idea.
  • Do some research yourself. GSoC is about give and take, not just one sided interaction. It is about you trying to achieve agreed upon goals with our support. The main driving force in this should be, obviously, yourself. Many students pop up and ask what they should do. You should base that decision on your interests and your skills. Show us you’re serious about it and take the initiative.
  • Write a draft proposal about what you want to do. Include what you understand the current state of the project to be, what you would like to improve, how, etc.
  • Discuss that proposal with us in a timely manner. Get feedback.
  • Be patient! Especially on IRC. We will try to get to you if we’re available. If not, send an email and just wait. Most questions are already answered in the docs or somewhere else and can be found with some research. Your questions should reflect that you’ve actually thought through what you’re asking and done some rudimentary research.
  • Most of all don’t forget to have fun and interact with the community. The community is as big a part of Open Source as the code itself.
What to expect if you are chosen
  • All students should join the #kivy and the #kivy-dev irc channels daily, this is how the development team communicates both internally and with the users.
  • You and your mentors will agree on two week milestones for the duration of the summer.
  • Development will occur in your fork of the master branch of Kivy, we expect you to submit at least one PR a week from your branch into a branch reserved for you in the primary repo. This will be your forum for reporting progress as well as documenting any struggles you may have encountered.
  • Missing 2 weekly PR or 2 milestones will result in your failure unless there have been extenuating circumstances. If something comes up, please inform your mentors as soon as possible. If a milestone seems out of reach we will work with you to reevaluate the goals.
  • Your changes will be merged into master once the project has been completed and we have thoroughly tested on every platform that is relevant.

FAQ

There are a number of questions that repeatedly need to be answered. The following document tries to answer some of them.

Technical FAQ

Fatal Python error: (pygame parachute) Segmentation Fault

Most of time, this issue is due to the usage of old graphics drivers. Install the latest graphics driver available for your graphics card, and it should be ok.

If not, this means you have probably triggered some OpenGL code without an available OpenGL context. If you are loading images, atlases, using graphics instructions, you must spawn a Window first:

# method 1 (preferred)
from kivy.base import EventLoop
EventLoop.ensure_window()

# method 2
from kivy.core.window import Window

If not, please report a detailed issue on github by following the instructions in the Reporting an Issue section of the Contributing documentation. This is very important for us because that kind of error can be very hard to debug. Give us all the information you can give about your environment and execution.

undefined symbol: glGenerateMipmap

You graphics card or its drivers might be too old. Update your graphics drivers to the latest available version and retry.

ImportError: No module named event

If you use Kivy from our development version, you must compile it before using it. In the kivy directory, do:

make force

Android FAQ

could not extract public data

This error message can occur under various circumstances. Ensure that:

  • you have a phone with an sdcard
  • you are not currently in “USB Mass Storage” mode
  • you have permissions to write to the sdcard

In the case of the “USB Mass Storage” mode error, and if you don’t want to keep unplugging the device, set the usb option to Power.

Crash on touch interaction on Android 2.3.x

There have been reports of crashes on Adreno 200/205 based devices. Apps otherwise run fine but crash when interacted with/through the screen.

These reports also mentioned the issue being resolved when moving to an ICS or higher ROM.

Is it possible to have a kiosk app on android 3.0 ?

Thomas Hansen have wrote a detailed answer on the kivy-users mailing list:

Basically, you need to root the device, remove the SystemUI package, add some lines to the xml configuration, and you’re done.

What’s the difference between python-for-android from Kivy and SL4A?

Despite having the same name, Kivy’s python-for-android is not related to the python-for-android project from SL4A, Py4A, or android-python27. They are distinctly different projects with different goals. You may be able to use Py4A with Kivy, but no code or effort has been made to do so. The Kivy team feels that our python-for-android is the best solution for us going forward, and attempts to integrate with and support Py4A is not a good use of our time.

Project FAQ

Why do you use Python? Isn’t it slow?

Let us try to give a thorough answer; please bear with us.

Python is a very agile language that allows you to do many things in a (by comparison) short time. For many development scenarios, we strongly prefer writing our application quickly in a high-level language such as Python, testing it, then optionally optimizing it.

But what about speed? If you compare execution speeds of implementations for a certain set of algorithms (esp. number crunching) you will find that Python is a lot slower than say, C++. Now you may be even more convinced that it’s not a good idea in our case to use Python. Drawing sophisticated graphics (and we are not talking about your grandmother’s OpenGL here) is computationally quite expensive and given that we often want to do that for rich user experiences, that would be a fair argument. But, in virtually every case your application ends up spending most of the time (by far) executing the same part of the code. In Kivy, for example, these parts are event dispatching and graphics drawing. Now Python allows you to do something to make these parts much faster.

By using Cython, you can compile your code down to the C level, and from there your usual C compiler optimizes things. This is a pretty pain free process and if you add some hints to your code, the result becomes even faster. We are talking about a speed up in performance by a factor of anything between 1x and up to more than 1000x (greatly depends on your code). In Kivy, we did this for you and implemented the portions of our code, where efficiency really is critical, on the C level.

For graphics drawing, we also leverage today’s GPUs which are, for some tasks such as graphics rasterization, much more efficient than a CPU. Kivy does as much as is reasonable on the GPU to maximize performance. If you use our Canvas API to do the drawing, there is even a compiler that we invented which optimizes your drawing code automatically. If you keep your drawing mostly on the GPU, much of your program’s execution speed is not determined by the programming language used, but by the graphics hardware you throw at it.

We believe that these (and other) optimizations that Kivy does for you already make most applications fast enough by far. Often you will even want to limit the speed of the application in order not to waste resources. But even if this is not sufficient, you still have the option of using Cython for your own code to greatly speed it up.

Trust us when we say that we have given this very careful thought. We have performed many different benchmarks and come up with some clever optimizations to make your application run smoothly.

Does Kivy support Python 3.x?

Yes! As of version 1.8.0 Kivy supports both Python >= 2.7 and Python >= 3.4 with the same codebase. Python 3 is also now supported by python-for-android.

However, be aware that while Kivy will run in Python 3.4+, our iOS build tools still require Python 2.7.

Do you accept patches?

Yes, we love patches. In order to ensure a smooth integration of your precious changes however, please make sure to read our contribution guidelines. Obviously we don’t accept every patch. Your patch has to be consistent with our styleguide and, more importantly, make sense. It does make sense to talk to us before you come up with bigger changes, especially new features.

Does the Kivy project participate in Google’s Summer of Code ?

Potential students ask whether we participate in GSoC. The clear answer is: Indeed. :-)

If you want to participate as a student and want to maximize your chances of being accepted, start talking to us today and try fixing some smaller (or larger, if you can ;-) problems to get used to our workflow. If we know you can work well with us, that’d be a big plus.

Here’s a checklist:

  • Make sure to read through the website and at least skim the documentation.
  • Look at the source code.
  • Read our contribution guidelines.
  • Pick an idea that you think is interesting from the ideas list (see link above) or come up with your own idea.
  • Do some research yourself. GSoC is not about us teaching you something and you getting paid for that. It is about you trying to achieve agreed upon goals by yourself with our support. The main driving force in this should be, obviously, yourself. Many students come up and ask what they should do. Well, we don’t know because we know neither your interests nor your skills. Show us you’re serious about it and take initiative.
  • Write a draft proposal about what you want to do. Include what you understand the current state is (very roughly), what you would like to improve and how, etc.
  • Discuss that proposal with us in a timely manner. Get feedback.
  • Be patient! Especially on IRC. We will try to get to you if we’re available. If not, send an email and just wait. Most questions are already answered in the docs or somewhere else and can be found with some research. If your questions don’t reflect that you’ve actually thought through what you’re asking, it might not be well received.

Good luck! :-)

Contact Us

You can contact us in several different ways:

Issue Tracker

If you have found an issue with the code or have a feature request, please see our issue tracker. If there is no issue yet that matches your inquiry, feel free to create a new one. Please make sure you receive the mails that github sends if we comment on the issue in case we need more information. For bugs, please provide all the information necessary, like the operating system you’re using, the full error message or any other logs, a description of what you did to trigger the bug and what the actual bug was, as well as anything else that might be of interest. Obviously, we can only help if you tell us precisely what the actual problem is.

Mail

For users of our framework, there is a mailing list for support inquiries on the kivy-users Google Group. Use this list if you have issues with your Kivy-based app. We also have a mailing list for matters that deal with development of the actual Kivy framework code on the kivy-dev Google Group.

IRC

#Kivy on irc.freenode.net

IRC is great for real-time communication, but please make sure to wait after you asked your question. If you just join, ask and quit we have no way of knowing who you were and where we’re supposed to send our answer. Also, keep in mind we’re mostly based in Europe, so take into account any timezone issues. If you’re unlucky more than once, try the mailing list.

If you don’t have an IRC client, you can also use Freenode’s web chat, but please, don’t close the browser window too soon. Just enter #kivy in the channels field.

Please read our Community Guidelines before asking for help on the mailing list or IRC channel.

Programming Guide

Kivy Basics

Installation of the Kivy environment

Kivy depends on many Python libraries, such as pygame, gstreamer, PIL, Cairo, and more. They are not all required, but depending on the platform you’re working on, they can be a pain to install. For Windows and MacOS X, we provide a portable package that you can just unzip and use.

Have a look at one of these pages for detailed installation instructions:

Alternatively, instructions for the development version can be found here:

Create an application

Creating a kivy application is as simple as:

  • sub-classing the App class
  • implementing its build() method so it returns a Widget instance (the root of your widget tree)
  • instantiating this class, and calling its run() method.

Here is an example of a minimal application:

import kivy
kivy.require('1.0.6') # replace with your current kivy version !

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.label import Label


class MyApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return Label(text='Hello world')


if __name__ == '__main__':
    MyApp().run()

You can save this to a text file, main.py for example, and run it.

Kivy App Life Cycle

First off, let’s get familiar with the Kivy app life cycle.

_images/Kivy_App_Life_Cycle.png

As you can see above, for all intents and purposes, our entry point into our App is the run() method, and in our case that is “MyApp().run()”. We will get back to this, but let’s start from the third line:

from kivy.app import App

It’s required that the base Class of your App inherits from the App class. It’s present in the kivy_installation_dir/kivy/app.py.

Note

Go ahead and open up that file if you want to delve deeper into what the Kivy App class does. We encourage you to open the code and read through it. Kivy is based on Python and uses Sphinx for documentation, so the documentation for each class is in the actual file.

Similarly on line 2:

from kivy.uix.label import Label

One important thing to note here is the way packages/classes are laid out. The uix module is the section that holds the user interface elements like layouts and widgets.

Moving on to line 5:

class MyApp(App):

This is where we are defining the Base Class of our Kivy App. You should only ever need to change the name of your app MyApp in this line.

Further on to line 7:

def build(self):

As highlighted by the image above, show casing the Kivy App Life Cycle, this is the function where you should initialize and return your Root Widget. This is what we do on line 8:

return Label(text='Hello world')

Here we initialize a Label with text ‘Hello World’ and return its instance. This Label will be the Root Widget of this App.

Note

Python uses indentation to denote code blocks, therefore take note that in the code provided above, at line 9 the class and function definition ends.

Now on to the portion that will make our app run at line 11 and 12:

if __name__ == '__main__':
    MyApp().run()

Here the class MyApp is initialized and its run() method called. This initializes and starts our Kivy application.

Running the application

To run the application, follow the instructions for your operating system:

Linux

Follow the instructions for running a Kivy application on Linux:

$ python main.py
Windows

Follow the instructions for running a Kivy application on Windows:

$ python main.py
# or
C:\appdir>kivy.bat main.py
Mac OS X

Follow the instructions for running a Kivy application on OS X:

$ kivy main.py
Android
Your application needs some complementary files to be able to run on Android. See Create a package for Android for further reference.

A window should open, showing a single Label (with the Text ‘Hello World’) that covers the entire window’s area. That’s all there is to it.

_images/quickstart.png

Customize the application

Lets extend this application a bit, say a simple UserName/Password page.

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.gridlayout import GridLayout
from kivy.uix.label import Label
from kivy.uix.textinput import TextInput


class LoginScreen(GridLayout):

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(LoginScreen, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.cols = 2
        self.add_widget(Label(text='User Name'))
        self.username = TextInput(multiline=False)
        self.add_widget(self.username)
        self.add_widget(Label(text='password'))
        self.password = TextInput(password=True, multiline=False)
        self.add_widget(self.password)


class MyApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return LoginScreen()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    MyApp().run()

At line 2 we import a Gridlayout:

from kivy.uix.gridlayout import GridLayout

This class is used as a Base for our Root Widget (LoginScreen) defined at line 9:

class LoginScreen(GridLayout):

At line 12 in the class LoginScreen, we override the method __init__() so as to add widgets and to define their behavior:

def __init__(self, **kwargs):
    super(LoginScreen, self).__init__(**kwargs)

One should not forget to call super in order to implement the functionality of the original class being overloaded. Also note that it is good practice not to omit the **kwargs while calling super, as they are sometimes used internally.

Moving on to Line 15 and beyond:

self.cols = 2
self.add_widget(Label(text='User Name'))
self.username = TextInput(multiline=False)
self.add_widget(self.username)
self.add_widget(Label(text='password'))
self.password = TextInput(password=True, multiline=False)
self.add_widget(self.password)

We ask the GridLayout to manage its children in two columns and add a Label and a TextInput for the username and password.

Running the above code will give you a window that should look like this:

_images/guide_customize_step1.png

Try re-sizing the window and you will see that the widgets on screen adjust themselves according to the size of the window without you having to do anything. This is because widgets use size hinting by default.

The code above doesn’t handle the input from the user, does no validation or anything else. We will delve deeper into this and Widget size and positioning in the coming sections.

Controlling the environment

Many environment variables are available to control the initialization and behavior of Kivy.

For example, in order to restrict text rendering to the PIL implementation:

$ KIVY_TEXT=pil python main.py

Environment variables should be set before importing kivy:

import os
os.environ['KIVY_TEXT'] = 'pil'
import kivy

Path control

New in version 1.0.7.

You can control the default directories where config files, modules and kivy data are located.

KIVY_DATA_DIR
Location of the Kivy data, defaults to <kivy path>/data
KIVY_MODULES_DIR
Location of the Kivy modules, defaults to <kivy path>/modules
KIVY_HOME

Location of the Kivy home. This directory is used for local configuration, and must be in a writable location.

Defaults to:
  • Desktop: <user home>/.kivy
  • Android: <android app path>/.kivy
  • iOS: <user home>/Documents/.kivy

New in version 1.9.0.

KIVY_SDL2_PATH

If set, the SDL2 libraries and headers from this path are used when compiling kivy instead of the ones installed system-wide. To use the same libraries while running a kivy app, this path must be added at the start of the PATH environment variable.

New in version 1.9.0.

Warning

This path is required for the compilation of Kivy. It is not required for program execution.

Configuration

KIVY_USE_DEFAULTCONFIG
If this name is found in environ, Kivy will not read the user config file.
KIVY_NO_CONFIG
If set, no configuration file will be read or written to. This also applies to the user configuration directory.
KIVY_NO_FILELOG
If set, logs will be not print to a file
KIVY_NO_CONSOLELOG
If set, logs will be not print to the console
KIVY_NO_ARGS

If set, the argument passed in command line will not be parsed and used by Kivy. Ie, you can safely make a script or an app with your own arguments without requiring the – delimiter:

import os
os.environ["KIVY_NO_ARGS"] = "1"
import kivy

New in version 1.9.0.

Restrict core to specific implementation

kivy.core try to select the best implementation available for your platform. For testing or custom installation, you might want to restrict the selector to a specific implementation.

KIVY_WINDOW

Implementation to use for creating the Window

Values: sdl2, pygame, x11, egl_rpi

KIVY_TEXT

Implementation to use for rendering text

Values: sdl2, pil, pygame, sdlttf

KIVY_VIDEO

Implementation to use for rendering video

Values: gstplayer, ffpyplayer, ffmpeg, null

KIVY_AUDIO

Implementation to use for playing audio

Values: sdl2, gstplayer, ffpyplayer, pygame, avplayer

KIVY_IMAGE

Implementation to use for reading image

Values: sdl2, pil, pygame, imageio, tex, dds, gif

KIVY_CAMERA

Implementation to use for reading camera

Values: avfoundation, android, opencv

KIVY_SPELLING

Implementation to use for spelling

Values: enchant, osxappkit

KIVY_CLIPBOARD

Implementation to use for clipboard management

Values: sdl2, pygame, dummy, android

Metrics

KIVY_DPI

If set, the value will be used for Metrics.dpi.

New in version 1.4.0.

KIVY_METRICS_DENSITY

If set, the value will be used for Metrics.density.

New in version 1.5.0.

KIVY_METRICS_FONTSCALE

If set, the value will be used for Metrics.fontscale.

New in version 1.5.0.

Graphics

KIVY_GL_BACKEND
The OpenGL backend to use. See cgl.
KIVY_GL_DEBUG
Whether to log OpenGL calls. See cgl.
KIVY_GRAPHICS
Whether to use OpenGL ES2. See cgl.
KIVY_GLES_LIMITS

Whether the GLES2 restrictions are enforced (the default, or if set to 1). If set to false, Kivy will not be truly GLES2 compatible.

Following is a list of the potential incompatibilities that result when set to true.

Mesh indices If true, the number of indices in a mesh is limited to 65535
Texture blit When blitting to a texture, the data (color and buffer) format must be the same format as the one used at the texture creation. On desktop, the conversion of different color is correctly handled by the driver, while on Android, most of devices fail to do it. Ref: https://github.com/kivy/kivy/issues/1600

New in version 1.8.1.

KIVY_BCM_DISPMANX_ID

Change the default Raspberry Pi display to use. The list of available value is accessible in vc_dispmanx_types.h. Default value is 0:

  • 0: DISPMANX_ID_MAIN_LCD
  • 1: DISPMANX_ID_AUX_LCD
  • 2: DISPMANX_ID_HDMI
  • 3: DISPMANX_ID_SDTV
  • 4: DISPMANX_ID_FORCE_LCD
  • 5: DISPMANX_ID_FORCE_TV
  • 6: DISPMANX_ID_FORCE_OTHER
KIVY_BCM_DISPMANX_LAYER

Change the default Raspberry Pi dispmanx layer. Default value is 0.

New in version 1.10.1.

Configure Kivy

The configuration file for kivy is named config.ini, and adheres to the standard INI format.

Locating the configuration file

The location of the configuration file is controlled by the environment variable KIVY_HOME:

<KIVY_HOME>/config.ini

On desktop, this defaults to:

<HOME_DIRECTORY>/.kivy/config.ini

Therefore, if your user is named “tito”, the file will be here:

  • Windows: C:\Users\tito\.kivy\config.ini
  • OS X: /Users/tito/.kivy/config.ini
  • Linux: /home/tito/.kivy/config.ini

On Android, this defaults to:

<ANDROID_APP_PATH>/.kivy/config.ini

If your app is named “org.kivy.launcher”, the file will be here:

/data/data/org.kivy.launcher/files/.kivy/config.ini

On iOS, this defaults to:

<HOME_DIRECTORY>/Documents/.kivy/config.ini

Local configuration

Sometimes it’s desired to change configuration only for certain applications or during testing of a separate part of Kivy for example input providers. To create a separate configuration file you can simply use these commands:

from kivy.config import Config

Config.read(<file>)
# set config
Config.write()

When a local configuration of single .ini file isn’t enough, e.g. when you want to have separate environment for garden, kivy logs and other things, you’ll need to change the the KIVY_HOME environment variable in your application to get desired result:

import os
os.environ['KIVY_HOME'] = <folder>

or before each run of the application change it manually in the console:

  1. Windows:

    set KIVY_HOME=<folder>

  2. Linux & OSX:

    export KIVY_HOME=<folder>

After the change of KIVY_HOME, the folder will behave exactly the same as the default .kivy/ folder mentioned above.

Understanding config tokens

All the configuration tokens are explained in the kivy.config module.

Architectural Overview

We would like to take a moment to explain how we designed Kivy from a software engineering point of view. This is key to understanding how everything works together. If you just look at the code, chances are you will get a rough idea already, but since this approach certainly is daunting for most users, this section explains the basic ideas of the implementation in more detail. You can skip this section and refer to it later, but we suggest at least skimming it for a rough overview.

Kivy consists of several building blocks that we will explain shortly. Here is a graphical summary of the architecture:

_images/architecture.png

Core Providers and Input Providers

One idea that is key to understanding Kivy’s internals is that of modularity and abstraction. We try to abstract basic tasks such as opening a window, displaying images and text, playing audio, getting images from a camera, spelling correction and so on. We call these core tasks. This makes the API both easy to use and easy to extend. Most importantly, it allows us to use – what we call – specific providers for the respective scenarios in which your app is being run. For example, on OSX, Linux and Windows, there are different native APIs for the different core tasks. A piece of code that uses one of these specific APIs to talk to the operating system on one side and to Kivy on the other (acting as an intermediate communication layer) is what we call a core provider. The advantage of using specialized core providers for each platform is that we can fully leverage the functionality exposed by the operating system and act as efficiently as possible. It also gives users a choice. Furthermore, by using libraries that are shipped with any one platform, we effectively reduce the size of the Kivy distribution and make packaging easier. This also makes it easier to port Kivy to other platforms. The Android port benefited greatly from this.

We follow the same concept with input handling. An input provider is a piece of code that adds support for a specific input device, such as Apple’s trackpads, TUIO or a mouse emulator. If you need to add support for a new input device, you can simply provide a new class that reads your input data from your device and transforms them into Kivy basic events.

Graphics

Kivy’s graphics API is our abstraction of OpenGL. On the lowest level, Kivy issues hardware-accelerated drawing commands using OpenGL. Writing OpenGL code however can be a bit confusing, especially to newcomers. That’s why we provide the graphics API that lets you draw things using simple metaphors that do not exist as such in OpenGL (e.g. Canvas, Rectangle, etc.).

All of our widgets themselves use this graphics API, which is implemented on the C level for performance reasons.

Another advantage of the graphics API is its ability to automatically optimize the drawing commands that your code issues. This is especially helpful if you’re not an expert at tuning OpenGL. This makes your drawing code more efficient in many cases.

You can, of course, still use raw OpenGL commands if you prefer. The version we target is OpenGL 2.0 ES (GLES2) on all devices, so if you want to stay cross-platform compatible, we advise you to only use the GLES2 functions.

Core

The code in the core package provides commonly used features, such as:

Clock
You can use the clock to schedule timer events. Both one-shot timers and periodic timers are supported.
Cache
If you need to cache something that you use often, you can use our class for that instead of writing your own.
Gesture Detection
We ship a simple gesture recognizer that you can use to detect various kinds of strokes, such as circles or rectangles. You can train it to detect your own strokes.
Kivy Language
The kivy language is used to easily and efficiently describe user interfaces.
Properties
These are not the normal properties that you may know from python. They are our own property classes that link your widget code with the user interface description.

UIX (Widgets & Layouts)

The UIX module contains commonly used widgets and layouts that you can reuse to quickly create a user interface.

Widgets
Widgets are user interface elements that you add to your program to provide some kind of functionality. They may or may not be visible. Examples would be a file browser, buttons, sliders, lists and so on. Widgets receive MotionEvents.
Layouts
You use layouts to arrange widgets. It is of course possible to calculate your widgets’ positions yourself, but often it is more convenient to use one of our ready made layouts. Examples would be Grid Layouts or Box Layouts. You can also nest layouts.

Modules

If you’ve ever used a modern web browser and customized it with some add-ons then you already know the basic idea behind our module classes. Modules can be used to inject functionality into Kivy programs, even if the original author did not include it.

An example would be a module that always shows the FPS of the current application and some graph depicting the FPS over time.

You can also write your own modules.

Input Events (Touches)

Kivy abstracts different input types and sources such as touches, mice, TUIO or similar. What all of these input types have in common is that you can associate a 2D onscreen-position with any individual input event. (There are other input devices such as accelerometers where you cannot easily find a 2D position for e.g. a tilt of your device. This kind of input is handled separately. In the following we describe the former types.)

All of these input types are represented by instances of the Touch() class. (Note that this does not only refer to finger touches, but all the other input types as well. We just called it Touch for the sake of simplicity. Think of it of something that touches the user interface or your screen.) A touch instance, or object, can be in one of three states. When a touch enters one of these states, your program is informed that the event occurred. The three states a touch can be in are:

Down
A touch is down only once, at the very moment where it first appears.
Move
A touch can be in this state for a potentially unlimited time. A touch does not have to be in this state during its lifetime. A ‘Move’ happens whenever the 2D position of a touch changes.
Up
A touch goes up at most once, or never. In practice you will almost always receive an up event because nobody is going to hold a finger on the screen for all eternity, but it is not guaranteed. If you know the input sources your users will be using, you will know whether or not you can rely on this state being entered.

Widgets and Event Dispatching

The term widget is often used in GUI programming contexts to describe some part of the program that the user interacts with. In Kivy, a widget is an object that receives input events. It does not necessarily have to have a visible representation on the screen. All widgets are arranged in a widget tree (which is a tree data structure as known from computer science classes): One widget can have any number of child widgets or none. There is exactly one root widget at the top of the tree that has no parent widget, and all other widgets are directly or indirectly children of this widget (which is why it’s called the root).

When new input data is available, Kivy sends out one event per touch. The root widget of the widget tree first receives the event. Depending on the state of the touch, the on_touch_down, on_touch_move or on_touch_up event is dispatched (with the touch as the argument) to the root widget, which results in the root widget’s corresponding on_touch_down, on_touch_move or on_touch_up event handler being called.

Each widget (this includes the root widget) in the tree can choose to either digest or pass the event on. If an event handler returns True, it means that the event has been digested and handled properly. No further processing will happen with that event. Otherwise, the event handler passes the widget on to its own children by calling its superclass’s implementation of the respective event handler. This goes all the way up to the base Widget class, which – in its touch event handlers – does nothing but pass the touches to its children:

# This is analogous for move/up:
def on_touch_down(self, touch):
    for child in self.children[:]:
        if child.dispatch('on_touch_down', touch):
            return True

This really is much easier than it first seems. An example of how this can be used to create nice applications quickly will be given in the following section.

Often times you will want to restrict the area on the screen that a widget watches for touches. You can use a widget’s collide_point() method to achieve this. You simply pass it the touch’s position and it returns True if the touch is within the ‘watched area’ or False otherwise. By default, this checks the rectangular region on the screen that’s described by the widget’s pos (for position; x & y) and size (width & height), but you can override this behaviour in your own class.

Events and Properties

Events are an important part of Kivy programming. That may not be surprising to those with GUI development experience, but it’s an important concept for newcomers. Once you understand how events work and how to bind to them, you will see them everywhere in Kivy. They make it easy to build whatever behavior you want into Kivy.

The following illustration shows how events are handled in the Kivy framework.

_images/Events.png

Introduction to the Event Dispatcher

One of the most important base classes of the framework is the EventDispatcher class. This class allows you to register event types, and to dispatch them to interested parties (usually other event dispatchers). The Widget, Animation and Clock classes are examples of event dispatchers.

EventDispatcher objects depend on the main loop to generate and handle events.

Main loop

As outlined in the illustration above, Kivy has a main loop. This loop is running during all of the application’s lifetime and only quits when exiting the application.

Inside the loop, at every iteration, events are generated from user input, hardware sensors or a couple of other sources, and frames are rendered to the display.

Your application will specify callbacks (more on this later), which are called by the main loop. If a callback takes too long or doesn’t quit at all, the main loop is broken and your app doesn’t work properly anymore.

In Kivy applications, you have to avoid long/infinite loops or sleeping. For example the following code does both:

while True:
    animate_something()
    time.sleep(.10)

When you run this, the program will never exit your loop, preventing Kivy from doing all of the other things that need doing. As a result, all you’ll see is a black window which you won’t be able to interact with. Instead, you need to “schedule” your animate_something() function to be called repeatedly.

Scheduling a repetitive event

You can call a function or a method every X times per second using schedule_interval(). Here is an example of calling a function named my_callback 30 times per second:

def my_callback(dt):
    print 'My callback is called', dt
event = Clock.schedule_interval(my_callback, 1 / 30.)

You have multiple ways of unscheduling a previously scheduled event. One, is to use cancel() or unschedule():

event.cancel()

or:

Clock.unschedule(event)

Alternatively, you can return False in your callback, and your event will be automatically unscheduled:

count = 0
def my_callback(dt):
    global count
    count += 1
    if count == 10:
        print 'Last call of my callback, bye bye !'
        return False
    print 'My callback is called'
Clock.schedule_interval(my_callback, 1 / 30.)
Scheduling a one-time event

Using schedule_once(), you can call a function “later”, like in the next frame, or in X seconds:

def my_callback(dt):
    print 'My callback is called !'
Clock.schedule_once(my_callback, 1)

This will call my_callback in one second. The second argument is the amount of time to wait before calling the function, in seconds. However, you can achieve some other results with special values for the second argument:

  • If X is greater than 0, the callback will be called in X seconds
  • If X is 0, the callback will be called after the next frame
  • If X is -1, the callback will be called before the next frame

The -1 is mostly used when you are already in a scheduled event, and if you want to schedule a call BEFORE the next frame is happening.

A second method for repeating a function call is to first schedule a callback once with schedule_once(), and a second call to this function inside the callback itself:

def my_callback(dt):
    print 'My callback is called !'
    Clock.schedule_once(my_callback, 1)
Clock.schedule_once(my_callback, 1)

While the main loop will try to keep to the schedule as requested, there is some uncertainty as to when exactly a scheduled callback will be called. Sometimes another callback or some other task in the application will take longer than anticipated and thus the timing can be a little off.

In the latter solution to the repetitive callback problem, the next iteration will be called at least one second after the last iteration ends. With schedule_interval() however, the callback is called every second.

Trigger events

Sometimes you may want to schedule a function to be called only once for the next frame, preventing duplicate calls. You might be tempted to achieve that like so:

# First, schedule once.
event = Clock.schedule_once(my_callback, 0)

# Then, in another place you will have to unschedule first
# to avoid duplicate call. Then you can schedule again.
Clock.unschedule(event)
event = Clock.schedule_once(my_callback, 0)

This way of programming a trigger is expensive, since you’ll always call unschedule, even if the event has already completed. In addition, a new event is created every time. Use a trigger instead:

trigger = Clock.create_trigger(my_callback)
# later
trigger()

Each time you call trigger(), it will schedule a single call of your callback. If it was already scheduled, it will not be rescheduled.

Widget events

A widget has 2 default types of events:

  • Property event: if your widget changes its position or size, an event is fired.
  • Widget-defined event: e.g. an event will be fired for a Button when it’s pressed or released.

For a discussion on how widget touch events managed and propagated, please refer to the Widget touch event bubbling section.

Creating custom events

To create an event dispatcher with custom events, you need to register the name of the event in the class and then create a method of the same name.

See the following example:

class MyEventDispatcher(EventDispatcher):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        self.register_event_type('on_test')
        super(MyEventDispatcher, self).__init__(**kwargs)

    def do_something(self, value):
        # when do_something is called, the 'on_test' event will be
        # dispatched with the value
        self.dispatch('on_test', value)

    def on_test(self, *args):
        print "I am dispatched", args

Attaching callbacks

To use events, you have to bind callbacks to them. When the event is dispatched, your callbacks will be called with the parameters relevant to that specific event.

A callback can be any python callable, but you need to ensure it accepts the arguments that the event emits. For this, it’s usually safest to accept the *args argument, which will catch all arguments in the args list.

Example:

def my_callback(value, *args):
    print "Hello, I got an event!", args


ev = MyEventDispatcher()
ev.bind(on_test=my_callback)
ev.do_something('test')

Pleases refer to the kivy.event.EventDispatcher.bind() method documentation for more examples on how to attach callbacks.

Introduction to Properties

Properties are an awesome way to define events and bind to them. Essentially, they produce events such that when an attribute of your object changes, all properties that reference that attribute are automatically updated.

There are different kinds of properties to describe the type of data you want to handle.

Declaration of a Property

To declare properties, you must declare them at the class level. The class will then do the work to instantiate the real attributes when your object is created. These properties are not attributes: they are mechanisms for creating events based on your attributes:

class MyWidget(Widget):

    text = StringProperty('')

When overriding __init__, always accept **kwargs and use super() to call the parent’s __init__ method, passing in your class instance:

def __init__(self, **kwargs):
    super(MyWidget, self).__init__(**kwargs)

Dispatching a Property event

Kivy properties, by default, provide an on_<property_name> event. This event is called when the value of the property is changed.

Note

If the new value for the property is equal to the current value, then the on_<property_name> event will not be called.

For example, consider the following code:

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 class CustomBtn(Widget):

     pressed = ListProperty([0, 0])

     def on_touch_down(self, touch):
         if self.collide_point(*touch.pos):
             self.pressed = touch.pos
             return True
         return super(CustomBtn, self).on_touch_down(touch)

     def on_pressed(self, instance, pos):
         print ('pressed at {pos}'.format(pos=pos))

In the code above at line 3:

pressed = ListProperty([0, 0])

We define the pressed Property of type ListProperty, giving it a default value of [0, 0]. From this point forward, the on_pressed event will be called whenever the value of this property is changed.

At Line 5:

def on_touch_down(self, touch):
    if self.collide_point(*touch.pos):
        self.pressed = touch.pos
        return True
    return super(CustomBtn, self).on_touch_down(touch)

We override the on_touch_down() method of the Widget class. Here, we check for collision of the touch with our widget.

If the touch falls inside of our widget, we change the value of pressed to touch.pos and return True, indicating that we have consumed the touch and don’t want it to propagate any further.

Finally, if the touch falls outside our widget, we call the original event using super(…) and return the result. This allows the touch event propagation to continue as it would normally have occurred.

Finally on line 11:

def on_pressed(self, instance, pos):
    print ('pressed at {pos}'.format(pos=pos))

We define an on_pressed function that will be called by the property whenever the property value is changed.

Note

This on_<prop_name> event is called within the class where the property is defined. To monitor/observe any change to a property outside of the class where it’s defined, you should bind to the property as shown below.

Binding to the property

How to monitor changes to a property when all you have access to is a widget instance? You bind to the property:

your_widget_instance.bind(property_name=function_name)

For example, consider the following code:

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 class RootWidget(BoxLayout):

     def __init__(self, **kwargs):
         super(RootWidget, self).__init__(**kwargs)
         self.add_widget(Button(text='btn 1'))
         cb = CustomBtn()
         cb.bind(pressed=self.btn_pressed)
         self.add_widget(cb)
         self.add_widget(Button(text='btn 2'))

     def btn_pressed(self, instance, pos):
         print ('pos: printed from root widget: {pos}'.format(pos=.pos))

If you run the code as is, you will notice two print statements in the console. One from the on_pressed event that is called inside the CustomBtn class and another from the btn_pressed function that we bind to the property change.

The reason that both functions are called is simple. Binding doesn’t mean overriding. Having both of these functions is redundant and you should generally only use one of the methods of listening/reacting to property changes.

You should also take note of the parameters that are passed to the on_<property_name> event or the function bound to the property.

def btn_pressed(self, instance, pos):

The first parameter is self, which is the instance of the class where this function is defined. You can use an in-line function as follows:

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 cb = CustomBtn()

 def _local_func(instance, pos):
     print ('pos: printed from root widget: {pos}'.format(pos=pos))

 cb.bind(pressed=_local_func)
 self.add_widget(cb)

The first parameter would be the instance of the class the property is defined.

The second parameter would be the value, which is the new value of the property.

Here is the complete example, derived from the snippets above, that you can use to copy and paste into an editor to experiment.

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 from kivy.app import App
 from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
 from kivy.uix.button import Button
 from kivy.uix.boxlayout import BoxLayout
 from kivy.properties import ListProperty

 class RootWidget(BoxLayout):

     def __init__(self, **kwargs):
         super(RootWidget, self).__init__(**kwargs)
         self.add_widget(Button(text='btn 1'))
         cb = CustomBtn()
         cb.bind(pressed=self.btn_pressed)
         self.add_widget(cb)
         self.add_widget(Button(text='btn 2'))

     def btn_pressed(self, instance, pos):
         print ('pos: printed from root widget: {pos}'.format(pos=pos))

 class CustomBtn(Widget):

     pressed = ListProperty([0, 0])

     def on_touch_down(self, touch):
         if self.collide_point(*touch.pos):
             self.pressed = touch.pos
             # we consumed the touch. return False here to propagate
             # the touch further to the children.
             return True
         return super(CustomBtn, self).on_touch_down(touch)

     def on_pressed(self, instance, pos):
         print ('pressed at {pos}'.format(pos=pos))

 class TestApp(App):

     def build(self):
         return RootWidget()


 if __name__ == '__main__':
     TestApp().run()

Running the code above will give you the following output:

_images/property_events_binding.png

Our CustomBtn has no visual representation and thus appears black. You can touch/click on the black area to see the output on your console.

Compound Properties

When defining an AliasProperty, you normally define a getter and a setter function yourself. Here, it falls on to you to define when the getter and the setter functions are called using the bind argument.

Consider the following code.

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 cursor_pos = AliasProperty(_get_cursor_pos, None, bind=(
     'cursor', 'padding', 'pos', 'size', 'focus',
     'scroll_x', 'scroll_y'))
 '''Current position of the cursor, in (x, y).

 :attr:`cursor_pos` is a :class:`~kivy.properties.AliasProperty`, read-only.
 '''

Here cursor_pos is a AliasProperty which uses the getter _get_cursor_pos with the setter part set to None, implying this is a read only Property.

The bind argument at the end defines that on_cursor_pos event is dispatched when any of the properties used in the bind= argument change.

Input management

Input architecture

Kivy is able to handle most types of input: mouse, touchscreen, accelerometer, gyroscope, etc. It handles the native multitouch protocols on the following platforms: Tuio, WM_Touch, MacMultitouchSupport, MT Protocol A/B and Android.

The global architecture can be viewed as:

Input providers -> Motion event -> Post processing -> Dispatch to Window

The class of all input events is the MotionEvent. It generates 2 kinds of events:

  • Touch events: a motion event that contains at least an X and Y position. All the touch events are dispatched across the Widget tree.
  • No-touch events: all the rest. For example, the accelerometer is a continuous event, without position. It never starts or stops. These events are not dispatched across the Widget tree.

A Motion event is generated by an Input Provider. An Input Provider is responsible for reading the input event from the operating system, the network or even from another application. Several input providers exist, such as:

  • TuioMotionEventProvider: create a UDP server and listen for TUIO/OSC messages.
  • WM_MotionEventProvider: use the windows API for reading multitouch information and sending it to Kivy.
  • ProbeSysfsHardwareProbe: In Linux, iterate over all the hardware connected to the computer, and attaches a multitouch input provider for each multitouch device found.
  • and much more!

When you write an application, you don’t need to create an input provider. Kivy tries to automatically detect available hardware. However, if you want to support custom hardware, you will need to configure kivy to make it work.

Before the newly-created Motion Event is passed to the user, Kivy applies post-processing to the input. Every motion event is analyzed to detect and correct faulty input, as well as make meaningful interpretations like:

  • Double/triple-tap detection, according to a distance and time threshold
  • Making events more accurate when the hardware is not accurate
  • Reducing the amount of generated events if the native touch hardware is sending events with nearly the same position

After processing, the motion event is dispatched to the Window. As explained previously, not all events are dispatched to the whole widget tree: the window filters them. For a given event:

Motion event profiles

Depending on your hardware and the input providers used, more information may be made available to you. For example, a touch input has an (x,y) position, but might also have pressure information, blob size, an acceleration vector, etc.

A profile is a string that indicates what features are available inside the motion event. Let’s imagine that you are in an on_touch_move method:

def on_touch_move(self, touch):
    print(touch.profile)
    return super(..., self).on_touch_move(touch)

The print could output:

['pos', 'angle']

Warning

Many people mix up the profile’s name and the name of the corresponding property. Just because 'angle' is in the available profile doesn’t mean that the touch event object will have an angle property.

For the 'pos' profile, the properties pos, x, and y will be available. With the 'angle' profile, the property a will be available. As we said, for touch events 'pos' is a mandatory profile, but not 'angle'. You can extend your interaction by checking if the 'angle' profile exists:

def on_touch_move(self, touch):
    print('The touch is at position', touch.pos)
    if 'angle' in touch.profile:
        print('The touch angle is', touch.a)

You can find a list of available profiles in the motionevent documentation.

Touch events

A touch event is a specialized MotionEvent where the property is_touch evaluates to True. For all touch events, you automatically have the X and Y positions available, scaled to the Window width and height. In other words, all touch events have the 'pos' profile.

Touch event basics

By default, touch events are dispatched to all currently displayed widgets. This means widgets receive the touch event whether it occurs within their physical area or not.

This can be counter intuitive if you have experience with other GUI toolkits. These typically divide the screen into geometric areas and only dispatch touch or mouse events to the widget if the coordinate lies within the widgets area.

This requirement becomes very restrictive when working with touch input. Swipes, pinches and long presses may well originate from outside of the widget that wants to know about them and react to them.

In order to provide the maximum flexibility, Kivy dispatches the events to all the widgets and lets them decide how to react to them. If you only want to respond to touch events inside the widget, you simply check:

def on_touch_down(self, touch):
    if self.collide_point(*touch.pos):
        # The touch has occurred inside the widgets area. Do stuff!
        pass
Coordinates

You must take care of matrix transformation in your touch as soon as you use a widget with matrix transformation. Some widgets such as Scatter have their own matrix transformation, meaning the touch must be multiplied by the scatter matrix to be able to correctly dispatch touch positions to the Scatter’s children.

  • Get coordinate from parent space to local space: to_local()
  • Get coordinate from local space to parent space: to_parent()
  • Get coordinate from local space to window space: to_window()
  • Get coordinate from window space to local space: to_widget()

You must use one of them to scale coordinates correctly to the context. Let’s look the scatter implementation:

def on_touch_down(self, touch):
    # push the current coordinate, to be able to restore it later
    touch.push()

    # transform the touch coordinate to local space
    touch.apply_transform_2d(self.to_local)

    # dispatch the touch as usual to children
    # the coordinate in the touch is now in local space
    ret = super(..., self).on_touch_down(touch)

    # whatever the result, don't forget to pop your transformation
    # after the call, so the coordinate will be back in parent space
    touch.pop()

    # return the result (depending what you want.)
    return ret
Touch shapes

If the touch has a shape, it will be reflected in the ‘shape’ property. Right now, only a ShapeRect can be exposed:

from kivy.input.shape import ShapeRect

def on_touch_move(self, touch):
    if isinstance(touch.shape, ShapeRect):
        print('My touch have a rectangle shape of size',
            (touch.shape.width, touch.shape.height))
    # ...
Double tap

A double tap is the action of tapping twice within a time and a distance. It’s calculated by the doubletap post-processing module. You can test if the current touch is one of a double tap or not:

def on_touch_down(self, touch):
    if touch.is_double_tap:
        print('Touch is a double tap !')
        print(' - interval is', touch.double_tap_time)
        print(' - distance between previous is', touch.double_tap_distance)
    # ...
Triple tap

A triple tap is the action of tapping thrice within a time and a distance. It’s calculated by the tripletap post-processing module. You can test if the current touch is one of a triple tap or not:

def on_touch_down(self, touch):
    if touch.is_triple_tap:
        print('Touch is a triple tap !')
        print(' - interval is', touch.triple_tap_time)
        print(' - distance between previous is', touch.triple_tap_distance)
    # ...
Grabbing touch events

It’s possible for the parent widget to dispatch a touch event to a child widget from within on_touch_down, but not from on_touch_move or on_touch_up. This can happen in certain scenarios, like when a touch movement is outside the bounding box of the parent, so the parent decides not to notify its children of the movement.

But you might want to do something in on_touch_up. Say you started something in the on_touch_down event, like playing a sound, and you’d like to finish things on the on_touch_up event. Grabbing is what you need.

When you grab a touch, you will always receive the move and up event. But there are some limitations to grabbing:

  • You will receive the event at least twice: one time from your parent (the normal event), and one time from the window (grab).
  • You might receive an event with a grabbed touch, but not from you: it can be because the parent has sent the touch to its children while it was in the grabbed state.
  • The touch coordinate is not translated to your widget space because the touch is coming directly from the Window. It’s your job to convert the coordinate to your local space.

Here is an example of how to use grabbing:

def on_touch_down(self, touch):
    if self.collide_point(*touch.pos):

        # if the touch collides with our widget, let's grab it
        touch.grab(self)

        # and accept the touch.
        return True

def on_touch_up(self, touch):
    # here, you don't check if the touch collides or things like that.
    # you just need to check if it's a grabbed touch event
    if touch.grab_current is self:

        # ok, the current touch is dispatched for us.
        # do something interesting here
        print('Hello world!')

        # don't forget to ungrab ourself, or you might have side effects
        touch.ungrab(self)

        # and accept the last up
        return True
Touch Event Management

In order to see how touch events are controlled and propagated between widgets, please refer to the Widget touch event bubbling section.

Joystick events

A joystick input represents raw values received directly from physical or virtual controllers through the SDL2 provider via these events:

  • SDL_JOYAXISMOTION
  • SDL_JOYHATMOTION
  • SDL_JOYBALLMOTION
  • SDL_JOYBUTTONDOWN
  • SDL_JOYBUTTONUP

Every motion event has a minimum, maximum and default value which can reach:

Event Minimum Maximum Default
on_joy_axis -32767 32767 0
on_joy_hat (-1, -1) (1, 1) (0, 0)
on_joy_ball Unknown Unknown Unknown

Button events, on the other hand represent basically only a state of each button i.e. up and down, therefore no such values are present.

  • on_joy_button_up
  • on_joy_button_down
Joystick event basics

Unlike touch events, joystick events are dispatched directly to the Window, which means there’s only a single value passed for e.g. a specified axis, not multiple ones. This makes things harder if you want to separate input to different widgets, yet not impossible. You can use Multiple dropfile example as an inspiration.

To get a joystick event, you first need to bind some function to the Window joystick event like this:

Window.bind(on_joy_axis=self.on_joy_axis)

Then you need to fetch the parameters specified in Window for each event you use, for example:

def on_joy_axis(self, win, stickid, axisid, value):
    print(win, stickid, axisid, value)

A variable stickid is an id of a controller that sent the value, axisid is an id of an axis to which the value belongs.

Joystick input

Kivy should be able to fetch input from any device specified as gamepad, joystick or basically any other type of game controller recognized by the SDL2 provider. To make things easier, here are layouts of some common controllers together with ids for each part.

Xbox 360
xbox_ctr # ID # ID
1 axis 1 2 axis 0
3 hat Y 4 hat X
5 axis 4 6 axis 3
7 axis 2 8 axis 5
9 button 4 10 button 5
X button 2 Y button 3
A button 0 B button 1
back button 6 start button 7
center button 10    
Joystick debugging

Mostly you’d want to debug your application with multiple controllers, or test it against _other_ types of controllers (e.g. different brands). As an alternative you might want to use some of the available controller emulators, such as vJoy.

Widgets

Introduction to Widget

A Widget is the base building block of GUI interfaces in Kivy. It provides a Canvas that can be used to draw on screen. It receives events and reacts to them. For a in-depth explanation about the Widget class, look at the module documentation.

Manipulating the Widget tree

Widgets in Kivy are organized in trees. Your application has a root widget, which usually has children that can have children of their own. Children of a widget are represented as the children attribute, a Kivy ListProperty.

The widget tree can be manipulated with the following methods:

For example, if you want to add a button inside a BoxLayout, you can do:

layout = BoxLayout(padding=10)
button = Button(text='My first button')
layout.add_widget(button)

The button is added to layout: the button’s parent property will be set to layout; the layout will have the button added to its children list. To remove the button from the layout:

layout.remove_widget(button)

With removal, the button’s parent property will be set to None, and the layout will have button removed from its children list.

If you want to clear all the children inside a widget, use clear_widgets() method:

layout.clear_widgets()

Warning

Never manipulate the children list yourself, unless you really know what you are doing. The widget tree is associated with a graphic tree. For example, if you add a widget into the children list without adding its canvas to the graphics tree, the widget will be a child, yes, but nothing will be drawn on the screen. Moreover, you might have issues on further calls of add_widget, remove_widget and clear_widgets.

Traversing the Tree

The Widget class instance’s children list property contains all the children. You can easily traverse the tree by doing:

root = BoxLayout()
# ... add widgets to root ...
for child in root.children:
    print(child)

However, this must be used carefully. If you intend to modify the children list with one of the methods shown in the previous section, you must use a copy of the list like this:

for child in root.children[:]:
    # manipulate the tree. For example here, remove all widgets that have a
    # width < 100
    if child.width < 100:
        root.remove_widget(child)

Widgets don’t influence the size/pos of their children by default. The pos attribute is the absolute position in screen co-ordinates (unless, you use the relativelayout. More on that later) and size, is an absolute size.

Widgets Z Index

The order of widget drawing is based on the widget’s position in the widget tree. The add_widget method takes an index parameter which can be used to specify it’s position in the widget tree:

root.add_widget(widget, index)

The lower indexed widgets will be drawn above those with a higher index. Keep in mind that the default for index is 0, so widgets added later are drawn on top of the others unless specified otherwise.

Organize with Layouts

layout is a special kind of widget that controls the size and position of its children. There are different kinds of layouts, allowing for different automatic organization of their children. Layouts use size_hint and pos_hint properties to determine the size and pos of their children.

BoxLayout: Arranges widgets in an adjacent manner (either vertically or horizontally) manner, to fill all the space. The size_hint property of children can be used to change proportions allowed to each child, or set fixed size for some of them.

_images/boxlayout1.gif _images/gridlayout1.gif _images/stacklayout1.gif _images/anchorlayout1.gif _images/floatlayout1.gif

GridLayout: Arranges widgets in a grid. You must specify at least one dimension of the grid so kivy can compute the size of the elements and how to arrange them.

StackLayout: Arranges widgets adjacent to one another, but with a set size in one of the dimensions, without trying to make them fit within the entire space. This is useful to display children of the same predefined size.

AnchorLayout: A simple layout only caring about children positions. It allows putting the children at a position relative to a border of the layout. size_hint is not honored.

FloatLayout: Allows placing children with arbitrary locations and size, either absolute or relative to the layout size. Default size_hint (1, 1) will make every child the same size as the whole layout, so you probably want to change this value if you have more than one child. You can set size_hint to (None, None) to use absolute size with size. This widget honors pos_hint also, which as a dict setting position relative to layout position.

RelativeLayout: Behaves just like FloatLayout, except children positions are relative to layout position, not the screen.

Examine the documentation of the individual layouts for a more in-depth understanding.

size_hint and pos_hint:

size_hint is a ReferenceListProperty of size_hint_x and size_hint_y. It accepts values from 0 to 1 or None and defaults to (1, 1). This signifies that if the widget is in a layout, the layout will allocate it as much place as possible in both directions (relative to the layouts size).

Setting size_hint to (0.5, 0.8), for example, will make the widget 50% the width and 80% the height of available size for the Widget inside a layout.

Consider the following example:

BoxLayout:
    Button:
        text: 'Button 1'
        # default size_hint is 1, 1, we don't need to specify it explicitly
        # however it's provided here to make things clear
        size_hint: 1, 1

Now load kivy catalog by typing the following, but replacing $KIVYDIR with the directory of your installation (discoverable via os.path.dirname(kivy.__file__)):

cd $KIVYDIR/examples/demo/kivycatalog
python main.py

A new window will appear. Click in the area below the ‘Welcome’ Spinner on the left and replace the text there with your kv code from above.

_images/size_hint[B].jpg

As you can see from the image above, the Button takes up 100% of the layout size.

Changing the size_hint_x/size_hint_y to .5 will make the Widget take 50% of the layout width/height.

_images/size_hint[b_].jpg

You can see here that, although we specify size_hint_x and size_hint_y both to be .5, only size_hint_y seems to be honored. That is because boxlayout controls the size_hint_y when orientation is vertical and size_hint_x when orientation is ‘horizontal’. The controlled dimension’s size is calculated depending upon the total no. of children in the boxlayout. In this example, one child has size_hint_y controlled (.5/.5 = 1). Thus, the widget takes 100% of the parent layout’s height.

Let’s add another Button to the layout and see what happens.

_images/size_hint[bb].jpg

boxlayout by its very nature divides the available space between its children equally. In our example, the proportion is 50-50, because we have two children. Let’s use size_hint on one of the children and see the results.

_images/size_hint[oB].jpg

If a child specifies size_hint, this specifies how much space the Widget will take out of the size given to it by the boxlayout. In our example, the first Button specifies .5 for size_hint_x. The space for the widget is calculated like so:

first child's size_hint divided by
first child's size_hint + second child's size_hint + ...n(no of children)

.5/(.5+1) = .333...

The rest of the BoxLayout’s width is divided among the rest of the children. In our example, this means the second Button takes up 66.66% of the layout width.

Experiment with size_hint to get comfortable with it.

If you want to control the absolute size of a Widget, you can set size_hint_x/size_hint_y or both to None so that the widget’s width and or height attributes will be honored.

pos_hint is a dict, which defaults to empty. As for size_hint, layouts honor pos_hint differently, but generally you can add values to any of the pos attributes (x, y, right, top, center_x, center_y) to have the Widget positioned relative to its parent.

Let’s experiment with the following code in kivycatalog to understand pos_hint visually:

FloatLayout:
    Button:
        text: "We Will"
        pos: 100, 100
        size_hint: .2, .4
    Button:
        text: "Wee Wiill"
        pos: 200, 200
        size_hint: .4, .2

    Button:
        text: "ROCK YOU!!"
        pos_hint: {'x': .3, 'y': .6}
        size_hint: .5, .2

This gives us:

_images/pos_hint.jpg

As with size_hint, you should experiment with pos_hint to understand the effect it has on the widget positions.

Adding a Background to a Layout

One of the frequently asked questions about layouts is::

"How to add a background image/color/video/... to a Layout"

Layouts by their nature have no visual representation: they have no canvas instructions by default. However you can add canvas instructions to a layout instance easily, as with adding a colored background:

In Python:

from kivy.graphics import Color, Rectangle

with layout_instance.canvas.before:
    Color(0, 1, 0, 1) # green; colors range from 0-1 instead of 0-255
    self.rect = Rectangle(size=layout_instance.size,
                           pos=layout_instance.pos)

Unfortunately, this will only draw a rectangle at the layout’s initial position and size. To make sure the rect is drawn inside the layout, when the layout size/pos changes, we need to listen to any changes and update the rectangles size and pos. We can do that as follows:

with layout_instance.canvas.before:
    Color(0, 1, 0, 1) # green; colors range from 0-1 instead of 0-255
    self.rect = Rectangle(size=layout_instance.size,
                           pos=layout_instance.pos)

def update_rect(instance, value):
    instance.rect.pos = instance.pos
    instance.rect.size = instance.size

# listen to size and position changes
layout_instance.bind(pos=update_rect, size=update_rect)

In kv:

FloatLayout:
    canvas.before:
        Color:
            rgba: 0, 1, 0, 1
        Rectangle:
            # self here refers to the widget i.e BoxLayout
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size

The kv declaration sets an implicit binding: the last two kv lines ensure that the pos and size values of the rectangle will update when the pos of the floatlayout changes.

Now we put the snippets above into the shell of Kivy App.

Pure Python way:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.graphics import Color, Rectangle
from kivy.uix.floatlayout import FloatLayout
from kivy.uix.button import Button


class RootWidget(FloatLayout):

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        # make sure we aren't overriding any important functionality
        super(RootWidget, self).__init__(**kwargs)

        # let's add a Widget to this layout
        self.add_widget(
            Button(
                text="Hello World",
                size_hint=(.5, .5),
                pos_hint={'center_x': .5, 'center_y': .5}))


class MainApp(App):

    def build(self):
        self.root = root = RootWidget()
        root.bind(size=self._update_rect, pos=self._update_rect)

        with root.canvas.before:
            Color(0, 1, 0, 1)  # green; colors range from 0-1 not 0-255
            self.rect = Rectangle(size=root.size, pos=root.pos)
        return root

    def _update_rect(self, instance, value):
        self.rect.pos = instance.pos
        self.rect.size = instance.size

if __name__ == '__main__':
    MainApp().run()

Using the kv Language:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.lang import Builder


root = Builder.load_string('''
FloatLayout:
    canvas.before:
        Color:
            rgba: 0, 1, 0, 1
        Rectangle:
            # self here refers to the widget i.e FloatLayout
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size
    Button:
        text: 'Hello World!!'
        size_hint: .5, .5
        pos_hint: {'center_x':.5, 'center_y': .5}
''')

class MainApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return root

if __name__ == '__main__':
    MainApp().run()

Both of the Apps should look something like this:

_images/layout_background.png
Add a color to the background of a custom layouts rule/class

The way we add background to the layout’s instance can quickly become cumbersome if we need to use multiple layouts. To help with this, you can subclass the Layout and create your own layout that adds a background.

Using Python:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.graphics import Color, Rectangle
from kivy.uix.boxlayout import BoxLayout
from kivy.uix.floatlayout import FloatLayout
from kivy.uix.image import AsyncImage


class RootWidget(BoxLayout):
    pass


class CustomLayout(FloatLayout):

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        # make sure we aren't overriding any important functionality
        super(CustomLayout, self).__init__(**kwargs)

        with self.canvas.before:
            Color(0, 1, 0, 1)  # green; colors range from 0-1 instead of 0-255
            self.rect = Rectangle(size=self.size, pos=self.pos)

        self.bind(size=self._update_rect, pos=self._update_rect)

    def _update_rect(self, instance, value):
        self.rect.pos = instance.pos
        self.rect.size = instance.size


class MainApp(App):

    def build(self):
        root = RootWidget()
        c = CustomLayout()
        root.add_widget(c)
        c.add_widget(
            AsyncImage(
                source="http://www.everythingzoomer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Monday-joke-289x277.jpg",
                size_hint= (1, .5),
                pos_hint={'center_x':.5, 'center_y':.5}))
        root.add_widget(AsyncImage(source='http://www.stuffistumbledupon.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Have-you-seen-this-dog-because-its-awesome-meme-puppy-doggy.jpg'))
        c = CustomLayout()
        c.add_widget(
            AsyncImage(
                source="http://www.stuffistumbledupon.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Get-a-Girlfriend-Meme-empty-wallet.jpg",
                size_hint= (1, .5),
                pos_hint={'center_x':.5, 'center_y':.5}))
        root.add_widget(c)
        return root

if __name__ == '__main__':
    MainApp().run()

Using the kv Language:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.floatlayout import FloatLayout
from kivy.uix.boxlayout import BoxLayout
from kivy.lang import Builder


Builder.load_string('''
<CustomLayout>
    canvas.before:
        Color:
            rgba: 0, 1, 0, 1
        Rectangle:
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size

<RootWidget>
    CustomLayout:
        AsyncImage:
            source: 'http://www.everythingzoomer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Monday-joke-289x277.jpg'
            size_hint: 1, .5
            pos_hint: {'center_x':.5, 'center_y': .5}
    AsyncImage:
        source: 'http://www.stuffistumbledupon.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Have-you-seen-this-dog-because-its-awesome-meme-puppy-doggy.jpg'
    CustomLayout
        AsyncImage:
            source: 'http://www.stuffistumbledupon.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Get-a-Girlfriend-Meme-empty-wallet.jpg'
            size_hint: 1, .5
            pos_hint: {'center_x':.5, 'center_y': .5}
''')

class RootWidget(BoxLayout):
    pass

class CustomLayout(FloatLayout):
    pass

class MainApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return RootWidget()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    MainApp().run()

Both of the Apps should look something like this:

_images/custom_layout_background.png

Defining the background in the custom layout class, assures that it will be used in every instance of CustomLayout.

Now, to add an image or color to the background of a built-in Kivy layout, globally, we need to override the kv rule for the layout in question. Consider GridLayout:

<GridLayout>
    canvas.before:
        Color:
            rgba: 0, 1, 0, 1
        BorderImage:
            source: '../examples/widgets/sequenced_images/data/images/button_white.png'
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size

Then, when we put this snippet into a Kivy app:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.floatlayout import FloatLayout
from kivy.lang import Builder


Builder.load_string('''
<GridLayout>
    canvas.before:
        BorderImage:
            # BorderImage behaves like the CSS BorderImage
            border: 10, 10, 10, 10
            source: '../examples/widgets/sequenced_images/data/images/button_white.png'
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size

<RootWidget>
    GridLayout:
        size_hint: .9, .9
        pos_hint: {'center_x': .5, 'center_y': .5}
        rows:1
        Label:
            text: "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it"
            text_size: self.width-20, self.height-20
            valign: 'top'
        Label:
            text: "When I was born I was so surprised; I didn't speak for a year and a half."
            text_size: self.width-20, self.height-20
            valign: 'middle'
            halign: 'center'
        Label:
            text: "A consultant is someone who takes a subject you understand and makes it sound confusing"
            text_size: self.width-20, self.height-20
            valign: 'bottom'
            halign: 'justify'
''')

class RootWidget(FloatLayout):
    pass


class MainApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return RootWidget()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    MainApp().run()

The result should look something like this:

_images/global_background.png

As we are overriding the rule of the class GridLayout, any use of this class in our app will display that image.

How about an Animated background?

You can set the drawing instructions like Rectangle/BorderImage/Ellipse/… to use a particular texture:

Rectangle:
    texture: reference to a texture

We use this to display an animated background:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.floatlayout import FloatLayout
from kivy.uix.gridlayout import GridLayout
from kivy.uix.image import Image
from kivy.properties import ObjectProperty
from kivy.lang import Builder


Builder.load_string('''
<CustomLayout>
    canvas.before:
        BorderImage:
            # BorderImage behaves like the CSS BorderImage
            border: 10, 10, 10, 10
            texture: self.background_image.texture
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size

<RootWidget>
    CustomLayout:
        size_hint: .9, .9
        pos_hint: {'center_x': .5, 'center_y': .5}
        rows:1
        Label:
            text: "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it"
            text_size: self.width-20, self.height-20
            valign: 'top'
        Label:
            text: "When I was born I was so surprised; I didn't speak for a year and a half."
            text_size: self.width-20, self.height-20
            valign: 'middle'
            halign: 'center'
        Label:
            text: "A consultant is someone who takes a subject you understand and makes it sound confusing"
            text_size: self.width-20, self.height-20
            valign: 'bottom'
            halign: 'justify'
''')


class CustomLayout(GridLayout):

    background_image = ObjectProperty(
        Image(
            source='../examples/widgets/sequenced_images/data/images/button_white_animated.zip',
            anim_delay=.1))


class RootWidget(FloatLayout):
    pass


class MainApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return RootWidget()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    MainApp().run()

To try to understand what is happening here, start from line 13:

texture: self.background_image.texture

This specifies that the texture property of BorderImage will be updated whenever the texture property of background_image updates. We define the background_image property at line 40:

background_image = ObjectProperty(...

This sets up background_image as an ObjectProperty in which we add an Image widget. An image widget has a texture property; where you see self.background_image.texture, this sets a reference, texture, to this property. The Image widget supports animation: the texture of the image is updated whenever the animation changes, and the texture of BorderImage instruction is updated in the process.

You can also just blit custom data to the texture. For details, look at the documentation of Texture.

Nesting Layouts

Yes! It is quite fun to see how extensible the process can be.

Size and position metrics

Kivy’s default unit for length is the pixel, all sizes and positions are expressed in it by default. You can express them in other units, which is useful to achieve better consistency across devices (they get converted to the size in pixels automatically).

Available units are pt, mm, cm, inch, dp and sp. You can learn about their usage in the metrics documentation.

You can also experiment with the screen usage to simulate various devices screens for your application.

Screen Separation with Screen Manager

If your application is composed of various screens, you likely want an easy way to navigate from one Screen to another. Fortunately, there is the ScreenManager class, that allows you to define screens separately, and to set the TransitionBase from one to another.

Graphics

Introduction to Canvas

A Widgets graphical representation is rendered using a canvas, which you can see as both an unlimited drawing board or as a set of drawing instructions. There are numerous instructions you can apply (add) to your canvas, but there are two main variations:

Context instructions don’t draw anything, but they change the results of the vertex instructions.

Canvasses can contain two subsets of instructions. They are the canvas.before and the canvas.after instruction groups. The instructions in these groups will be executed before and after the canvas group respectively. This means that they will appear under (be executed before) and above (be executed after) them. Those groups are not created until the user accesses them.

To add a canvas instruction to a widget, you use the canvas context:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MyWidget, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        with self.canvas:
            # add your instruction for main canvas here

        with self.canvas.before:
            # you can use this to add instructions rendered before

        with self.canvas.after:
            # you can use this to add instructions rendered after

Context instructions

Context instructions manipulate the opengl context. You can rotate, translate, and scale your canvas. You can also attach a texture or change the drawing color. This one is the most commonly used, but others are really useful too:

with self.canvas.before:
    Color(1, 0, .4, mode='rgb')

Drawing instructions

Drawing instructions range from very simple ones, like drawing a line or a polygon, to more complex ones, like meshes or bezier curves:

with self.canvas:
   # draw a line using the default color
   Line(points=(x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3))

   # lets draw a semi-transparent red square
   Color(1, 0, 0, .5, mode='rgba')
   Rectangle(pos=self.pos, size=self.size)

Manipulating instructions

Sometimes you want to update or remove the instructions you have added to a canvas. This can be done in various ways depending on your needs:

You can keep a reference to your instructions and update them:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MyWidget, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        with self.canvas:
            self.rect = Rectangle(pos=self.pos, size=self.size)

        self.bind(pos=self.update_rect)
        self.bind(size=self.update_rect)

    def update_rect(self, *args):
        self.rect.pos = self.pos
        self.rect.size = self.size

Or you can clean your canvas and start fresh:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MyWidget, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.draw_my_stuff()

        self.bind(pos=self.draw_my_stuff)
        self.bind(size=self.draw_my_stuff)

    def draw_my_stuff(self):
        self.canvas.clear()

        with self.canvas:
            self.rect = Rectangle(pos=self.pos, size=self.size)

Note that updating the instructions is considered the best practice as it involves less overhead and avoids creating new instructions.

Kv language

Concept behind the language

As your application grow more complex, it’s common that the construction of widget trees and explicit declaration of bindings, becomes verbose and hard to maintain. The KV Language is a attempt to overcome these short-comings.

The KV language (sometimes called kvlang, or kivy language), allows you to create your widget tree in a declarative way and to bind widget properties to each other or to callbacks in a natural manner. It allows for very fast prototyping and agile changes to your UI. It also facilitates a good separation between the logic of your application and its User Interface.

How to load KV

There are two ways to load Kv code into your application:

  • By name convention:

    Kivy looks for a Kv file with the same name as your App class in lowercase, minus “App” if it ends with ‘App’ e.g:

    MyApp -> my.kv

    If this file defines a Root Widget it will be attached to the App’s root attribute and used as the base of the application widget tree.

  • Builder: You can tell Kivy to directly load a string or a file. If this string or file defines a root widget, it will be returned by the method:

    Builder.load_file('path/to/file.kv')

    or:

    Builder.load_string(kv_string)

Rule context

A Kv source constitutes of rules, which are used to describe the content of a Widget, you can have one root rule, and any number of class or template rules.

The root rule is declared by declaring the class of your root widget, without any indentation, followed by : and will be set as the root attribute of the App instance:

Widget:

A class rule, declared by the name of a widget class between < > and followed by :, defines how any instance of that class will be graphically represented:

<MyWidget>:

Rules use indentation for delimitation, as python, indentation should be of four spaces per level, like the python good practice recommendations.

There are three keywords specific to Kv language:

  • app: always refers to the instance of your application.
  • root: refers to the base widget/template in the current rule
  • self: always refer to the current widget

Special syntaxes

There are two special syntaxes to define values for the whole Kv context:

To access python modules and classes from kv,

#:import name x.y.z
#:import isdir os.path.isdir
#:import np numpy

is equivalent to:

from x.y import z as name
from os.path import isdir
import numpy as np

in python.

To set a global value,

#:set name value

is equivalent to:

name = value

in python.

Instantiate children

To declare the widget has a child widget, instance of some class, just declare this child inside the rule:

MyRootWidget:
    BoxLayout:
        Button:
        Button:

The example above defines that our root widget, an instance of MyRootWidget, which has a child that is an instance of the BoxLayout. That BoxLayout further has two children, instances of the Button class.

A python equivalent of this code could be:

root = MyRootWidget()
box = BoxLayout()
box.add_widget(Button())
box.add_widget(Button())
root.add_widget(box)

Which you may find less nice, both to read and to write.

Of course, in python, you can pass keyword arguments to your widgets at creation to specify their behaviour. For example, to set the number of columns of a gridlayout, we would do:

grid = GridLayout(cols=3)

To do the same thing in kv, you can set properties of the child widget directly in the rule:

GridLayout:
    cols: 3

The value is evaluated as a python expression, and all the properties used in the expression will be observed, that means that if you had something like this in python (this assume self is a widget with a data ListProperty):

grid = GridLayout(cols=len(self.data))
self.bind(data=grid.setter('cols'))

To have your display updated when your data change, you can now have just:

GridLayout:
    cols: len(root.data)

Note

Widget names should start with upper case letters while property names should start with lower case ones. Following the PEP8 Naming Conventions is encouraged.

Event Bindings

You can bind to events in Kv using the “:” syntax, that is, associating a callback to an event:

Widget:
    on_size: my_callback()

You can pass the values dispatched by the signal using the args keyword:

TextInput:
    on_text: app.search(args[1])

More complex expressions can be used, like:

pos: self.center_x - self.texture_size[0] / 2., self.center_y - self.texture_size[1] / 2.

This expression listens for a change in center_x, center_y, and texture_size. If one of them changes, the expression will be re-evaluated to update the pos field.

You can also handle on_ events inside your kv language. For example the TextInput class has a focus property whose auto-generated on_focus event can be accessed inside the kv language like so:

TextInput:
    on_focus: print(args)

Extend canvas

Kv lang can be used to define the canvas instructions of your widget like this:

MyWidget:
    canvas:
        Color:
            rgba: 1, .3, .8, .5
        Line:
            points: zip(self.data.x, self.data.y)

And they get updated when properties values change.

Of course you can use canvas.before and canvas.after.

Referencing Widgets

In a widget tree there is often a need to access/reference other widgets. The Kv Language provides a way to do this using id’s. Think of them as class level variables that can only be used in the Kv language. Consider the following:

<MyFirstWidget>:
    Button:
        id: f_but
    TextInput:
        text: f_but.state

<MySecondWidget>:
    Button:
        id: s_but
    TextInput:
        text: s_but.state

An id is limited in scope to the rule it is declared in, so in the code above s_but can not be accessed outside the <MySecondWidget> rule.

Warning

When assigning a value to id, remember that the value isn’t a string. There are no quotes: good -> id: value, bad -> id: 'value'

An id is a weakref to the widget and not the widget itself. As a consequence, storing the id is not sufficient to keep the widget from being garbage collected. To demonstrate:

<MyWidget>:
    label_widget: label_widget
    Button:
        text: 'Add Button'
        on_press: root.add_widget(label_widget)
    Button:
        text: 'Remove Button'
        on_press: root.remove_widget(label_widget)
    Label:
        id: label_widget
        text: 'widget'

Although a reference to label_widget is stored in MyWidget, it is not sufficient to keep the object alive once other references have been removed because it’s only a weakref. Therefore, after the remove button is clicked (which removes any direct reference to the widget) and the window is resized (which calls the garbage collector resulting in the deletion of label_widget), when the add button is clicked to add the widget back, a ReferenceError: weakly-referenced object no longer exists will be thrown.

To keep the widget alive, a direct reference to the label_widget widget must be kept. This is achieved using id.__self__ or label_widget.__self__ in this case. The correct way to do this would be:

<MyWidget>:
    label_widget: label_widget.__self__

Accessing Widgets defined inside Kv lang in your python code

Consider the code below in my.kv:

<MyFirstWidget>:
    # both these variables can be the same name and this doesn't lead to
    # an issue with uniqueness as the id is only accessible in kv.
    txt_inpt: txt_inpt
    Button:
        id: f_but
    TextInput:
        id: txt_inpt
        text: f_but.state
        on_text: root.check_status(f_but)

In myapp.py:

...
class MyFirstWidget(BoxLayout):

    txt_inpt = ObjectProperty(None)

    def check_status(self, btn):
        print('button state is: {state}'.format(state=btn.state))
        print('text input text is: {txt}'.format(txt=self.txt_inpt))
...

txt_inpt is defined as a ObjectProperty initialized to None inside the Class.

txt_inpt = ObjectProperty(None)

At this point self.txt_inpt is None. In Kv lang this property is updated to hold the instance of the TextInput referenced by the id txt_inpt.:

txt_inpt: txt_inpt

From this point onwards, self.txt_inpt holds a reference to the widget identified by the id txt_input and can be used anywhere in the class, as in the function check_status. In contrast to this method you could also just pass the id to the function that needs to use it, like in case of f_but in the code above.

There is a simpler way to access objects with id tags in Kv using the ids lookup object. You can do this as follows:

<Marvel>
  Label:
    id: loki
    text: 'loki: I AM YOUR GOD!'
  Button:
    id: hulk
    text: "press to smash loki"
    on_release: root.hulk_smash()

In your python code:

class Marvel(BoxLayout):

    def hulk_smash(self):
        self.ids.hulk.text = "hulk: puny god!"
        self.ids["loki"].text = "loki: >_<!!!"  # alternative syntax

When your kv file is parsed, kivy collects all the widgets tagged with id’s and places them in this self.ids dictionary type property. That means you can also iterate over these widgets and access them dictionary style:

for key, val in self.ids.items():
    print("key={0}, val={1}".format(key, val))

Note

Although the self.ids method is very concise, it is generally regarded as ‘best practice’ to use the ObjectProperty. This creates a direct reference, provides faster access and is more explicit.

Dynamic Classes

Consider the code below:

<MyWidget>:
    Button:
        text: "Hello world, watch this text wrap inside the button"
        text_size: self.size
        font_size: '25sp'
        markup: True
    Button:
        text: "Even absolute is relative to itself"
        text_size: self.size
        font_size: '25sp'
        markup: True
    Button:
        text: "Repeating the same thing over and over in a comp = fail"
        text_size: self.size
        font_size: '25sp'
        markup: True
    Button:

Instead of having to repeat the same values for every button, we can just use a template instead, like so:

<MyBigButt@Button>:
    text_size: self.size
    font_size: '25sp'
    markup: True

<MyWidget>:
    MyBigButt:
        text: "Hello world, watch this text wrap inside the button"
    MyBigButt:
        text: "Even absolute is relative to itself"
    MyBigButt:
        text: "repeating the same thing over and over in a comp = fail"
    MyBigButt:

This class, created just by the declaration of this rule, inherits from the Button class and allows us to change default values and create bindings for all its instances without adding any new code on the Python side.

Re-using styles in multiple widgets

Consider the code below in my.kv:

<MyFirstWidget>:
    Button:
        on_press: root.text(txt_inpt.text)
    TextInput:
        id: txt_inpt

<MySecondWidget>:
    Button:
        on_press: root.text(txt_inpt.text)
    TextInput:
        id: txt_inpt

In myapp.py:

class MyFirstWidget(BoxLayout):

    def text(self, val):
        print('text input text is: {txt}'.format(txt=val))

class MySecondWidget(BoxLayout):

    writing = StringProperty('')

    def text(self, val):
        self.writing = val

Because both classes share the same .kv style, this design can be simplified if we reuse the style for both widgets. You can do this in .kv as follows. In my.kv:

<MyFirstWidget,MySecondWidget>:
    Button:
        on_press: root.text(txt_inpt.text)
    TextInput:
        id: txt_inpt

By separating the class names with a comma, all the classes listed in the declaration will have the same kv properties.

Designing with the Kivy Language

One of aims of the Kivy language is to Separate the concerns of presentation and logic. The presentation (layout) side is addressed by your kv file and the logic by your py file.

The code goes in py files

Let’s start with a little example. First, the Python file named main.py:

import kivy
kivy.require('1.0.5')

from kivy.uix.floatlayout import FloatLayout
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.properties import ObjectProperty, StringProperty


class Controller(FloatLayout):
    '''Create a controller that receives a custom widget from the kv lang file.

    Add an action to be called from the kv lang file.
    '''
    label_wid = ObjectProperty()
    info = StringProperty()

    def do_action(self):
        self.label_wid.text = 'My label after button press'
        self.info = 'New info text'


class ControllerApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return Controller(info='Hello world')


if __name__ == '__main__':
    ControllerApp().run()

In this example, we are creating a Controller class with 2 properties:

  • info for receving some text
  • label_wid for receving the label widget

In addition, we are creating a do_action() method that will use both of these properties. It will change the info text and change text in the label_wid widget.

The layout goes in controller.kv

Executing this application without a corresponding .kv file will work, but nothing will be shown on the screen. This is expected, because the Controller class has no widgets in it, it’s just a FloatLayout. We can create the UI around the Controller class in a file named controller.kv, which will be loaded when we run the ControllerApp. How this is done and what files are loaded is described in the kivy.app.App.load_kv() method.

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#:kivy 1.0

<Controller>:
    label_wid: my_custom_label

    BoxLayout:
        orientation: 'vertical'
        padding: 20

        Button:
            text: 'My controller info is: ' + root.info
            on_press: root.do_action()

        Label:
            id: my_custom_label
            text: 'My label before button press'

One label and one button in a vertical BoxLayout. Seems very simple. There are 3 things going on here:

  1. Using data from the Controller. As soon as the info property is changed in the controller, the expression text: 'My controller info is: ' + root.info will automatically be re-evaluated, changing the text in the Button.

  2. Giving data to the Controller. The expression id: my_custom_label is assigning the created Label the id of my_custom_label. Then, using my_custom_label in the expression label_wid: my_custom_label gives the instance of that Label widget to your Controller.

  3. Creating a custom callback in the Button using the Controller’s on_press method.

    • root and self are reserved keywords, useable anywhere. root represents the top widget in the rule and self represents the current widget.
    • You can use any id declared in the rule the same as root and self. For example, you could do this in the on_press():
    Button:
    on_press: root.do_action(); my_custom_label.font_size = 18

And that’s that. Now when we run main.py, controller.kv will be loaded so that the Button and Label will show up and respond to our touch events.

Integrating with other Frameworks

New in version 1.0.8.

Using Twisted inside Kivy

Note

You can use the kivy.support.install_twisted_reactor function to install a twisted reactor that will run inside the kivy event loop.

Any arguments or keyword arguments passed to this function will be passed on the threadedselect reactors interleave function. These are the arguments one would usually pass to twisted’s reactor.startRunning

Warning

Unlike the default twisted reactor, the installed reactor will not handle any signals unless you set the ‘installSignalHandlers’ keyword argument to 1 explicitly. This is done to allow kivy to handle the signals as usual, unless you specifically want the twisted reactor to handle the signals (e.g. SIGINT).

The kivy examples include a small example of a twisted server and client. The server app has a simple twisted server running and logs any messages. The client app can send messages to the server and will print its message and the response it got. The examples are based mostly on the simple Echo example from the twisted docs, which you can find here:

To try the example, run echo_server_app.py first, and then launch echo_client_app.py. The server will reply with simple echo messages to anything the client app sends when you hit enter after typing something in the textbox.

Server App
# install_twisted_rector must be called before importing and using the reactor
from kivy.support import install_twisted_reactor

install_twisted_reactor()

from twisted.internet import reactor
from twisted.internet import protocol


class EchoServer(protocol.Protocol):
    def dataReceived(self, data):
        response = self.factory.app.handle_message(data)
        if response:
            self.transport.write(response)


class EchoServerFactory(protocol.Factory):
    protocol = EchoServer

    def __init__(self, app):
        self.app = app


from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.label import Label


class TwistedServerApp(App):
    label = None

    def build(self):
        self.label = Label(text="server started\n")
        reactor.listenTCP(8000, EchoServerFactory(self))
        return self.label

    def handle_message(self, msg):
        msg = msg.decode('utf-8')
        self.label.text = "received:  {}\n".format(msg)

        if msg == "ping":
            msg = "Pong"
        if msg == "plop":
            msg = "Kivy Rocks!!!"
        self.label.text += "responded: {}\n".format(msg)
        return msg.encode('utf-8')


if __name__ == '__main__':
    TwistedServerApp().run()
Client App
# install_twisted_rector must be called before importing the reactor
from __future__ import unicode_literals

from kivy.support import install_twisted_reactor

install_twisted_reactor()

# A Simple Client that send messages to the Echo Server
from twisted.internet import reactor, protocol


class EchoClient(protocol.Protocol):
    def connectionMade(self):
        self.factory.app.on_connection(self.transport)

    def dataReceived(self, data):
        self.factory.app.print_message(data.decode('utf-8'))


class EchoClientFactory(protocol.ClientFactory):
    protocol = EchoClient

    def __init__(self, app):
        self.app = app

    def startedConnecting(self, connector):
        self.app.print_message('Started to connect.')

    def clientConnectionLost(self, connector, reason):
        self.app.print_message('Lost connection.')

    def clientConnectionFailed(self, connector, reason):
        self.app.print_message('Connection failed.')


from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.label import Label
from kivy.uix.textinput import TextInput
from kivy.uix.boxlayout import BoxLayout


# A simple kivy App, with a textbox to enter messages, and
# a large label to display all the messages received from
# the server
class TwistedClientApp(App):
    connection = None
    textbox = None
    label = None

    def build(self):
        root = self.setup_gui()
        self.connect_to_server()
        return root

    def setup_gui(self):
        self.textbox = TextInput(size_hint_y=.1, multiline=False)
        self.textbox.bind(on_text_validate=self.send_message)
        self.label = Label(text='connecting...\n')
        layout = BoxLayout(orientation='vertical')
        layout.add_widget(self.label)
        layout.add_widget(self.textbox)
        return layout

    def connect_to_server(self):
        reactor.connectTCP('localhost', 8000, EchoClientFactory(self))

    def on_connection(self, connection):
        self.print_message("Connected successfully!")
        self.connection = connection

    def send_message(self, *args):
        msg = self.textbox.text
        if msg and self.connection:
            self.connection.write(msg.encode('utf-8'))
            self.textbox.text = ""

    def print_message(self, msg):
        self.label.text += "{}\n".format(msg)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    TwistedClientApp().run()

Packaging your application

Create a package for Windows

Note

This document only applies for kivy 1.9.1 and greater.

Packaging your application for the Windows platform can only be done inside the Windows OS. The following process has been tested on Windows with the Kivy wheels installation, see at the end for alternate installations.

The package will be either 32 or 64 bits depending on which version of Python you ran it with.

Requirements
  • Latest Kivy (installed as described in Installation on Windows).
  • PyInstaller 3.1+ (pip install --upgrade pyinstaller).

PyInstaller default hook

This section applies to PyInstaller (>= 3.1) that includes the kivy hooks. To overwrite the default hook the following examples need to be slightly modified. See Overwriting the default hook.

Packaging a simple app

For this example, we’ll package the touchtracer example project and embed a custom icon. The location of the kivy examples is, when using the wheels, installed to python\\share\\kivy-examples and when using the github source code installed as kivy\\examples. We’ll just refer to the full path leading to the examples as examples-path. The touchtracer example is in examples-path\\demo\\touchtracer and the main file is named main.py.

  1. Open your command line shell and ensure that python is on the path (i.e. python works).

  2. Create a folder into which the packaged app will be created. For example create a TouchApp folder and change to that directory with e.g. cd TouchApp. Then type:

    python -m PyInstaller --name touchtracer examples-path\demo\touchtracer\main.py

    You can also add an icon.ico file to the application folder in order to create an icon for the executable. If you don’t have a .ico file available, you can convert your icon.png file to ico using the web app ConvertICO. Save the icon.ico in the touchtracer directory and type:

    python -m PyInstaller --name touchtracer --icon examples-path\demo\touchtracer\icon.ico examples-path\demo\touchtracer\main.py

    For more options, please consult the PyInstaller Manual.

  3. The spec file will be touchtracer.spec located in TouchApp. Now we need to edit the spec file to add the dependencies hooks to correctly build the exe. Open the spec file with your favorite editor and add these lines at the beginning of the spec (assuming sdl2 is used, the default now):

    from kivy.deps import sdl2, glew

    Then, find COLLECT() and add the data for touchtracer (touchtracer.kv, particle.png, …): Change the line to add a Tree() object, e.g. Tree('examples-path\\demo\\touchtracer\\'). This Tree will search and add every file found in the touchtracer directory to your final package.

    To add the dependencies, before the first keyword argument in COLLECT add a Tree object for every path of the dependencies. E.g. *[Tree(p) for p in (sdl2.dep_bins + glew.dep_bins)] so it’ll look something like:

    coll = COLLECT(exe, Tree('examples-path\\demo\\touchtracer\\'),
               a.binaries,
               a.zipfiles,
               a.datas,
               *[Tree(p) for p in (sdl2.dep_bins + glew.dep_bins)],
               strip=False,
               upx=True,
               name='touchtracer')

  4. Now we build the spec file in TouchApp with:

    python -m PyInstaller touchtracer.spec

  5. The compiled package will be in the TouchApp\dist\touchtracer directory.

Packaging a video app with gstreamer

Following we’ll slightly modify the example above to package a app that uses gstreamer for video. We’ll use the videoplayer example found at examples-path\widgets\videoplayer.py. Create a folder somewhere called VideoPlayer and on the command line change your current directory to that folder and do:

python -m PyInstaller --name gstvideo examples-path\widgets\videoplayer.py

to create the gstvideo.spec file. Edit as above and this time include the gstreamer dependency as well:

from kivy.deps import sdl2, glew, gstreamer

and add the Tree() to include the video files, e.g. Tree('examples-path\\widgets') as well as the gstreamer dependencies so it should look something like:

coll = COLLECT(exe, Tree('examples-path\\widgets'),
               a.binaries,
               a.zipfiles,
               a.datas,
               *[Tree(p) for p in (sdl2.dep_bins + glew.dep_bins + gstreamer.dep_bins)],
               strip=False,
               upx=True,
               name='gstvideo')

Then build the spec file in VideoPlayer with:

python -m PyInstaller gstvideo.spec

and you should find gstvideo.exe in VideoPlayer\dist\gstvideo, which when run will play a video.

Note

If you’re using Pygame and need PyGame in your packaging app, you’ll have to add the following code to your spec file due to kivy issue #1638. After the imports add the following:

def getResource(identifier, *args, **kwargs):
    if identifier == 'pygame_icon.tiff':
        raise IOError()
    return _original_getResource(identifier, *args, **kwargs)

import pygame.pkgdata
_original_getResource = pygame.pkgdata.getResource
pygame.pkgdata.getResource = getResource

Overwriting the default hook

Including/excluding video and audio and reducing app size

PyInstaller includes a hook for kivy that by default adds all the core modules used by kivy, e.g. audio, video, spelling etc (you still need to package the gstreamer dlls manually with Tree() - see the example above) and their dependencies. If the hook is not installed or to reduce app size some of these modules may be excluded, e.g. if no audio/video is used, with an alternative hook.

Kivy provides the alternate hook at hookspath(). In addition, if and only if PyInstaller doesn’t have the default hooks runtime_hooks() must also be provided. When overwriting the hook, the latter one typically is not required to be overwritten.

The alternate hookspath() hook does not include any of the kivy providers. To add them, they have to be added with get_deps_minimal() or get_deps_all(). See their documentation and pyinstaller_hooks for more details. But essentially, get_deps_all() add all the providers like in the default hook while get_deps_minimal() only adds those that are loaded when the app is run. Each method provides a list of hidden kivy imports and excluded imports that can be passed on to Analysis.

One can also generate a alternate hook which literally lists every kivy provider module and those not required can be commented out. See pyinstaller_hooks.

To use the the alternate hooks with the examples above modify as following to add the hooks with hookspath() and runtime_hooks (if required) and **get_deps_minimal() or **get_deps_all() to specify the providers.

For example, add the import statement:

from kivy.tools.packaging.pyinstaller_hooks import get_deps_minimal, get_deps_all, hookspath, runtime_hooks

and then modify Analysis as follows:

a = Analysis(['examples-path\\demo\\touchtracer\\main.py'],
             ...
             hookspath=hookspath(),
             runtime_hooks=runtime_hooks(),
             ...
             **get_deps_all())

to include everything like the default hook. Or:

a = Analysis(['examples-path\\demo\\touchtracer\\main.py'],
             ...
             hookspath=hookspath(),
             runtime_hooks=runtime_hooks(),
             ...
             **get_deps_minimal(video=None, audio=None))

e.g. to exclude the audio and video providers and for the other core modules only use those loaded.

The key points is to provide the alternate hookspath() which does not list by default all the kivy providers and instead manually to hiddenimports add the required providers while removing the undesired ones (audio and video in this example) with get_deps_minimal().

Alternate installations

The previous examples used e.g. *[Tree(p) for p in (sdl2.dep_bins + glew.dep_bins + gstreamer.dep_bins)], to make PyInstaller add all the dlls used by these dependencies. If kivy was not installed using the wheels method these commands will not work and e.g. kivy.deps.sdl2 will fail to import. Instead, one must find the location of these dlls and manually pass them to the Tree class in a similar fashion as the example.

Create a package for Android

You can create a package for android using the python-for-android project. This page explains how to download and use it directly on your own machine (see Packaging with python-for-android) or use the Buildozer tool to automate the entire process. You can also see Packaging your application for the Kivy Launcher to run kivy programs without compiling them.

For new users, we recommend using Buildozer as the easiest way to make a full APK. You can also run your Kivy app without a compilation step with the Kivy Launcher app.

Kivy applications can be released on an Android market such as the Play store, with a few extra steps to create a fully signed APK.

The Kivy project includes tools for accessing Android APIs to accomplish vibration, sensor access, texting etc. These, along with information on debugging on the device, are documented at the main Android page.

Note

Python 3 support on Android is now available experimentally.

Buildozer

Buildozer is a tool that automates the entire build process. It downloads and sets up all the prequisites for python-for-android, including the android SDK and NDK, then builds an apk that can be automatically pushed to the device.

Buildozer currently works only in Linux, and is an alpha release, but it already works well and can significantly simplify the apk build.

You can get buildozer at https://github.com/kivy/buildozer:

git clone https://github.com/kivy/buildozer.git
cd buildozer
sudo python2.7 setup.py install

This will install buildozer in your system. Afterwards, navigate to your project directory and run:

buildozer init

This creates a buildozer.spec file controlling your build configuration. You should edit it appropriately with your app name etc. You can set variables to control most or all of the parameters passed to python-for-android.

Install buildozer’s dependencies.

Finally, plug in your android device and run:

buildozer android debug deploy run

to build, push and automatically run the apk on your device.

Buildozer has many available options and tools to help you, the steps above are just the simplest way to build and run your APK. The full documentation is available here. You can also check the Buildozer README at https://github.com/kivy/buildozer.

Packaging with python-for-android

You can also package directly with python-for-android, which can give you more control but requires you to manually download parts of the Android toolchain.

See the python-for-android documentation for full details.

Packaging your application for the Kivy Launcher

The Kivy launcher is an Android application that runs any Kivy examples stored on your SD Card. To install the Kivy launcher, you must:

  1. Go to the Kivy Launcher page on the Google Play Store
  2. Click on Install
  3. Select your phone… And you’re done!

If you don’t have access to the Google Play Store on your phone/tablet, you can download and install the APK manually from http://kivy.org/#download.

Once the Kivy launcher is installed, you can put your Kivy applications in the Kivy directory in your external storage directory (often available at /sdcard even in devices where this memory is internal), e.g.

/sdcard/kivy/<yourapplication>

<yourapplication> should be a directory containing:

# Your main application file:
main.py
# Some info Kivy requires about your app on android:
android.txt

The file android.txt must contain:

title=<Application Title>
author=<Your Name>
orientation=<portrait|landscape>

These options are just a very basic configuration. If you create your own APK using the tools above, you can choose many other settings.

Installation of Examples

Kivy comes with many examples, and these can be a great place to start trying the Kivy launcher. You can run them as below:

#. Download the `Kivy demos for Android <https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-archive-downloads/v2/code.google.com/kivy/kivydemo-for-android.zip>`_
#. Unzip the contents and go to the folder `kivydemo-for-android`
#. Copy all the the subfolders here to
/sdcard/kivy
  1. Run the launcher and select one of the Pictures, Showcase, Touchtracer, Cymunk or other demos…
Release on the market

If you have built your own APK with Buildozer or with python-for-android, you can create a release version that may be released on the Play store or other Android markets.

To do this, you must run Buildozer with the release parameter (e.g. buildozer android release), or if using python-for-android use the --release option to build.py. This creates a release APK in the bin directory, which you must properly sign and zipalign. The procedure for doing this is described in the Android documentation at https://developer.android.com/studio/publish/app-signing.html#signing-manually - all the necessary tools come with the Android SDK.

Targeting Android

Kivy is designed to operate identically across platforms and as a result, makes some clear design decisions. It includes its own set of widgets and by default, builds an APK with all the required core dependencies and libraries.

It is possible to target specific Android features, both directly and in a (somewhat) cross-platform way. See the Using Android APIs section of the Kivy on Android documentation for more details.

The Kivy Android Virtual Machine

Note

The VM is now updated. Please check the Kivy website for the latest version.

Introduction

Currently, Kivy Android applications can only be built in a Linux environment configured with python-for-android, the Android SDK and the Android NDK. As this environment in not only tricky to setup but also impossible on Windows or OS X operating systems, we provide a fully configured VirtualBox disk image to ease your building woes.

If you are not familiar with virtualization, we encourage you to read the Wikipedia Virtualization page.

Getting started
  1. Download the Kivy / Buildozer VM, in the Virtual Machine section. The download is 1.2GB. Extract the file and remember the location of the extracted directory.
  2. Download the version of VirtualBox for your machine from the VirtualBox download area and install it.
  3. Start VirtualBox, click on “File”, “Import Appliance”.
  4. Select the extracted directory, file should be named “Buildozer VM.ovf”
  5. Start the Virtual machine and click on the “Buildozer” icon.
Building the APK

Once the VM is loaded, you can follow the instructions from Packaging with python-for-android. You don’t need to download with git clone though, as python-for-android is already installed and set up in the virtual machine home directory.

Hints and tips

  1. Shared folders

    Generally, your development environment and toolset are set up on your host machine but the APK is build in your guest. VirtualBox has a feature called ‘Shared folders’ which allows your guest direct access to a folder on your host.

    If it often convenient to use this feature (usually with ‘Permanent’ and ‘Auto-mount’ options) to copy the built APK to the host machine so it can form part of your normal dev environment. A simple script can easily automate the build and copy/move process.

    Currently, VirtualBox doesn’t allow symlink anymore in a shared folder. Adjust your buildozer.spec to build outside the shared folder. Also, ensure the kivy user is in the vboxsf group.

  2. Copy and paste

    By default, you will not be able to share clipboard items between the host and the guest machine. You can achieve this by enabling the “bi-directional” shared clipboard option under “Settings -> General -> Advanced”.

  3. Snapshots

    If you are working on the Kivy development branch, pulling the latest version can sometimes break things (as much as we try not to). You can guard against this by taking a snapshot before pulling. This allows you to easily restore your machine to its previous state should you have the need.

  4. Insufficient memory

    Assigning the Virtual Machine insufficient memory may result in the compile failing with cryptic errors, such as:

    arm-linux-androideabi-gcc: Internal error: Killed (program cc1)

    If this occurs, please check the amount of free memory in the Kivy VM and increase the amount of RAM allocated to it if required.

  5. No space left

    Read the section about resizing the VM at https://github.com/kivy/buildozer#buildozer-virtual-machine

Kivy on Android

You can run Kivy applications on Android, on (more or less) any device with OpenGL ES 2.0 (Android 2.2 minimum). This is standard on modern devices; Google reports the requirement is met by 99.9% of devices.

Kivy APKs are normal Android apps that you can distribute like any other, including on stores like the Play store. They behave properly when paused or restarted, may utilise Android services and have access to most of the normal java API as described below.

Follow the instructions below to learn how to package your app for Android, debug your code on the device, and use Android APIs such as for vibration and reading sensors.

Package for Android

The Kivy project provides all the necessary tools to package your app on Android, including building your own standalone APK that may be distributed on a market like the Play store. This is covered fully in the Create a package for Android documentation.

Debugging your application on the Android platform

You can view the normal output of your code (stdout, stderr), as well as the normal Kivy logs, through the Android logcat stream. This is accessed through adb, provided by the Android SDK. You may need to enable adb in your device’s developer options, then connect your device to your computer and run:

adb logcat

You’ll see all the logs including your stdout/stderr and Kivy logger.

If you packaged your app with Buildozer, the adb tool may not be in your $PATH and the above command may not work. You can instead run:

buildozer android logcat

to run the version installed by Buildozer, or find the SDK tools at $HOME/.buildozer/android/platform.

You can also run and debug your application using the Kivy Launcher. If you run your application this way, you will find log files inside the “/.kivy/logs” sub-folder within your application folder.

Using Android APIs

Although Kivy is a Python framework, the Kivy project maintains tools to easily use the normal java APIs, for everything from vibration to sensors to sending messages through SMS or email.

For new users, we recommend using Plyer. For more advanced access or for APIs not currently wrapped, you can use Pyjnius directly. Kivy also supplies an android module for basic Android functionality.

User contributed Android code and examples are available on the Kivy wiki.

Plyer

Plyer is a pythonic, platform-independent API to use features commonly found on various platforms, particularly mobile ones. The idea is that your app can call simply call a Plyer function, such as to present a notification to the user, and Plyer will take care of doing so in the right way regardless of the platform or operating system. Internally, Plyer uses Pyjnius (on Android), Pyobjus (on iOS) and some platform specific APIs on desktop platforms.

For instance, the following code would make your Android device vibrate, or raise a NotImplementedError that you can handle appropriately on other platforms such as desktops that don’t have appropriate hardware::

from plyer import vibrator
vibrator.vibrate(10)  # vibrate for 10 seconds

Plyer’s list of supported APIs is growing quite quickly, you can see the full list in the Plyer README.

Pyjnius

Pyjnius is a Python module that lets you access java classes directly from Python, automatically converting arguments to the right type, and letting you easily convert the java results to Python.

Pyjnius can be obtained from github, and has its own documentation.

Here is a simple example showing Pyjnius’ ability to access the normal Android vibration API, the same result of the plyer code above:

# 'autoclass' takes a java class and gives it a Python wrapper
from jnius import autoclass

# Context is a normal java class in the Android API
Context = autoclass('android.content.Context')

# PythonActivity is provided by the Kivy bootstrap app in python-for-android
PythonActivity = autoclass('org.renpy.android.PythonActivity')

# The PythonActivity stores a reference to the currently running activity
# We need this to access the vibrator service
activity = PythonActivity.mActivity

# This is almost identical to the java code for the vibrator
vibrator = activity.getSystemService(Context.VIBRATOR_SERVICE)

vibrator.vibrate(10000)  # The value is in milliseconds - this is 10s

This code directly follows the java API functions to call the vibrator, with Pyjnius automatically translating the api to Python code and our calls back to the equivalent java. It is much more verbose and java-like than Plyer’s version, for no benefit in this case, though Plyer does not wrap every API available to Pyjnius.

Pyjnius also has powerful abilities to implement java interfaces, which is important for wrapping some APIs, but these are not documented here - you can see Pyjnius’ own documentation.

Android module

Python-for-android includes a python module (actually cython wrapping java) to access a limited set of Android APIs. This has been largely superseded by the more flexible Pyjnius and Plyer as above, but may still occasionally be useful. The available functions are given in the python-for-android documentation.

This includes code for billing/IAP and creating/accessing Android services, which is not yet available in the other tools above.

Status of the Project and Tested Devices

These sections previously described the existence of Kivy’s Android build tools, with their limitations and some devices that were known to work.

The Android tools are now quite stable, and should work with practically any device; our minimum requirements are OpenGL ES 2.0 and Android 2.2. These are very common now - Kivy has even been run on an Android smartwatch!

A current technical limitation is that the Android build tools compile only ARM APKs, which will not run on Android devices with x86 processors (these are currently rare). This should be added soon.

As Kivy works fine on most devices, the list of supported phones/tablets has been retired - all Android devices are likely to work if they meet the conditions above.

Creating packages for OS X

Note

This guide describes multiple ways for packaging Kivy applications. Packaging with PyInstaller is recommended for general use.

Using PyInstaller and Homebrew

Note

Package your app on the oldest OS X version you want to support.

Complete guide

  1. Install Homebrew

  2. Install Python:

    $ brew install python

    Note

    To use Python 3, brew install python3 and replace pip with pip3 in the guide below.

  3. (Re)install your dependencies with --build-bottle to make sure they can be used on other machines:

    $ brew reinstall --build-bottle sdl2 sdl2_image sdl2_ttf sdl2_mixer

    Note

    If your project depends on GStreamer or other additional libraries (re)install them with --build-bottle as described below.

  4. Install Cython and Kivy:

    $ pip install Cython==0.28.3
$ pip install -U kivy

  5. Install PyInstaller:

    $ pip install -U pyinstaller

  6. Package your app using the path to your main.py:

    $ pyinstaller -y --clean --windowed --name touchtracer \
  --exclude-module _tkinter \
  --exclude-module Tkinter \
  --exclude-module enchant \
  --exclude-module twisted \
  /usr/local/share/kivy-examples/demo/touchtracer/main.py

    Note

    This will not yet copy additional image or sound files. You would need to adapt the created .spec file for that.

Editing the spec file

The specs file is named touchtracer.spec and is located in the directory where you ran the pyinstaller command.

You need to change the COLLECT() call to add the data of touchtracer (touchtracer.kv, particle.png, …). Change the line to add a Tree() object. This Tree will search and add every file found in the touchtracer directory to your final package. Your COLLECT section should look something like this:

coll = COLLECT(exe, Tree('/usr/local/share/kivy-examples/demo/touchtracer/'),
               a.binaries,
               a.zipfiles,
               a.datas,
               strip=None,
               upx=True,
               name='touchtracer')

This will add the required hooks so that PyInstaller gets the required Kivy files. We are done. Your spec is ready to be executed.

Build the spec and create a DMG

  1. Open a console.

  2. Go to the PyInstaller directory, and build the spec:

    $ pyinstaller -y --clean --windowed touchtracer.spec

  3. Run:

    $ pushd dist
$ hdiutil create ./Touchtracer.dmg -srcfolder touchtracer.app -ov
$ popd

  4. You will now have a Touchtracer.dmg available in the dist directory.

Additional Libraries
GStreamer

If your project depends on GStreamer:

$ brew reinstall --build-bottle gstreamer gst-plugins-{base,good,bad,ugly}

Note

If your Project needs Ogg Vorbis support be sure to add the --with-libvorbis option to the command above.

If you are using Python from Homebrew you will also need the following step until this pull request gets merged:

$ brew reinstall --with-python --build-bottle https://github.com/cbenhagen/homebrew/raw/patch-3/Library/Formula/gst-python.rb
Using PyInstaller without Homebrew

First install Kivy and its dependencies without using Homebrew as mentioned here http://kivy.org/docs/installation/installation.html#development-version.

Once you have kivy and its deps installed, you need to install PyInstaller.

Let’s assume we use a folder like testpackaging:

cd testpackaging
git clone http://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller

Create a file named touchtracer.spec in this directory and add the following code to it:

# -*- mode: python -*-

block_cipher = None
from kivy.tools.packaging.pyinstaller_hooks import get_deps_all, hookspath, runtime_hooks

a = Analysis(['/path/to/yout/folder/containing/examples/demo/touchtracer/main.py'],
             pathex=['/path/to/yout/folder/containing/testpackaging'],
             binaries=None,
             win_no_prefer_redirects=False,
             win_private_assemblies=False,
             cipher=block_cipher,
             hookspath=hookspath(),
             runtime_hooks=runtime_hooks(),
             **get_deps_all())
pyz = PYZ(a.pure, a.zipped_data,
             cipher=block_cipher)
exe = EXE(pyz,
          a.scripts,
          exclude_binaries=True,
          name='touchtracer',
          debug=False,
          strip=False,
          upx=True,
          console=False )
coll = COLLECT(exe, Tree('../kivy/examples/demo/touchtracer/'),
               Tree('/Library/Frameworks/SDL2_ttf.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/FreeType.framework'),
               a.binaries,
               a.zipfiles,
               a.datas,
               strip=False,
               upx=True,
               name='touchtracer')
app = BUNDLE(coll,
             name='touchtracer.app',
             icon=None,
         bundle_identifier=None)

Change the paths with your relevant paths:

a = Analysis(['/path/to/yout/folder/containing/examples/demo/touchtracer/main.py'],
            pathex=['/path/to/yout/folder/containing/testpackaging'],
...
...
coll = COLLECT(exe, Tree('../kivy/examples/demo/touchtracer/'),

Then run the following command:

pyinstaller/pyinstaller.py touchtracer.spec

Replace touchtracer with your app where appropriate. This will give you a <yourapp>.app in the dist/ folder.

Using Buildozer
pip install git+http://github.com/kivy/buildozer cd /to/where/I/Want/to/package buildozer init

Note

Packaging Kivy applications with the following method must be done inside OS X, 32-bit platforms are no longer supported.

Edit the buildozer.spec and add the details for your app. Dependencies can be added to the requirements= section.

By default the kivy version specified in the requirements is ignored.

If you have a Kivy.app at /Applications/Kivy.app then that is used, for packaging. Otherwise the latest build from kivy.org using Kivy master will be downloaded and used.

If you want to package for python 3.x.x simply download the package named Kivy3.7z from the download section of kivy.org and extract it to Kivy.app in /Applications, then run:

buildozer osx debug

Once the app is packaged, you might want to remove unneeded packages like gstreamer, if you don’t need video support. Same logic applies for other things you do not use, just reduce the package to its minimal state that is needed for the app to run.

As an example we are including the showcase example packaged using this method for both Python 2 (9.xMB) and 3 (15.xMB), you can find the packages here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B1WO07-OL50_alFzSXJUajBFdnc .

That’s it. Enjoy!

Buildozer right now uses the Kivy SDK to package your app. If you want to control more details about your app than buildozer currently offers then you can use the SDK directly, as detailed in the section below.

Using the Kivy SDK

Note

Kivy.app is not available for download at the moment. For details, see this issue.

Note

Packaging Kivy applications with the following method must be done inside OS X, 32-bit platforms are no longer supported.

Since version 1.9.0, Kivy is released for the OS X platform in a self-contained, portable distribution.

Apps can be packaged and distributed with the Kivy SDK using the method described below, making it easier to include frameworks like SDL2 and GStreamer.

  1. Make sure you have the unmodified Kivy SDK (Kivy.app) from the download page.

  2. Run the following commands:

    > mkdir packaging
> cd packaging
packaging> git clone https://github.com/kivy/kivy-sdk-packager
packaging> cd kivy-sdk-packager/osx
osx> cp -a /Applications/Kivy.app ./Kivy.App

Note

This step above is important, you have to make sure to preserve the paths and permissions. A command like cp -rf will copy but make the app unusable and lead to error later on.

  1. Now all you need to do is to include your compiled app in the Kivy.app by running the following command:

    osx> ./package-app.sh /path/to/your/<app_folder_name>/

Where <app_folder_name> is the name of your app.

This copies Kivy.app to <app_folder_name>.app and includes a compiled copy of your app into this package.

  1. That’s it, your self-contained package is ready to be deployed! You can now further customize your app as described bellow.
Installing modules

Kivy package on osx uses its own virtual env that is activated when you run your app using kivy command. To install any module you need to install the module like so:

$ kivy -m pip install <modulename>
Where are the modules/files installed?

Inside the portable venv within the app at:

Kivy.app/Contents/Resources/venv/

If you install a module that installs a binary for example like kivy-garden That binary will be only available from the venv above, as in after you do:

kivy -m pip install kivy-garden

The garden lib will be only available when you activate this env.

source /Applications/Kivy.app/Contents/Resources/venv/bin/activate garden install mapview deactivate
To install binary files

Just copy the binary to the Kivy.app/Contents/Resources/venv/bin/ directory.

To include other frameworks

Kivy.app comes with SDL2 and Gstreamer frameworks provided. To include frameworks other than the ones provided do the following:

git clone http://github.com/tito/osxrelocator
export PYTHONPATH=~/path/to/osxrelocator
cd Kivy.app
python -m osxrelocator -r . /Library/Frameworks/<Framework_name>.framework/ \
@executable_path/../Frameworks/<Framework_name>.framework/

Do not forget to replace <Framework_name> with your framework. This tool osxrelocator essentially changes the path for the libs in the framework such that they are relative to the executable within the .app, making the Framework portable with the .app.

Shrinking the app size

The app has a considerable size right now, however the unneeded parts can be removed from the package.

For example if you don’t use GStreamer, simply remove it from YourApp.app/Contents/Frameworks. Similarly you can remove the examples folder from /Applications/Kivy.app/Contents/Resources/kivy/examples/ or kivy/tools, kivy/docs etc.

This way the package can be made to only include the parts that are needed for your app.

Adjust settings

Icons and other settings of your app can be changed by editing YourApp/Contents/info.plist to suit your needs.

Create a DMG

To make a DMG of your app use the following command:

osx> ./create-osx-dmg.sh YourApp.app

Note the lack of / at the end. This should give you a compressed dmg that will further shrink the size of your distributed app.

Create a package for IOS

Note

Currently, packages for iOS can only be generated with Python 2.7. Python 3.4+ support is on the way.

The overall process for creating a package for IOS can be explained in 4 steps:

  1. Compile python + modules for IOS
  2. Create an Xcode project and link your source code
  3. Customize
Prerequisites

You need to install some dependencies, like Cython, autotools, etc. We encourage you to use Homebrew to install those dependencies:

brew install autoconf automake libtool pkg-config
brew link libtool
sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install Cython==0.28.3

For more detail, see IOS Prerequisites. Just ensure that everything is ok before starting the second step!

Compile the distribution

Open a terminal, and type:

$ git clone git://github.com/kivy/kivy-ios
$ cd kivy-ios
$ ./toolchain.py build kivy

Most of the python distribution is packed into python27.zip. If you experience any issues, please refer to our user group or the kivy-ios project page.

Create an Xcode project

Before proceeding to the next step, ensure your application entry point is a file named main.py.

We provide a script that creates an initial Xcode project to start with. In the command line below, replace test with your project name. It must be a name without any spaces or illegal characters:

$ ./toolchain.py create <title> <app_directory>
$ ./toolchain.py create Touchtracer ~/code/kivy/examples/demo/touchtracer

Note

You must use a fully qualified path to your application directory.

A directory named <title>-ios will be created, with an Xcode project in it. You can open the Xcode project:

$ open touchtracer-ios/touchtracer.xcodeproj

Then click on Play, and enjoy.

Note

Everytime you press Play, your application directory will be synced to the <title>-ios/YourApp directory. Don’t make changes in the -ios directory directly.

Updating an Xcode project

Let’s say you want to add numpy to your project but you did not compile it prior to creating your XCode project. First, ensure it is built:

$ ./toolchain.py build numpy

Then, update your Xcode project:

$ ./toolchain.py update touchtracer-ios

All the libraries / frameworks necessary to run all the compiled recipes will be added to your Xcode project.

Customize

There are various ways to customize and configure your app. Please refer to the kivy-ios documentation for more information.

Known issues

All known issues with packaging for iOS are currently tracked on our issues page. If you encounter an issue specific to packaging for iOS that isn’t listed there, please feel free to file a new issue, and we will get back to you on it.

While most are too technical to be written here, one important known issue is that removing some libraries (e.g. SDL_Mixer for audio) is currently not possible because the kivy project requires it. We will fix this and others in future versions.

FAQ
Application quit abnormally!

By default, all the print statements to the console and files are ignored. If you have an issue when running your application, you can activate the log by commenting out this line in main.m:

putenv("KIVY_NO_CONSOLELOG=1");

Then you should see all the Kivy logging on the Xcode console.

How can Apple accept a python app ?

We managed to merge the app binary with all the libraries into a single binary, called libpython. This means all binary modules are loaded beforehand, so nothing is dynamically loaded.

Have you already submited a Kivy application to the App store ?

Yes, check:

For a more complete list, visit the Kivy wiki.

IOS Prerequisites

The following guide assumes:

  • XCode 5.1 or above
  • OS X 10.9 or above

Your experience may vary with different versions.

Getting started

In order to submit any application to the iTunes store, you will need an iOS Developer License. For testing, you can use a physical device or the XCode iOS emulator.

Please note that in order to test on the device, you need to register these devices and install your “provisioning profile” on them. Please refer to the Apple’s Getting started guide for more information.

Homebrew

We use the Homebrew package manager for OSX to install some of the dependencies and tools used by Kivy. It’s a really helpful tool and is an Open Source project hosted on Github.

Due to the nature of package management (complications with versions and Operating Systems), this process can be error prone and cause failures in the build process. The Missing requirement: <pkg> is not installed! message is typically such an error.

The first thing is to ensure you have run the following commands:

brew install autoconf automake libtool pkg-config mercurial
brew link libtool
brew link mercurial
sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install Cython==0.28.3

If you still receive build errors, check your Homebrew is in a healthy state:

brew doctor

For further help, please refer to the Homebrew wiki.

The last, final and desperate step to get things working might be to remove Homebrew altogether, get the latest version, install that and then re-install the dependencies.

Package licensing

Warning

This is not a legally authoratative guide! The Kivy organisation, authors and contributors take no responsibility for any lack of knowledge, information or advice presented here. The guide is merely informative and is meant to protect inexperienced users.

Your code alone may not require including licensing information or copyright notices of other included software, but binaries are something else. When a binary (.exe, .app, .apk, …) is created, it includes Kivy, its dependencies and other packages that your application uses.

Some of them are licensed in a way that requires including a copyright notice somewhere in your app (or more). Before distributing any of the binaries, please check all the created files that don’t belong to your source (.dll, .pyd, .so, …) and include the appropriate copyright notices if required by the license the files belong to. This way you may satisfy licensing requirements of the Kivy deps.

Dependencies

All of the dependencies will be used at least partially on each platform Kivy supports. You therefore need to comply to their licenses, which mostly requires only pasting a copyright notice in your app and not pretending you wrote the code.

You’ll probably need to check image and audio libraries manually (most begin with lib). The LICENSE* files that belong to them should be included by PyInstaller, but are not included by python-for-android and you need to find them.

Windows (PyInstaller)

To access some Windows API features, Kivy uses the pypiwin32 package. This package is released under the PSF license.

Visual Studio Redistributables

Python compiled with Visual Studio (official) includes files from Microsoft and you are only allowed to redistribute them under specific conditions listed in the CRTlicense. You need to include the names of the files and a reworded version of Py2 CRT license or Py3 CRT license (depending which interpreter you use) and present these to the end-user of your application in order to satisfy their requirements.

Other libraries

Note

Please add the attributions for other libraries that you don’t use directly but are present after packaging with e.g. PyInstaller on Windows.

Linux

Linux has many distributions which means there’s no correct guide for all of the distributions. This applies to the RPi too. However, it can be simplified in two ways depending on how you create a package (also with PyInstaller): with or without including binaries.

If the binaries are included, you should check every file (e.g. .so) that’s not your source and find the license it belongs to. According to that license, you’ll probably need to put an attribution into your application or possibly more, depending on the requirements of that license.

If the binaries are not included (which allows packaging your app as e.g. a .deb package), there’s a situation bad for your user. It’s up to you to decide whether you satisfy the conditions of other licenses and, for example, include copyright attributions into your app or not.

Android

As APK is just an archive of files: you can extract files from it and (as in Windows redistributables) check all the files.

APK/assets/private.mp3/private.mp3/ contains all the included files. Most of them are related to Kivy, Python or your source, but those that aren’t need checking.

Known packages:

There are other included libraries, included either by Kivy directly or through Pygame/SDL2, that are located in APK/lib/armeabi/. Most of them are related to dependencies or are produced by python-for-android and are part of its source (and licensing).

  • libapplication.so

Mac

Missing.

iOS

Missing.

Avoiding binaries

There might be a way how to avoid this licensing process by avoiding creating a distribution with third-party stuff completely. With Python you can create a module, which is only your code with __main__.py + setup.py that only lists required depencies.

This way, you can still distribute your app - your code - and you might not need to care about other licenses. The combination of your code and the dependencies could be specified as a “usage” rather than a “distribution”. The responsibility of satisfying licenses, however, most likely transfers to your user, who needs to assemble the environment to even run the module. If you care about your users, you might want to slow down a little and read more about the consequences.

Kv Evolution proposal

To reviewers, please read the whole proposal (once all sections are complete), because although long and in depth, it does provide a full specification.

Following is a proposal for the evolution of kv, including it’s integration into pure python and an associated compiler. For end users, writing kv code will seamlessly integrate into the rest of their python code, while automatically binding kv rules inline. To remove any ambiguity of where binding occurs and how to effect it, the goal of this project was to make binding syntactically clear, with the minimal amount of line noise and to remove any ambiguity in how kv rules are applied - it is all fully speced out.

This proposal is completely independent of traditional kv, in fact the amount of changes to Kivy is a few lines of code - the new code resides in its own module under kivy/lang/compiler. The new tools can be used simultaneously with traditional kv, with zero interactions between them. This means, that although I hope the proposal is merged into Kivy and that future kv will be written with the new syntax, it doesn’t have to be and can still be supported as a side tool with little effect on the rest of Kivy.

But I am very excited for this new tool because I think it will solve many longstanding issues with kv, such as rule order instantiation, knowing when rules are instantiated, and unbinding. With this proposal, kv is integrated with python, so we can easily theme, by overwriting the functions that apply the kv rules. We can also unbind all, or specific rules at will. kv rules can also be named. And much more. On a somewhat complex kv widget (7 kv rules), there was a 2.6x speed improvement with the compiler. Performance comparison is expected to increase with increasing kv complexity because bindings are now batched across a context. There is also almost 200 unittests written, testing all aspects of the new syntax.

I consider the implementation complete and ready to be used, although I will of course welcome any discussion on potential improvements. This project only supports python 3.5+ and I don’t ever expect to add python 2 support as the amount of effort to do that, will be pretty much the same as starting from scratch. If people like this proposal, consider it my way of motivating people to move to python 3. If merged, this code, however, will not prevent Kivy from being used in python 2.

Syntax

### Intorduction

Finally, the fun part - the new syntax. Consider a traditional kv rule:

We write this as

class MyWidget(Widget):
    @kv()
    def apply_kv(self):
        with KvContext():
            self.x @= self.y

I’ll go over all the components. @kv() returns a decorator which compiles the function and returns a new function that performs the bindings. We’ll go over the decorator options later. apply_kv can be any function and may contain any python code (except as rejected by the compiler if it interferes with the bindings, which should be rare - the decorator will raise an exception at import time, when the function is compiled for that case, so it’ll be obvious).

All kv rules must be under a KvContext and a KvContext may contain many kv rules, which are executed independently. However, all the initial bindings within a KvContext are batched and are executed when the context exits.

A rule is created using expression_left @= expression_right. expression_left and expression_right can be any legal python and will bind to expression_right, such that whenever any Kivy properties in it changes, expression_left = expression_right is executed.

Here are more examples of the function:

def apply_kv(self):
    self.widget = widget = Widget()
    offset = self.offset
    with KvContext():
        self.x @= widget.width + self.y + offset

In the example above, the value of offset is captured and when the rule is ever triggered, it will use that initial value. The same for self and widget. But of course, widget.width and self.y is re-evaluated every time.

Another example:

def apply_kv(self):
    self.widget = widget = Widget()
    with KvContext():
        offset = self.offset
        self.x @= widget.width + self.y + offset

or even

def apply_kv(self):
    self.widget = widget = Widget()
    with KvContext():
        offset = self.offset
        widget.width @= self.y + offset

Notice how the left side can be anything? Like in the previous examples, self, widget, and offset are captured and their initial values will be used whenever the rule is triggered.

As you can see, the right and left sides of the @= can be anything, and that line is executed initially when it is encountered, and then once the KvContext exits, the bindings will be executed and from then on, whenever the right hand property values change, the line will be executed (without the @ sign of course). Naturally, the bindings capture the value of any locals and globals at the time the rule is encountered. In fact, to keep the bindings consistent, the compiler will raise an exception if a local or global variable used in a rule is changed between the rule definition and the context exiting. This makes sure that code is easy to understand and reason about.

So this example:

def apply_kv(self):
    widget = Widget()
    with KvContext():
        self.x @= widget.width
        widget = Widget()

will raise a parser exception because when the bindings are executed when the context exits, the widget is not the same as when it was encountered and used to initialize self.x. The exceptions are very descriptive so it’s easy to fix when encountered.

Kv Rules

### Explicit Rules And Events

Kv rules can be created more explicitly, which provide a lot more control over their execution. The example above:

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        self.x @= self.y

can be also written as:

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        with KvRule():
            self.x @= self.y

The benefits is that anything under a KvRule is considered as one rule and is executed as such. Consider the following:

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        with KvRule():
            self.width @= self.height + 1
            self.name = 'johnny'
            self.x @= self.y

Now, whenever either self.height or self.y change, all three lines will be executed sequentially as if it’s one code block, which it is.

A KvRule also accepts positional arguments, and will bind to whatever is provided there, this is an alternative for using the @ syntax and allows binding to kivy events as follows:

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        with KvRule(self.on_touch_down, self.width, self.y, self.widget.height):
            self.x @= self.y + self.compute()

In the rule above, the rule will be bound to all of the provided args! That’s how you can bind to kivy events, just provided it as an argument. Notice how self.y is provided both as an argument and using the @= syntax - that’s okay, but it could also have been written as:

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        with KvRule(self.on_touch_down, self.width, self.y, self.widget.height):
            self.x = self.y + self.compute()

But either way is fine and duplications are not a problem.

Also, the above could have been written as

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        with KvRule('self.on_touch_down', 'self.width', 'self.y', 'self.widget.height'):
            self.x = self.y + self.compute()

the compiler parses them identically, whether it’s in string form or code form, but code form is easier as it’s more IDE friendly due to auto-completion :).

In fact, you should know that the parser looks for a with statement whose context manager is literally written as KvRule and then modifies that line to create a rule in the compiled code. So the line with KvRule(…) is treated magically. That and the with KvContext() line and the @= and ^= lines are the only objects that modify the standard python syntax and do something that is unexpected in normal python.

### Canvas and Clock Rules In traditional kv, canvas rules are treated differently and the rules are only executed at the end of each frame - this helps with graphical performance. We have a similar construct, as opposed to rules created with the @= syntax or with KvRule(), which is the same as with KvRule(delay=None), rules created using ^= and with KvRule(delay=’canvas), will schedule the rules to be executed with the other graphics instructions, rather than immediately when triggered.

For example:

def apply_kv(self):
    with self.canvas:
        rect = Rectangle()
    with KvContext():
        rect.x ^= self.x

or:

def apply_kv(self):
    with self.canvas:
        rect = Rectangle()
    with KvContext():
        with KvRule(delay='canvas'):
            rect.x ^= self.x

The options between canvas and normal rules regarding binding options etc. are the same. Naturally, one rule cannot mix both canvas and normal rules, so within a rule either @= or ^= must be used.

We also allow for rules to create a Clock trigger, so that when the rule bindings are triggered, instead of executing immediately, it triggers the clock event with provided delay. This allows kv rules to be batched per frame or targeted for the future. To use, you must use a explicit rule and provide a number to delay - which will be delay used when creating the clock event. E.g.

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        with KvRule(delay=0):
            self.x @= self.x

will delay and batch all the rule updates for the next clock frame. The syntax is otherwise idnetical to normal kv rules.

### Loops, conditionals, and other constructs Whenever a rule is encountered within a KvContext, that rules bindings will occur when the context exits. This would be the case even if the condition was False. COnsequently, a rule is now allowed under any conditional code and the parser will raise an exception. However, you can wrap the rule under a new KvContext and place that under the conditional. That makes all the contents under the nested KvContext completely isolated from the outer context it may appear in.

For example, the following examples will raise a parser exception:

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        if self.height:
            self.x @= self.x

and

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        for i in range(2):
            self.x @= self.x

and even

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        try:
            print('hello')
        except Exception as e:
            self.x @= self.x

and so on.

However, it can be converted as follows and is now perfectly fine:

def apply_kv(self):
    if self.height:
        with KvContext():
            self.x @= self.x

and

def apply_kv(self):
    for i in range(2):
        with KvContext():
            self.x @= self.x

and even

def apply_kv(self):
    try:
        print('hello')
    except Exception as e:
        with KvContext():
            self.x @= self.x

In all cases, the KvContext will only be executed if the KvContext is executed. Although the code will of course always be compiled ahead of time when the function is originally compiled.

The following is also allowed:

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        self.height @= self.width + 45
        if self.height:
            with KvContext():
                self.x @= self.x
        self.name @= self.widget.your_name

In the above example, the rule in the inner context is completely isolated and independent from the outer context. Similarly, from the outer context’s POV, it sees only two rules, the height and name rules.

For the loop example, each iteration creates a new and independent context, which are independent of each other. So the following works as expected:

def apply_kv(self):
    src_widgets = [Widget(), Widget()]
    target_widgets = [Widget(), Widget()]

    for i in range(2):
        with KvContext():
            target_widgets[i].x @= src_widgets[i].x

i.e. each widget’s x is bound to the corresponding widget’s x. This is also perfectly legally written as:

def apply_kv(self):
    src_widgets = [Widget(), Widget()]
    target_widgets = [Widget(), Widget()]

    for target, src in zip(target_widgets, src_widgets):
        with KvContext():
            target.x @= src.x

### Rule largs

It is sometimes desirable to get the arguments that was used to trigger the rule. E.g. when binding to widget.on_touch_down, the triggering touch will be dispatched. Following is how to access it in a rule:

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        with KvRule() as my_rule:
            print(my_rule.largs)
            self.x @= self.x

When a explicit rule is created and assigned to something, the compiler will automatically assign the captured args used when triggering the rule to the largs attribute of the rule. Keep in mind that largs may be empty, e.g. if it’s dispatched during binding, so be sure to check if it’s an empty tuple first.

### Rule Unbinding, named rules

A KvRule has some attributes and methods of interest. Specifically, KvRule has an unbind_rule method, which when called will unbind the rule and it will not be triggered again. However, it may only be called once the rule is fully created after the KvContext has exited as in the following example:

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext():
        with KvRule() as my_rule:
            self.x @= self.x
    my_rule.unbind_rule()  # goodbye rule

Similarly, the KvContext has a unbind_all_rules methods, which unbinds all the rules in the context. E.g.:

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext() as ctx:
        with KvRule():
            self.x @= self.x
        self.width @= self.height
    ctx.unbind_all_rules()  # goodbye all the rules

Every rule that is created under a context is added to that context’s rules list in sequential order. KvContext also has a named_rules dictionary, for rules that are explicitly named. E.g.:

def apply_kv(self):
    with KvContext() as ctx:
        with KvRule(name='my_rule'):
            self.x @= self.x
        self.width @= self.height
    assert len(ctx.rules) == 2
    assert len(ctx.names_rules) == 1
    assert ctx.names_rules['my_rule'] is ctx.rules[0]

As can be seen from the asserts, the rules can be named and then accessed by name. They can also be accessed by index ordered by the order in which it was created.

Further specification and options

Background

The kv compiler uses AST parsing an manipulation to generate the compiled function. Given a function, if we have not already compiled a kvc file for this function, or if it’s stale (source has since been changed or compile flags are different), it loads the source of the function using the inspect module and parses its AST. It then modifies the AST and dumps it to a new kvc file under the __kvcache__ directory in the same folder as the original function file.

The compiled file is then loaded and reused, making use of a runtime cache to speed up disk access. The existence of such a file will make debugging much easier as ew can just inspect it and step through it with the debugger. Although we currently do not provide any user side details on the compiled function structure.

To make sure the context the compiled function runs in is identical to the context of the original un-compiled function, every time the function is called, we set the locals/globals of the original function to the one of the compiled function.

Initially I looked into using f-strings, but it became clear that will not work.

Justification

Although using AST transformations is niche, it is justified and part of the python standard API. So it should work in e.g. pypi, although it is untested. In fact there are other projects with such a need who make use of inline AST modifications. Examples of popular projects doing that are: [pony](https://github.com/ponyorm/pony), [xpyth](https://github.com/hchasestevens/xpyth), [google pasta](https://github.com/google/pasta), and most famously [pytest](https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/) and [ipython](https://ipython.org/). You can read more about the AST [ecosystem](https://ep2018.europython.eu/conference/talks/exploring-the-python-ast-ecosystem).

Python is also notoriously conservative when it comes to addding new syntax, e.g. there was only one minor AST change that we needed to add to support 3.7, after targeting 3.5. In addition, to prevent sudden breakage, we keep a whitelist of known AST nodes, so that when new appear the compiler will refuse to compile until the new nodes are accounted for.

I have also made liberal use of asserts everywhere in the compiler. And in general, the compiler stage is not at all optimized, but that is fine for now.

I’m hoping to add more comments to the code, but pretty much all of the algorithms I used are based on graph search or manipulations, so it’s correctness can be proven. I intend to eventually add more comments with such info into the code, if accepted.

Proxying and garbage collection

The idea behind using a proxy reference to a widget, is that if a widget that doesn’t get garbage collected holds a reference to another widget, the other widget will also not die. We solve this by providing a parameter to the decorator which tells it to make the long living widget hold only a proxy reference to the other widgets. E.g. consider:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    @kv(proxy='app')
    def apply_kv(self):
        app = App.get_running_app()
        with KvContext():
            self.x @= app.x

This bind to app, however, because app will never die, MyWidget will also never die. However, in the decorator we specified proxy=’app’ - that makes the compiler use a proxy for all the references app holds on to. By default proxy is False, but it can be set to True and all will bindings will only store proxies. Or, it can be a glob style string or list of glob style strings which match the widgets that may only hold proxies. See the documentation of kv for more details.

A note of caution, if all the bindings use proxy references, no one will hold on to the kv rules and the rules will stop doing anything as soon as garbage collection runs. The solution is to store a reference to each KvContext - as long as that is alive, the rules are also alive.

Rebind

Usage is similar to proxy. It indicates the widgets to which we rebind. E.g. for

class MyWidget(Widget):
    @kv()
    def apply_kv(self):
        with KvContext():
            self.x @= self.widget.x

if rebind is True, the default, then when self.widget changes, we rebind the rule to be triggered when then widget’s width changes.

By default rebind is True, but it can be set to False and no intermediate widgets will be rebind. Or, it can be a glob style string or list of glob style strings which match the widgets that should be rebind. See the documentation of kv for more details. E.g. rebind=’*widget’‘ will rebind to self.x @= self.widget.x.

As opposed to traditional kv, we do not inspect the property to see if it set to rebind, because we feel that violates action at a distance, and whether a widget is rebind should be specific to the rules, and should have to be known when a property is declared. E.g. should a widget’s parent be rebind? The answer is that we don’t know and should therefore be a decision made for each compiled function.

Binding on context enter vs exit

In previous examples we assumed that the bindings occur when the KvContext exits. Although recommended, this is but one option. By setting bind_on_enter in the decorator to True, the bindings will actually occur upon context enter. Although fully functional, this is not recommended as it is not intuitive because the bindings would happen before the rules are executed.

Nonetheless, it is offered as an option for the following reason. When binding occurs upon context exit, the bindings occur after the rules are executed. This means that some rules could now be stale, because when variables were set during rule execution, bindings were not in place. But, if the bindings had occurred before the rule execution, this is not a problem.

We solve this problem for the binding on exit configuration by providing the exec_rules_after_binding option in the kv decorator. If True, it will cause the rules to be executed again after all the bindings. This is not normally needed and reduces performance, so it defaults to False. But, the bind_on_enter=True could be used rather, rather then the default bind_on_enter=False combined with exec_rules_after_binding=True, when needed as the former is more performant than the latter case.

Globals and locals capturing within kv decorated function

To be filled in

Expressions that get bound

To be filled in

Kv Decorable functions

The kv decorator does not support the decoration of closure functions. That means it can only decorate functions at the top level of a module. E.g.:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    @kv()
    def build_kv(...):
        pass

is allowed. As is:

@kv()
    def build_kv(...):
        pass

but the following is not allowed:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    def apply_kv(self):
        @kv()
        def build_kv(...):
            pass

Kv restrictions

Following are things that will cause the compiler to raise an exception.

  • A return statement within a KvContext.
  • A KvRule not under a KvContext.
  • A KvRule that is under conditionally executing code such as an if or for loop, unless it’s wrapped with a KvContext.
  • Overwriting a read only captured variable (see other sections).
  • A kv decorated function can have one, and only one decorator - the kv decorator.
  • Nesting a KvRule or KvContext under another KvRule.
  • A KvRule may not contain a function or class definition because it’s unclear the meaning of such as defintion in a rule that is repeatedly executed. Also, it creates issues with ensuring the consistency of local variables.
  • The global or nonlocal keyword may not occur within a function that is compiled by the kv compiler.
  • The del statement is illegal within a kv rule.
  • Mixing canvas and normal or clock kv syntax within a rule.

Manual kv compiler

In addition to the kv compiler described above and below, we also provide a manual compiler for debugging and unofficial usage and in order to have a complete implementation. Following is a comparison using the kv compiler and manual compilation:

class ManualKvWidget(Widget):
    def apply_kv(self):
        ctx = KvParserContext()

        def manage_val(*largs):
            self.x = self.y + 512
        manage_val()

        # will bind to `self.y`.
        rule = KvParserRule('self.y + 512')
        rule.callback = manage_val
        rule.callback_name = manage_val.__name__
        ctx.add_rule(rule)

        kv_apply_manual(ctx, self.apply_kv, locals(), globals())

vs. the automatic compiler, which would look like as follows:

class ManualKvWidget(Widget):
    @kv()
    def apply_kv(self):
        with KvContext():
            self.x @= self.y + 512

Both examples effect a compilation, but the decorator version happens automatically and is more efficient.

Requirements for property binding

The following are required methods to exist on a object, in order for binding to occur on the object’s property. We fbind and fbind_proxy return Falsy if it fails and does not raise an error - we therefore do not check at all whether the property is a Kivy property before binding. Duck typing FTW.

  • Must have the following functions
  • fbind or fbind_proxy or both, depending on the proxy setting.
  • unbind_uid. If the former exists, unbind_uid will be assumed to exist and not checked before usage.

For code correctness, we also assume that calling fbind will have no side effects.

Some simple rules and style guide

To be filled in

  • All kv rules within a context are always bound and cannot therefore be under any conditional or loop etc.
  • To place a kv rule under a conditional or loop, wrap it with a new context and place the context under the conditional.
  • By default no proxies are used. If proxies are used and all objects are proxied, the rules will die immediately as no one will have a reference to them. So make sure to only proxy objects that are not needed to keep the rule alive. Additionally, as long as someone has a direct ref to the context, the contexts and its rules will not die.
  • The start and end of a KvContext is special: that’s where the bindings occur, depending on the setting, so whatever variable is referenced by a rule, that variable must exist at the start or end of the context depending on the setting. Similarly, the value of the variables that are bound, are the values of the variables at that fence point. If the variables are changed during the rule, during the initialization, all the code is executed, it’s just the binding that captures it.
  • clearly we can use locals to change a local, but we disallow it on principle the easy way
  • kv rules are not finalized until the context exists. But largs is always available.
  • locals cannot be None is used in binding.
  • Use proxy for widgets that never die, to prevent them from keeping other widgets from dying. But, make sure to store the KvContext somewhere if all widgets store only proxies, otherwise, if no one holds on to the kv rules, it will be garbage collected.
  • During binding, local and global variables that are potentially bound are assumed to not be None as for performance reasons it’s not practical to check each local whether it’s None. But deeper variables, e.g. widget in self.widget.x will be inspected and only bound if not None.

Explain that the with KvRule and with KvContext are magic, not real context manager. Actually entering will raise error.

style guide: try to keep kv code from mixing with other code save the ctx

Theming Demo

Following is a demo of how theming may work with this proposal. Consider the following two classes, the first may be considered to have a default theme, the second wants to overwrite the theme.

class MyWidgetTheme(Widget):

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MyWidgetTheme, self).__init__(__no_builder=True, **kwargs)
        self.build_kv()

    @kv()
    def build_kv(self):
        with KvContext():
            self.x @= self.y

class MyWidgetThemeMaterialDesign(MyWidgetTheme):
    @kv()
    def build_kv(self):
        with KvContext():
            self.x @= self.width

When run, we get the following:

>>> w = MyWidgetTheme()
>>> print(w.x, w.y, w.width)
0 0 100
>>> w.y = 46
>>> print(w.x, w.y, w.width)
46 46 100

>>> themed_widget = MyWidgetThemeMaterialDesign()
>>> print(themed_widget.x, themed_widget.y, themed_widget.width)
100 0 100
>>> themed_widget.y = 43
>>> print(themed_widget.x, themed_widget.y, themed_widget.width)
100 43 100
>>> themed_widget.width = 25
>>> print(themed_widget.x, themed_widget.y, themed_widget.width)
25 43 25

As can be seen, the two “themed” widgets, each apply their own rule. In other words, we can use the full power of python inheritance with kv rules for theming.

Example of full widget with traditional kv vs the proposed syntax.

Following is the traditional description of Label’s kv rule

Here it is with the proposed new syntax.

@kv()
def apply_kv(self):
    with self.canvas:
        Color(1, 1, 1, 1)
        rect = Rectangle()

    with KvContext():
        rect.texture @= self.texture
        rect.size @= self.texture_size
        rect.pos @= int(self.center_x - self.texture_size[0] / 2.), int(self.center_y - self.texture_size[1] / 2.)

Following is the traditional description of Button’s kv rule

Here it is with the proposed new syntax.

@kv()
def apply_kv(self):
    with self.canvas:
        color = Color()
        border = BorderImage()
        Color(1, 1, 1, 1)
        rect = Rectangle()

    with KvContext():
        self.state_image @= self.background_normal if self.state == 'normal' else self.background_down
        self.disabled_image @= self.background_disabled_normal if self.state == 'normal' else self.background_disabled_down
        color.rgba @= self.background_color

        border.border @= self.border
        border.pos @= self.pos
        bordersize @= self.size
        border.source @= self.disabled_image if self.disabled else self.state_image

        rect.texture @= self.texture
        rect.size @= self.texture_size
        rect.pos @= int(self.center_x - self.texture_size[0] / 2.), int(self.center_y - self.texture_size[1] / 2.)

As one can, they look very similar, but the python syntax can be more easily integrated into the rest of the widget’s python code.

Things to work out

  • To compile a function, we need to be able to load the source using the inspect module. Are the situations where the source code is not available? If we cannot find source code, should we just provide a way/place to look for previously compiled files and use that instead? How exactly will that work?
  • I chose to save each compiled function into its own file. I don’t really see issues with that, and there’s also no clear reasonable way currently to combine all the compiled functions of a file into a single file. So unless this becomes an issue, single file per function seems reasonable.
  • If we were to use this for theming, we will need to come up with standard function names that apply the kv rules, and perhaps a variable that keeps the kv context for ease of rebinding.

Tutorials

Pong Game Tutorial

Introduction

Welcome to the Pong tutorial

This tutorial will teach you how to write pong using Kivy. We’ll start with a basic application like the one described in the Create an application and turn it into a playable pong game, describing each step along the way.

_images/pong.jpg

Here is a check list before starting this tutorial:

  • You have a working Kivy installation. See the Installation section for detailed descriptions
  • You know how to run a basic Kivy application. See Create an application if you don’t.

If you have read the programming guide, and understand both basic Widget concepts (A Simple Paint App) and basic concepts of the kv language (Kv language), you can probably skip the first 2 steps and go straight to step 3.

Note

You can find the entire source code, and source code files for each step in the Kivy examples directory under tutorials/pong/

Ready? Sweet, let’s get started!

Getting Started

Getting Started

Let’s start by getting a really simple Kivy app up and running. Create a directory for the game and a file named main.py

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from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget


class PongGame(Widget):
    pass


class PongApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return PongGame()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    PongApp().run()

Go ahead and run the application. It should just show a black window at this point. What we’ve done is create a very simple Kivy App, which creates an instance of our PongGame Widget class and returns it as the root element for the applications UI, which you should imagine at this point as a hierarchical tree of Widgets. Kivy places this widget-tree in the default Window. In the next step, we will draw the Pong background and scores by defining how the PongGame widget looks.

Add Simple Graphics

Creation of pong.kv

We will use a .kv file to define the look and feel of the PongGame class. Since our App class is called PongApp, we can simply create a file called pong.kv in the same directory that will be automatically loaded when the application is run. So create a new file called ``pong.kv`` and add the following contents.

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#:kivy 1.0.9

<PongGame>:    
    canvas:
        Rectangle:
            pos: self.center_x - 5, 0
            size: 10, self.height
            
    Label:
        font_size: 70  
        center_x: root.width / 4
        top: root.top - 50
        text: "0"
        
    Label:
        font_size: 70  
        center_x: root.width * 3 / 4
        top: root.top - 50
        text: "0"

Note

COMMON ERROR: The name of the kv file, e.g. pong.kv, must match the name of the app, e.g. PongApp (the part before the App ending).

If you run the app now, you should see a vertical bar in the middle, and two zeros where the player scores will be displayed.

Explaining the Kv File Syntax

Before going on to the next step, you might want to take a closer look at the contents of the kv file we just created and figure out what is going on. If you understand what’s happening, you can probably skip ahead to the next step.

On the very first line we have:

#:kivy 1.0.9

This first line is required in every kv file. It should start with #:kivy followed by a space and the Kivy version it is intended for (so Kivy can make sure you have at least the required version, or handle backwards compatibility later on).

After that, we begin defining rules that are applied to all PongGame instances:

<PongGame>:
    ...

Like Python, kv files use indentation to define nested blocks. A block defined with a class name inside the < and > characters is a Widget rule. It will be applied to any instance of the named class. If you replaced PongGame with Widget in our example, all Widget instances would have the vertical line and the two Label widgets inside them because it would define these rules for all Widget instances.

Inside a rule section, you can add various blocks to define the style and contents of the widgets they will be applied to. You can:

  • set property values,
  • add child widgets
  • define a canvas section in which you can add Graphics instructions that define how the widget is rendered.

The first block inside the <PongGame> rule we have is a canvas block:

<PongGame>:
    canvas:
        Rectangle:
            pos: self.center_x - 5, 0
            size: 10, self.height

So this canvas block says that the PongGame widget should draw some graphics primitives. In this case, we add a rectangle to the canvas. We set the pos of the rectangle to be 5 pixels left of the horizontal center of the widget, and 0 for y. The size of the rectangle is set to 10 pixels in width, and the widget’s height in height. The nice thing about defining the graphics like this, is that the rendered rectangle will be automatically updated when the properties of any widgets used in the value expression change.

Note

Try to resize the application window and notice what happens. That’s right, the entire UI resizes automatically. The standard behaviour of the Window is to resize an element based on its property size_hint. The default widget size_hint is (1,1), meaning it will be stretched 100% in both x-direction and y-direction and hence fill the available space. Since the pos and size of the rectangle and center_x and top of the score labels were defined within the context of the PongGame class, these properties will automatically update when the corresponding widget properties change. Using the Kv language gives you automatic property binding. :)

The last two sections we add look pretty similar. Each of them adds a Label widget as a child widget to the PongGame widget. For now, the text on both of them is just set to “0”. We’ll hook that up to the actual score once we have the logic implemented, but the labels already look good since we set a bigger font_size, and positioned them relatively to the root widget. The root keyword can be used inside the child block to refer back to the parent/root widget the rule applies to (PongGame in this case):

<PongGame>:
    # ...

    Label:
        font_size: 70
        center_x: root.width / 4
        top: root.top - 50
        text: "0"

    Label:
        font_size: 70
        center_x: root.width * 3 / 4
        top: root.top - 50
        text: "0"

Add the Ball

Add the Ball

Ok, so we have a basic pong arena to play in, but we still need the players and a ball to hit around. Let’s start with the ball. We’ll add a new PongBall class to create a widget that will be our ball and make it bounce around.

PongBall Class

Here is the Python code for the PongBall class:

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class PongBall(Widget):

    # velocity of the ball on x and y axis
    velocity_x = NumericProperty(0)
    velocity_y = NumericProperty(0)

    # referencelist property so we can use ball.velocity as
    # a shorthand, just like e.g. w.pos for w.x and w.y
    velocity = ReferenceListProperty(velocity_x, velocity_y)

    # ``move`` function will move the ball one step. This
    #  will be called in equal intervals to animate the ball
    def move(self):
        self.pos = Vector(*self.velocity) + self.pos

And here is the kv rule used to draw the ball as a white circle:

<PongBall>:
    size: 50, 50
    canvas:
        Ellipse:
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size

To make it all work, you also have to add the imports for the Properties Property classes used and the Vector.

Here is the entire updated python code and kv file for this step:

main.py:
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from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
from kivy.properties import NumericProperty, ReferenceListProperty
from kivy.vector import Vector


class PongBall(Widget):
    velocity_x = NumericProperty(0)
    velocity_y = NumericProperty(0)
    velocity = ReferenceListProperty(velocity_x, velocity_y)

    def move(self):
        self.pos = Vector(*self.velocity) + self.pos


class PongGame(Widget):
    pass


class PongApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return PongGame()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    PongApp().run()
pong.kv:
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#:kivy 1.0.9

<PongBall>:
    size: 50, 50 
    canvas:
        Ellipse:
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size          

<PongGame>:
    canvas:
        Rectangle:
            pos: self.center_x - 5, 0
            size: 10, self.height
    
    Label:
        font_size: 70  
        center_x: root.width / 4
        top: root.top - 50
        text: "0"
        
    Label:
        font_size: 70  
        center_x: root.width * 3 / 4
        top: root.top - 50
        text: "0"
    
    PongBall:
        center: self.parent.center

Note that not only a <PongBall> widget rule has been added, but also a child widget PongBall in the <PongGame> widget rule.

Adding Ball Animation

Making the ball move

Cool, so now we have a ball, and it even has a move function… but it’s not moving yet. Let’s fix that.

Scheduling Functions on the Clock

We need the move method of our ball to be called regularly. Luckily, Kivy makes this pretty easy by letting us schedule any function we want using the Clock and specifying the interval:

Clock.schedule_interval(game.update, 1.0/60.0)

This line for example, would cause the update function of the game object to be called once every 60th of a second (60 times per second).

Object Properties/References

We have another problem though. We’d like to make sure the PongBall has its move function called regularly, but in our code we don’t have any references to the ball object since we just added it via the kv file inside the kv rule for the PongGame class. The only reference to our game is the one we return in the applications build method.

Since we’re going to have to do more than just move the ball (e.g. bounce it off the walls and later the players racket), we’ll probably need an update method for our PongGame class anyway. Furthermore, given that we have a reference to the game object already, we can easily schedule its new update method when the application gets built:

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class PongGame(Widget):

    def update(self, dt):
        # call ball.move and other stuff
        pass

class PongApp(App):

    def build(self):
        game = PongGame()
        Clock.schedule_interval(game.update, 1.0/60.0)
        return game

However, that still doesn’t change the fact that we don’t have a reference to the PongBall child widget created by the kv rule. To fix this, we can add an ObjectProperty to the PongGame class, and hook it up to the widget created in the kv rule. Once that’s done, we can easily reference the ball property inside the update method and even make it bounce off the edges:

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class PongGame(Widget):
    ball = ObjectProperty(None)

    def update(self, dt):
        self.ball.move()

        # bounce off top and bottom
        if (self.ball.y < 0) or (self.ball.top > self.height):
            self.ball.velocity_y *= -1

        # bounce off left and right
        if (self.ball.x < 0) or (self.ball.right > self.width):
            self.ball.velocity_x *= -1

Don’t forget to hook it up in the kv file, by giving the child widget an id and setting the PongGame’s ball ObjectProperty to that id:

<PongGame>:
    ball: pong_ball

    # ... (canvas and Labels)

    PongBall:
        id: pong_ball
        center: self.parent.center

Note

At this point everything is hooked up for the ball to bounce around. If you’re coding along as we go, you might be wondering why the ball isn’t moving anywhere. The ball’s velocity is set to 0 on both x and y. In the code listing below, a serve_ball method is added to the PongGame class and called in the app’s build method. It sets a random x and y velocity for the ball, and also resets the position, so we can use it later to reset the ball when a player has scored a point.

Here is the entire code for this step:

main.py:
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from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
from kivy.properties import (
    NumericProperty, ReferenceListProperty, ObjectProperty
)
from kivy.vector import Vector
from kivy.clock import Clock
from random import randint


class PongBall(Widget):
    velocity_x = NumericProperty(0)
    velocity_y = NumericProperty(0)
    velocity = ReferenceListProperty(velocity_x, velocity_y)

    def move(self):
        self.pos = Vector(*self.velocity) + self.pos


class PongGame(Widget):
    ball = ObjectProperty(None)

    def serve_ball(self):
        self.ball.center = self.center
        self.ball.velocity = Vector(4, 0).rotate(randint(0, 360))

    def update(self, dt):
        self.ball.move()

        # bounce off top and bottom
        if (self.ball.y < 0) or (self.ball.top > self.height):
            self.ball.velocity_y *= -1

        # bounce off left and right
        if (self.ball.x < 0) or (self.ball.right > self.width):
            self.ball.velocity_x *= -1


class PongApp(App):
    def build(self):
        game = PongGame()
        game.serve_ball()
        Clock.schedule_interval(game.update, 1.0 / 60.0)
        return game


if __name__ == '__main__':
    PongApp().run()
pong.kv:
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#:kivy 1.0.9

<PongBall>:
    size: 50, 50 
    canvas:
        Ellipse:
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size          

<PongGame>:
    ball: pong_ball
    
    canvas:
        Rectangle:
            pos: self.center_x - 5, 0
            size: 10, self.height
    
    Label:
        font_size: 70  
        center_x: root.width / 4
        top: root.top - 50
        text: "0"
        
    Label:
        font_size: 70  
        center_x: root.width * 3 / 4
        top: root.top - 50
        text: "0"
    
    PongBall:
        id: pong_ball
        center: self.parent.center

Connect Input Events

Adding Players and reacting to touch input

Sweet, our ball is bouncing around. The only things missing now are the movable player rackets and keeping track of the score. We won’t go over all the details of creating the class and kv rules again, since those concepts were already covered in the previous steps. Instead, let’s focus on how to move the Player widgets in response to user input. You can get the whole code and kv rules for the PongPaddle class at the end of this section.

In Kivy, a widget can react to input by implementing the on_touch_down, the on_touch_move and the on_touch_up methods. By default, the Widget class implements these methods by just calling the corresponding method on all its child widgets to pass on the event until one of the children returns True.

Pong is pretty simple. The rackets just need to move up and down. In fact it’s so simple, we don’t even really need to have the player widgets handle the events themselves. We’ll just implement the on_touch_move function for the PongGame class and have it set the position of the left or right player based on whether the touch occurred on the left or right side of the screen.

Check the on_touch_move handler:

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def on_touch_move(self, touch):
    if touch.x < self.width/3:
        self.player1.center_y = touch.y
    if touch.x > self.width - self.width/3:
        self.player2.center_y = touch.y

We’ll keep the score for each player in a NumericProperty. The score labels of the PongGame are kept updated by changing the NumericProperty score, which in turn updates the PongGame child labels text property. This binding occurs because Kivy properties automatically bind to any references in their corresponding kv files. When the ball escapes out of the sides, we’ll update the score and serve the ball again by changing the update method in the PongGame class. The PongPaddle class also implements a bounce_ball method, so that the ball bounces differently based on where it hits the racket. Here is the code for the PongPaddle class:

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class PongPaddle(Widget):

    score = NumericProperty(0)

    def bounce_ball(self, ball):
        if self.collide_widget(ball):
            speedup  = 1.1
            offset = 0.02 * Vector(0, ball.center_y-self.center_y)
            ball.velocity =  speedup * (offset - ball.velocity)

Note

This algorithm for ball bouncing is very simple, but will have strange behavior if the ball hits the paddle from the side or bottom…this is something you could try to fix yourself if you like.

And here it is in context. Pretty much done:

main.py:
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from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
from kivy.properties import (
    NumericProperty, ReferenceListProperty, ObjectProperty
)
from kivy.vector import Vector
from kivy.clock import Clock


class PongPaddle(Widget):
    score = NumericProperty(0)

    def bounce_ball(self, ball):
        if self.collide_widget(ball):
            vx, vy = ball.velocity
            offset = (ball.center_y - self.center_y) / (self.height / 2)
            bounced = Vector(-1 * vx, vy)
            vel = bounced * 1.1
            ball.velocity = vel.x, vel.y + offset


class PongBall(Widget):
    velocity_x = NumericProperty(0)
    velocity_y = NumericProperty(0)
    velocity = ReferenceListProperty(velocity_x, velocity_y)

    def move(self):
        self.pos = Vector(*self.velocity) + self.pos


class PongGame(Widget):
    ball = ObjectProperty(None)
    player1 = ObjectProperty(None)
    player2 = ObjectProperty(None)

    def serve_ball(self, vel=(4, 0)):
        self.ball.center = self.center
        self.ball.velocity = vel

    def update(self, dt):
        self.ball.move()

        # bounce of paddles
        self.player1.bounce_ball(self.ball)
        self.player2.bounce_ball(self.ball)

        # bounce ball off bottom or top
        if (self.ball.y < self.y) or (self.ball.top > self.top):
            self.ball.velocity_y *= -1

        # went of to a side to score point?
        if self.ball.x < self.x:
            self.player2.score += 1
            self.serve_ball(vel=(4, 0))
        if self.ball.x > self.width:
            self.player1.score += 1
            self.serve_ball(vel=(-4, 0))

    def on_touch_move(self, touch):
        if touch.x < self.width / 3:
            self.player1.center_y = touch.y
        if touch.x > self.width - self.width / 3:
            self.player2.center_y = touch.y


class PongApp(App):
    def build(self):
        game = PongGame()
        game.serve_ball()
        Clock.schedule_interval(game.update, 1.0 / 60.0)
        return game


if __name__ == '__main__':
    PongApp().run()

pong.kv:

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#:kivy 1.0.9

<PongBall>:
    size: 50, 50 
    canvas:
        Ellipse:
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size          

<PongPaddle>:
    size: 25, 200
    canvas:
        Rectangle:
            pos:self.pos
            size:self.size

<PongGame>:
    ball: pong_ball
    player1: player_left
    player2: player_right
    
    canvas:
        Rectangle:
            pos: self.center_x - 5, 0
            size: 10, self.height
    
    Label:
        font_size: 70  
        center_x: root.width / 4
        top: root.top - 50
        text: str(root.player1.score)
        
    Label:
        font_size: 70  
        center_x: root.width * 3 / 4
        top: root.top - 50
        text: str(root.player2.score)
    
    PongBall:
        id: pong_ball
        center: self.parent.center
        
    PongPaddle:
        id: player_left
        x: root.x
        center_y: root.center_y
        
    PongPaddle:
        id: player_right
        x: root.width - self.width
        center_y: root.center_y

Where To Go Now?

Have some fun

Well, the pong game is pretty much complete. If you understood all of the things that are covered in this tutorial, give yourself a pat on the back and think about how you could improve the game. Here are a few ideas of things you could do:

  • Add some nicer graphics / images. (Hint: check out the source property on the graphics instructions like circle or Rectangle, to set an image as the texture.)
  • Make the game end after a certain score. Maybe once a player has 10 points, you can display a large “PLAYER 1 WINS” label and/or add a main menu to start, pause and reset the game. (Hint: check out the Button and Label classes, and figure out how to use their add_widget and remove_widget functions to add or remove widgets dynamically.
  • Make it a 4 player Pong Game. Most tablets have Multi-Touch support, so wouldn’t it be cool to have a player on each side and have four people play at the same time?
  • Fix the simplistic collision check so hitting the ball with an end of the paddle results in a more realistic bounce.

Note

You can find the entire source code and source code files for each step in the Kivy examples directory under tutorials/pong/

A Simple Paint App

In the following tutorial, you will be guided through the creation of your first widget. This provides powerful and important knowledge when programming Kivy applications, as it lets you create completely new user interfaces with custom elements for your specific purpose.

Basic Considerations

When creating an application, you have to ask yourself three important questions:

  • What data does my application process?
  • How do I visually represent that data?
  • How does the user interact with that data?

If you want to write a very simple line drawing application for example, you most likely want the user to just draw on the screen with his/her fingers. That’s how the user interacts with your application. While doing so, your application would memorize the positions where the user’s finger were, so that you can later draw lines between those positions. So the points where the fingers were would be your data and the lines that you draw between them would be your visual representation.

In Kivy, an application’s user interface is composed of Widgets. Everything that you see on the screen is somehow drawn by a widget. Often you would like to be able to reuse code that you already wrote in a different context, which is why widgets typically represent one specific instance that answers the three questions above. A widget encapsulates data, defines the user’s interaction with that data and draws its visual representation. You can build anything from simple to complex user interfaces by nesting widgets. There are many widgets built in, such as buttons, sliders and other common stuff. In many cases, however, you need a custom widget that is beyond the scope of what is shipped with Kivy (e.g. a medical visualization widget).

So keep these three questions in mind when you design your widgets. Try to write them in a minimal and reusable manner (i.e. a widget does exactly what its supposed to do and nothing more. If you need more, write more widgets or compose other widgets of smaller widgets. We try to adhere to the Single Responsibility Principle).

Paint Widget

We’re sure one of your childhood dreams has always been creating your own multitouch paint program. Allow us to help you achieve that. In the following sections you will successively learn how to write a program like that using Kivy. Make sure that you have read and understood Create an application. You have? Great! Let’s get started!

Initial Structure

Let’s start by writing the very basic code structure that we need. By the way, all the different pieces of code that are used in this section are also available in the examples/guide/firstwidget directory that comes with Kivy, so you don’t need to copy & paste it all the time. Here is the basic code skeleton that we will need:

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from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget


class MyPaintWidget(Widget):
    pass


class MyPaintApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return MyPaintWidget()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    MyPaintApp().run()

This is actually really simple. Save it as paint.py. If you run it, you should only see a black screen. As you can see, instead of using a built-in widget such as a Button (see Create an application), we are going to write our own widget to do the drawing. We do that by creating a class that inherits from Widget (line 5-6) and although that class does nothing yet, we can still treat it like a normal Kivy widget (line 11). The if __name__ ... construct (line 14) is a Python mechanism that prevents you from executing the code in the if-statement when importing from the file, i.e. if you write import paint, it won’t do something unexpected but just nicely provide the classes defined in the file.

Note

You may be wondering why you have to import App and Widget separately, instead of doing something like from kivy import *. While shorter, this would have the disadvantage of polluting your namespace and make the start of the application potentially much slower. It can also introduce ambiguity into class and variable naming, so is generally frowned upon in the Python community. The way we do it is faster and cleaner.

Adding Behaviour

Let’s now add some actual behaviour to the widget, i.e. make it react to user input. Change the code like so:

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from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget


class MyPaintWidget(Widget):
    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        print(touch)


class MyPaintApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return MyPaintWidget()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    MyPaintApp().run()

This is just to show how easy it is to react to user input. When a MotionEvent (i.e. a touch, click, etc.) occurs, we simply print the information about the touch object to the console. You won’t see anything on the screen, but if you observe the command-line from which you are running the program, you will see a message for every touch. This also demonstrates that a widget does not have to have a visual representation.

Now that’s not really an overwhelming user experience. Let’s add some code that actually draws something into our window:

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from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
from kivy.graphics import Color, Ellipse


class MyPaintWidget(Widget):

    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        with self.canvas:
            Color(1, 1, 0)
            d = 30.
            Ellipse(pos=(touch.x - d / 2, touch.y - d / 2), size=(d, d))


class MyPaintApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return MyPaintWidget()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    MyPaintApp().run()
_images/guide-3.jpg

If you run your code with these modifications, you will see that every time you touch, there will be a small yellow circle drawn where you touched. How does it work?

  • Line 9: We use Python’s with statement with the widget’s Canvas object. This is like an area in which the widget can draw things to represent itself on the screen. By using the with statement with it, all successive drawing commands that are properly indented will modify this canvas. The with statement also makes sure that after our drawing, internal state can be cleaned up properly.
  • Line 10: You might have guessed it already: This sets the Color for successive drawing operations to yellow (default color format is RGB, so (1, 1, 0) is yellow). This is true until another Color is set. Think of this as dipping your brushes in that color, which you can then use to draw on a canvas until you dip the brushes into another color.
  • Line 11: We specify the diameter for the circle that we are about to draw. Using a variable for that is preferable since we need to refer to that value multiple times and we don’t want to have to change it in several places if we want the circle bigger or smaller.
  • Line 12: To draw a circle, we simply draw an Ellipse with equal width and height. Since we want the circle to be drawn where the user touches, we pass the touch’s position to the ellipse. Note that we need to shift the ellipse by -d/2 in the x and y directions (i.e. left and downwards) because the position specifies the bottom left corner of the ellipse’s bounding box, and we want it to be centered around our touch.

That was easy, wasn’t it? It gets better! Update the code to look like this:

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from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
from kivy.graphics import Color, Ellipse, Line


class MyPaintWidget(Widget):

    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        with self.canvas:
            Color(1, 1, 0)
            d = 30.
            Ellipse(pos=(touch.x - d / 2, touch.y - d / 2), size=(d, d))
            touch.ud['line'] = Line(points=(touch.x, touch.y))

    def on_touch_move(self, touch):
        touch.ud['line'].points += [touch.x, touch.y]


class MyPaintApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return MyPaintWidget()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    MyPaintApp().run()
_images/guide-4.jpg
This is what has changed:
  • Line 3: We now not only import the Ellipse drawing instruction, but also the Line drawing instruction. If you look at the documentation for Line, you will see that it accepts a points argument that has to be a list of 2D point coordinates, like (x1, y1, x2, y2, ..., xN, yN).
  • Line 13: This is where it gets interesting. touch.ud is a Python dictionary (type <dict>) that allows us to store custom attributes for a touch.
  • Line 13: We make use of the Line instruction that we imported and set a Line up for drawing. Since this is done in on_touch_down, there will be a new line for every new touch. By creating the line inside the with block, the canvas automatically knows about the line and will draw it. We just want to modify the line later, so we store a reference to it in the touch.ud dictionary under the arbitrarily chosen but aptly named key ‘line’. We pass the line that we’re creating the initial touch position because that’s where our line will begin.
  • Lines 15: We add a new method to our widget. This is similar to the on_touch_down method, but instead of being called when a new touch occurs, this method is being called when an existing touch (for which on_touch_down was already called) moves, i.e. its position changes. Note that this is the same MotionEvent object with updated attributes. This is something we found incredibly handy and you will shortly see why.
  • Line 16: Remember: This is the same touch object that we got in on_touch_down, so we can simply access the data we stored away in the touch.ud dictionary! To the line we set up for this touch earlier, we now add the current position of the touch as a new point. We know that we need to extend the line because this happens in on_touch_move, which is only called when the touch has moved, which is exactly why we want to update the line. Storing the line in the touch.ud makes it a whole lot easier for us as we don’t have to maintain our own touch-to-line bookkeeping.

So far so good. This isn’t exactly beautiful yet, though. It looks a bit like spaghetti bolognese. How about giving each touch its own color? Great, let’s do it:

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from random import random
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
from kivy.graphics import Color, Ellipse, Line


class MyPaintWidget(Widget):

    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        color = (random(), random(), random())
        with self.canvas:
            Color(*color)
            d = 30.
            Ellipse(pos=(touch.x - d / 2, touch.y - d / 2), size=(d, d))
            touch.ud['line'] = Line(points=(touch.x, touch.y))

    def on_touch_move(self, touch):
        touch.ud['line'].points += [touch.x, touch.y]


class MyPaintApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return MyPaintWidget()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    MyPaintApp().run()
_images/guide-5.jpg

Here are the changes:

  • Line 1: We import Python’s random() function that will give us random values in the range of [0., 1.).
  • Line 10: In this case we simply create a new tuple of 3 random float values that will represent a random RGB color. Since we do this in on_touch_down, every new touch will get its own color. Don’t get confused by the use of tuples. We’re just binding the tuple to color for use as a shortcut within this method because we’re lazy.
  • Line 12: As before, we set the color for the canvas. Only this time we use the random values we generated and feed them to the color class using Python’s tuple unpacking syntax (since the Color class expects three individual color components instead of just 1. If we were to pass the tuple directly, that would be just 1 value being passed, regardless of the fact that the tuple itself contains 3 values).

This looks a lot nicer already! With a lot of skill and patience, you might even be able to create a nice little drawing!

Note

Since by default the Color instructions assume RGB mode and we’re feeding a tuple with three random float values to it, it might very well happen that we end up with a lot of dark or even black colors if we are unlucky. That would be bad because by default the background color is dark as well, so you wouldn’t be able to (easily) see the lines you draw. There is a nice trick to prevent this: Instead of creating a tuple with three random values, create a tuple like this: (random(), 1., 1.). Then, when passing it to the color instruction, set the mode to HSV color space: Color(*color, mode='hsv'). This way you will have a smaller number of possible colors, but the colors that you get will always be equally bright: only the hue changes.

Bonus Points

At this point, we could say we are done. The widget does what it’s supposed to do: it traces the touches and draws lines. It even draws circles at the positions where a line begins.

But what if the user wants to start a new drawing? With the current code, the only way to clear the window would be to restart the entire application. Luckily, we can do better. Let us add a Clear button that erases all the lines and circles that have been drawn so far. There are two options now:

  • We could either create the button as a child of our widget. That would imply that if you create more than one widget, every widget gets its own button. If you’re not careful, this will also allow users to draw on top of the button, which might not be what you want.
  • Or we set up the button only once, initially, in our app class and when it’s pressed we clear the widget.

For our simple example, it doesn’t really matter that much. For larger applications you should give some thought to who does what in your app. We’ll go with the second option here so that you see how you can build up your application’s widget tree in your app class’s build() method. We’ll also change to the HSV color space (see preceding note):

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from random import random
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
from kivy.uix.button import Button
from kivy.graphics import Color, Ellipse, Line


class MyPaintWidget(Widget):

    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        color = (random(), 1, 1)
        with self.canvas:
            Color(*color, mode='hsv')
            d = 30.
            Ellipse(pos=(touch.x - d / 2, touch.y - d / 2), size=(d, d))
            touch.ud['line'] = Line(points=(touch.x, touch.y))

    def on_touch_move(self, touch):
        touch.ud['line'].points += [touch.x, touch.y]


class MyPaintApp(App):

    def build(self):
        parent = Widget()
        self.painter = MyPaintWidget()
        clearbtn = Button(text='Clear')
        clearbtn.bind(on_release=self.clear_canvas)
        parent.add_widget(self.painter)
        parent.add_widget(clearbtn)
        return parent

    def clear_canvas(self, obj):
        self.painter.canvas.clear()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    MyPaintApp().run()
_images/guide-6.jpg

Here’s what happens:

  • Line 4: We added an import statement to be able to use the Button class.
  • Line 25: We create a dummy Widget() object as a parent for both our painting widget and the button we’re about to add. This is just a poor-man’s approach to setting up a widget tree hierarchy. We could just as well use a layout or do some other fancy stuff. Again: this widget does absolutely nothing except holding the two widgets we will now add to it as children.
  • Line 26: We create our MyPaintWidget() as usual, only this time we don’t return it directly but bind it to a variable name.
  • Line 27: We create a button widget. It will have a label on it that displays the text ‘Clear’.
  • Line 28: We then bind the button’s on_release event (which is fired when the button is pressed and then released) to the callback function clear_canvas defined on below on Lines 33 & 34.
  • Line 29 & 30: We set up the widget hierarchy by making both the painter and the clearbtn children of the dummy parent widget. That means painter and clearbtn are now siblings in the usual computer science tree terminology.
  • Line 33 & 34: Up to now, the button did nothing. It was there, visible, and you could press it, but nothing would happen. We change that here: we create a small, throw-away function that is going to be our callback function when the button is pressed. The function just clears the painter’s canvas’ contents, making it black again.

Note

The Kivy Widget class, by design, is kept simple. There are no general properties such as background color and border color. Instead, the examples and documentation illustrate how to easily handle such simple things yourself, as we have done here, setting the color for the canvas, and drawing the shape. From a simple start, you can move to more elaborate customization. Higher-level built-in widgets, deriving from Widget, such as Button, do have convenience properties such as background_color, but these vary by widget. Use the API docs to see what is offered by a widget, and subclass if you need to add more functionality.

Congratulations! You’ve written your first Kivy widget. Obviously this was just a quick introduction. There is much more to discover. We suggest taking a short break to let what you just learned sink in. Maybe draw some nice pictures to relax? If you feel like you’ve understood everything and are ready for more, we encourage you to read on.

Crash Course

The Kivy Crash Course is a series of YouTube video tutorials by Kivy core developer inclement. They provide a simple walkthrough in Kivy for users who know how to code in Python and is friendly to Python beginners. After the Pong and Paint tutorials, this set of videos covers basic features and techniques that can be used to create your app quicker, keeping your code elegant and eye-friendly.

Basic Info

The Crash Course primarily consists of a series of YouTube videos, each roughly 10 minutes long. There are also articles describing some of the videos and the code used in the videos.

Topics covered by the Crash Course include:
  • Use of the basic Kivy widgets such as the Label, Button, Scatter and TextInput
  • Building an app for android with python-for-android’s old toolchain
  • Binding functions to events
  • Using changes in variables on the go
  • Smart user interface (Kv language)
  • Properties
  • Canvas and drawing
  • Label with scrolling
  • Positioning and layouts
  • Animation and Clock
  • Accessing android API (pyjnius, plyer)
  • Settings panel (and building your own options)
  • ScreenManager

API Reference

The API reference is a lexicographic list of all the different classes, methods and features that Kivy offers.

Kivy framework

Kivy is an open source library for developing multi-touch applications. It is cross-platform (Linux/OSX/Windows/Android/iOS) and released under the terms of the MIT License.

It comes with native support for many multi-touch input devices, a growing library of multi-touch aware widgets and hardware accelerated OpenGL drawing. Kivy is designed to let you focus on building custom and highly interactive applications as quickly and easily as possible.

With Kivy, you can take full advantage of the dynamic nature of Python. There are thousands of high-quality, free libraries that can be integrated in your application. At the same time, performance-critical parts are implemented using Cython.

See http://kivy.org for more information.

kivy.require(version)[source]

Require can be used to check the minimum version required to run a Kivy application. For example, you can start your application code like this:

import kivy
kivy.require('1.0.1')

If a user attempts to run your application with a version of Kivy that is older than the specified version, an Exception is raised.

The Kivy version string is built like this:

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X.Y.Z[-tag[-tagrevision]]

X is the major version
Y is the minor version
Z is the bugfixes revision

The tag is optional, but may be one of ‘dev’, ‘alpha’, or ‘beta’. The tagrevision is the revision of the tag.

Warning

You must not ask for a version with a tag, except -dev. Asking for a ‘dev’ version will just warn the user if the current Kivy version is not a -dev, but it will never raise an exception. You must not ask for a version with a tagrevision.

kivy.kivy_configure()[source]

Call post-configuration of Kivy. This function must be called if you create the window yourself.

kivy.kivy_register_post_configuration(callback)[source]

Register a function to be called when kivy_configure() is called.

Warning

Internal use only.

kivy.kivy_options = {'audio': ('gstplayer', 'pygame', 'ffpyplayer', 'sdl2', 'avplayer'), 'camera': ('opencv', 'gi', 'avfoundation', 'android', 'picamera'), 'clipboard': ('android', 'winctypes', 'xsel', 'xclip', 'dbusklipper', 'nspaste', 'sdl2', 'pygame', 'dummy', 'gtk3'), 'image': ('tex', 'imageio', 'dds', 'sdl2', 'pygame', 'pil', 'ffpy', 'gif'), 'spelling': ('enchant', 'osxappkit'), 'text': ('pil', 'sdl2', 'pygame', 'sdlttf'), 'video': ('gstplayer', 'ffmpeg', 'ffpyplayer', 'null'), 'window': ('egl_rpi', 'sdl2', 'pygame', 'sdl', 'x11')}

Global settings options for kivy

kivy.kivy_base_dir = '/home/docs/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/matham-kivy/envs/ast_compile/lib/python3.5/site-packages/kivy'

Kivy directory

kivy.kivy_data_dir = '/home/docs/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/matham-kivy/envs/ast_compile/lib/python3.5/site-packages/kivy/data'

Kivy data directory

kivy.kivy_shader_dir = '/home/docs/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/matham-kivy/envs/ast_compile/lib/python3.5/site-packages/kivy/data/glsl'

Kivy glsl shader directory

kivy.kivy_icons_dir = '/home/docs/checkouts/readthedocs.org/user_builds/matham-kivy/envs/ast_compile/lib/python3.5/site-packages/kivy/data/icons/'

Kivy icons config path (don’t remove the last ‘’)

kivy.kivy_home_dir = ''

Kivy user-home storage directory

kivy.kivy_config_fn = ''

Kivy configuration filename

kivy.kivy_usermodules_dir = ''

Kivy user modules directory

Animation

Animation and AnimationTransition are used to animate Widget properties. You must specify at least a property name and target value. To use an Animation, follow these steps:

  • Setup an Animation object
  • Use the Animation object on a Widget
Simple animation

To animate a Widget’s x or y position, simply specify the target x/y values where you want the widget positioned at the end of the animation:

anim = Animation(x=100, y=100)
anim.start(widget)

The animation will last for 1 second unless duration is specified. When anim.start() is called, the Widget will move smoothly from the current x/y position to (100, 100).

Multiple properties and transitions

You can animate multiple properties and use built-in or custom transition functions using transition (or the t= shortcut). For example, to animate the position and size using the ‘in_quad’ transition:

anim = Animation(x=50, size=(80, 80), t='in_quad')
anim.start(widget)

Note that the t= parameter can be the string name of a method in the AnimationTransition class or your own animation function.

Sequential animation

To join animations sequentially, use the ‘+’ operator. The following example will animate to x=50 over 1 second, then animate the size to (80, 80) over the next two seconds:

anim = Animation(x=50) + Animation(size=(80, 80), duration=2.)
anim.start(widget)
Parallel animation

To join animations in parallel, use the ‘&’ operator. The following example will animate the position to (80, 10) over 1 second, whilst in parallel animating the size to (800, 800):

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anim = Animation(pos=(80, 10))
anim &= Animation(size=(800, 800), duration=2.)
anim.start(widget)

Keep in mind that creating overlapping animations on the same property may have unexpected results. If you want to apply multiple animations to the same property, you should either schedule them sequentially (via the ‘+’ operator or using the on_complete callback) or cancel previous animations using the cancel_all method.

Repeating animation

New in version 1.8.0.

Note

This is currently only implemented for ‘Sequence’ animations.

To set an animation to repeat, simply set the Sequence.repeat property to True:

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anim = Animation(...) + Animation(...)
anim.repeat = True
anim.start(widget)

For flow control of animations such as stopping and cancelling, use the methods already in place in the animation module.

class kivy.animation.Animation(**kw)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Create an animation definition that can be used to animate a Widget.

Parameters:
duration or d: float, defaults to 1.

Duration of the animation, in seconds.

transition or t: str or func

Transition function for animate properties. It can be the name of a method from AnimationTransition.

step or s: float

Step in milliseconds of the animation. Defaults to 0, which means the animation is updated for every frame.

To update the animation less often, set the step value to a float. For example, if you want to animate at 30 FPS, use s=1/30.
Events:
on_start: animation, widget

Fired when the animation is started on a widget.

on_complete: animation, widget

Fired when the animation is completed or stopped on a widget.

on_progress: animation, widget, progression

Fired when the progression of the animation is changing.

Changed in version 1.4.0: Added s/step parameter.

Changed in version 1.10.0: The default value of the step parameter was changed from 1/60. to 0.

animated_properties

Return the properties used to animate.

cancel(widget)[source]

Cancel the animation previously applied to a widget. Same effect as stop, except the on_complete event will not be triggered!

New in version 1.4.0.

static cancel_all(widget, *largs)[source]

Cancel all animations that concern a specific widget / list of properties. See cancel.

Example:

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anim = Animation(x=50)
anim.start(widget)

# and later
Animation.cancel_all(widget, 'x')

New in version 1.4.0.

cancel_property(widget, prop)[source]

Even if an animation is running, remove a property. It will not be animated further. If it was the only/last property being animated, the animation will be canceled (see cancel)

New in version 1.4.0.

duration

Return the duration of the animation.

have_properties_to_animate(widget)[source]

Return True if a widget still has properties to animate.

New in version 1.8.0.

start(widget)[source]

Start the animation on a widget.

stop(widget)[source]

Stop the animation previously applied to a widget, triggering the on_complete event.

static stop_all(widget, *largs)[source]

Stop all animations that concern a specific widget / list of properties.

Example:

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anim = Animation(x=50)
anim.start(widget)

# and later
Animation.stop_all(widget, 'x')
stop_property(widget, prop)[source]

Even if an animation is running, remove a property. It will not be animated further. If it was the only/last property being animated, the animation will be stopped (see stop).

transition

Return the transition of the animation.

class kivy.animation.AnimationTransition[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Collection of animation functions to be used with the Animation object. Easing Functions ported to Kivy from the Clutter Project https://developer.gnome.org/clutter/stable/ClutterAlpha.html

The progress parameter in each animation function is in the range 0-1.

static in_back(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_back.png
static in_bounce(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_bounce.png
static in_circ(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_circ.png
static in_cubic(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_cubic.png
static in_elastic(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_elastic.png
static in_expo(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_expo.png
static in_out_back(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_out_back.png
static in_out_bounce(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_out_bounce.png
static in_out_circ(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_out_circ.png
static in_out_cubic(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_out_cubic.png
static in_out_elastic(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_out_elastic.png
static in_out_expo(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_out_expo.png
static in_out_quad(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_out_quad.png
static in_out_quart(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_out_quart.png
static in_out_quint(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_out_quint.png
static in_out_sine(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_out_sine.png
static in_quad(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_quad.png
static in_quart(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_quart.png
static in_quint(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_quint.png
static in_sine(progress)[source]
_images/anim_in_sine.png
static linear(progress)[source]
_images/anim_linear.png
static out_back(progress)[source]
_images/anim_out_back.png
static out_bounce(progress)[source]
_images/anim_out_bounce.png
static out_circ(progress)[source]
_images/anim_out_circ.png
static out_cubic(progress)[source]
_images/anim_out_cubic.png
static out_elastic(progress)[source]
_images/anim_out_elastic.png
static out_expo(progress)[source]
_images/anim_out_expo.png
static out_quad(progress)[source]
_images/anim_out_quad.png
static out_quart(progress)[source]
_images/anim_out_quart.png
static out_quint(progress)[source]
_images/anim_out_quint.png
static out_sine(progress)[source]
_images/anim_out_sine.png

Application

The App class is the base for creating Kivy applications. Think of it as your main entry point into the Kivy run loop. In most cases, you subclass this class and make your own app. You create an instance of your specific app class and then, when you are ready to start the application’s life cycle, you call your instance’s App.run() method.

Creating an Application
Method using build() override

To initialize your app with a widget tree, override the build() method in your app class and return the widget tree you constructed.

Here’s an example of a very simple application that just shows a button:

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'''
Application example using build() + return
==========================================

An application can be built if you return a widget on build(), or if you set
self.root.
'''

import kivy
kivy.require('1.0.7')

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.button import Button


class TestApp(App):

    def build(self):
        # return a Button() as a root widget
        return Button(text='hello world')


if __name__ == '__main__':
    TestApp().run()

The file is also available in the examples folder at kivy/examples/application/app_with_build.py.

Here, no widget tree was constructed (or if you will, a tree with only the root node).

Method using kv file

You can also use the Kivy Language for creating applications. The .kv can contain rules and root widget definitions at the same time. Here is the same example as the Button one in a kv file.

Contents of ‘test.kv’:

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#:kivy 1.0

Button:
    text: 'Hello from test.kv'

Contents of ‘main.py’:

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'''
Application built from a  .kv file
==================================

This shows how to implicitly use a .kv file for your application. You
should see a full screen button labelled "Hello from test.kv".

After Kivy instantiates a subclass of App, it implicitly searches for a .kv
file. The file test.kv is selected because the name of the subclass of App is
TestApp, which implies that kivy should try to load "test.kv". That file
contains a root Widget.
'''

import kivy
kivy.require('1.0.7')

from kivy.app import App


class TestApp(App):
    pass


if __name__ == '__main__':
    TestApp().run()

See kivy/examples/application/app_with_kv.py.

The relationship between main.py and test.kv is explained in App.load_kv().

Application configuration
Use the configuration file

Your application might need its own configuration file. The App class handles ‘ini’ files automatically if you add the section key-value pair to the App.build_config() method using the config parameter (an instance of ConfigParser):

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class TestApp(App):
    def build_config(self, config):
        config.setdefaults('section1', {
            'key1': 'value1',
            'key2': '42'
        })

As soon as you add one section to the config, a file is created on the disk (see get_application_config for its location) and named based your class name. “TestApp” will give a config file named “test.ini” with the content:

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[section1]
key1 = value1
key2 = 42

The “test.ini” will be automatically loaded at runtime and you can access the configuration in your App.build() method:

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class TestApp(App):
    def build_config(self, config):
        config.setdefaults('section1', {
            'key1': 'value1',
            'key2': '42'
        })

    def build(self):
        config = self.config
        return Label(text='key1 is %s and key2 is %d' % (
            config.get('section1', 'key1'),
            config.getint('section1', 'key2')))
Create a settings panel

Your application can have a settings panel to let your user configure some of your config tokens. Here is an example done in the KinectViewer example (available in the examples directory):

_images/app-settings.jpg

You can add your own panels of settings by extending the App.build_settings() method. Check the Settings about how to create a panel, because you need a JSON file / data first.

Let’s take as an example the previous snippet of TestApp with custom config. We could create a JSON like this:

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[
    { "type": "title",
      "title": "Test application" },

    { "type": "options",
      "title": "My first key",
      "desc": "Description of my first key",
      "section": "section1",
      "key": "key1",
      "options": ["value1", "value2", "another value"] },

    { "type": "numeric",
      "title": "My second key",
      "desc": "Description of my second key",
      "section": "section1",
      "key": "key2" }
]

Then, we can create a panel using this JSON to automatically create all the options and link them to our App.config ConfigParser instance:

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class TestApp(App):
    # ...
    def build_settings(self, settings):
        jsondata = """... put the json data here ..."""
        settings.add_json_panel('Test application',
            self.config, data=jsondata)

That’s all! Now you can press F1 (default keystroke) to toggle the settings panel or press the “settings” key on your android device. You can manually call App.open_settings() and App.close_settings() if you want to handle this manually. Every change in the panel is automatically saved in the config file.

You can also use App.build_settings() to modify properties of the settings panel. For instance, the default panel has a sidebar for switching between json panels whose width defaults to 200dp. If you’d prefer this to be narrower, you could add:

settings.interface.menu.width = dp(100)

to your build_settings() method.

You might want to know when a config value has been changed by the user in order to adapt or reload your UI. You can then overload the on_config_change() method:

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class TestApp(App):
    # ...
    def on_config_change(self, config, section, key, value):
        if config is self.config:
            token = (section, key)
            if token == ('section1', 'key1'):
                print('Our key1 has been changed to', value)
            elif token == ('section1', 'key2'):
                print('Our key2 has been changed to', value)

The Kivy configuration panel is added by default to the settings instance. If you don’t want this panel, you can declare your Application as follows:

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class TestApp(App):
    use_kivy_settings = False
    # ...

This only removes the Kivy panel but does not stop the settings instance from appearing. If you want to prevent the settings instance from appearing altogether, you can do this:

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class TestApp(App):
    def open_settings(self, *largs):
        pass

New in version 1.0.7.

Profiling with on_start and on_stop

It is often useful to profile python code in order to discover locations to optimise. The standard library profilers (http://docs.python.org/2/library/profile.html) provides multiple options for profiling code. For profiling the entire program, the natural approaches of using profile as a module or profile’s run method does not work with Kivy. It is however, possible to use App.on_start() and App.on_stop() methods:

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import cProfile

class MyApp(App):
    def on_start(self):
        self.profile = cProfile.Profile()
        self.profile.enable()

    def on_stop(self):
        self.profile.disable()
        self.profile.dump_stats('myapp.profile')

This will create a file called myapp.profile when you exit your app.

Customising layout

You can choose different settings widget layouts by setting App.settings_cls. By default, this is a Settings class which provides the pictured sidebar layout, but you could set it to any of the other layouts provided in kivy.uix.settings or create your own. See the module documentation for kivy.uix.settings for more information.

You can customise how the settings panel is displayed by overriding App.display_settings() which is called before displaying the settings panel on the screen. By default, it simply draws the panel on top of the window, but you could modify it to (for instance) show the settings in a Popup or add it to your app’s ScreenManager if you are using one. If you do so, you should also modify App.close_settings() to exit the panel appropriately. For instance, to have the settings panel appear in a popup you can do:

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def display_settings(self, settings):
    try:
        p = self.settings_popup
    except AttributeError:
        self.settings_popup = Popup(content=settings,
                                    title='Settings',
                                    size_hint=(0.8, 0.8))
        p = self.settings_popup
    if p.content is not settings:
        p.content = settings
    p.open()

def close_settings(self, *args):
    try:
        p = self.settings_popup
        p.dismiss()
    except AttributeError:
        pass # Settings popup doesn't exist

Finally, if you want to replace the current settings panel widget, you can remove the internal references to it using App.destroy_settings(). If you have modified App.display_settings(), you should be careful to detect if the settings panel has been replaced.

Pause mode

New in version 1.1.0.

On tablets and phones, the user can switch at any moment to another application. By default, your application will close and the App.on_stop() event will be fired.

If you support Pause mode, when switching to another application, your application will wait indefinitely until the user switches back to your application. There is an issue with OpenGL on Android devices: it is not guaranteed that the OpenGL ES Context will be restored when your app resumes. The mechanism for restoring all the OpenGL data is not yet implemented in Kivy.

The currently implemented Pause mechanism is:

  1. Kivy checks every frame if Pause mode is activated by the Operating System due to the user switching to another application, a phone shutdown or any other reason.
  2. App.on_pause() is called:
  3. If False is returned, then App.on_stop() is called.
  4. If True is returned (default case), the application will sleep until the OS resumes our App.
  5. When the app is resumed, App.on_resume() is called.
  6. If our app memory has been reclaimed by the OS, then nothing will be called.

Here is a simple example of how on_pause() should be used:

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class TestApp(App):

   def on_pause(self):
      # Here you can save data if needed
      return True

   def on_resume(self):
      # Here you can check if any data needs replacing (usually nothing)
      pass

Warning

Both on_pause and on_stop must save important data because after on_pause is called, on_resume may not be called at all.

class kivy.app.App(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Application class, see module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_start:

Fired when the application is being started (before the runTouchApp() call.

on_stop:

Fired when the application stops.

on_pause:

Fired when the application is paused by the OS.

on_resume:

Fired when the application is resumed from pause by the OS. Beware: you have no guarantee that this event will be fired after the on_pause event has been called.

Changed in version 1.7.0: Parameter kv_file added.

Changed in version 1.8.0: Parameters kv_file and kv_directory are now properties of App.

build()[source]

Initializes the application; it will be called only once. If this method returns a widget (tree), it will be used as the root widget and added to the window.

Returns:None or a root Widget instance if no self.root exists.
build_config(config)[source]

New in version 1.0.7.

This method is called before the application is initialized to construct your ConfigParser object. This is where you can put any default section / key / value for your config. If anything is set, the configuration will be automatically saved in the file returned by get_application_config().

Parameters:
config: ConfigParser

Use this to add default section / key / value items
build_settings(settings)[source]

New in version 1.0.7.

This method is called when the user (or you) want to show the application settings. It is called once when the settings panel is first opened, after which the panel is cached. It may be called again if the cached settings panel is removed by destroy_settings().

You can use this method to add settings panels and to customise the settings widget e.g. by changing the sidebar width. See the module documentation for full details.

Parameters:
settings: Settings

Settings instance for adding panels
close_settings(*largs)[source]

Close the previously opened settings panel.

Returns:True if the settings has been closed.
config = None

Returns an instance of the ConfigParser for the application configuration. You can use this to query some config tokens in the build() method.

create_settings()[source]

Create the settings panel. This method will normally be called only one time per application life-time and the result is cached internally, but it may be called again if the cached panel is removed by destroy_settings().

By default, it will build a settings panel according to settings_cls, call build_settings(), add a Kivy panel if use_kivy_settings is True, and bind to on_close/on_config_change.

If you want to plug your own way of doing settings, without the Kivy panel or close/config change events, this is the method you want to overload.

New in version 1.8.0.

destroy_settings()[source]

New in version 1.8.0.

Dereferences the current settings panel if one exists. This means that when App.open_settings() is next run, a new panel will be created and displayed. It doesn’t affect any of the contents of the panel, but lets you (for instance) refresh the settings panel layout if you have changed the settings widget in response to a screen size change.

If you have modified open_settings() or display_settings(), you should be careful to correctly detect if the previous settings widget has been destroyed.

directory

New in version 1.0.7.

Return the directory where the application lives.

display_settings(settings)[source]

New in version 1.8.0.

Display the settings panel. By default, the panel is drawn directly on top of the window. You can define other behaviour by overriding this method, such as adding it to a ScreenManager or Popup.

You should return True if the display is successful, otherwise False.

Parameters:
settings: Settings

You can modify this object in order to modify the settings display.
get_application_config(defaultpath='%(appdir)s/%(appname)s.ini')[source]

New in version 1.0.7.

Changed in version 1.4.0: Customized the default path for iOS and Android platforms. Added a defaultpath parameter for desktop OS’s (not applicable to iOS and Android.)

Return the filename of your application configuration. Depending on the platform, the application file will be stored in different locations:

  • on iOS: <appdir>/Documents/.<appname>.ini
  • on Android: /sdcard/.<appname>.ini
  • otherwise: <appdir>/<appname>.ini

When you are distributing your application on Desktops, please note that if the application is meant to be installed system-wide, the user might not have write-access to the application directory. If you want to store user settings, you should overload this method and change the default behavior to save the configuration file in the user directory.

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class TestApp(App):
    def get_application_config(self):
        return super(TestApp, self).get_application_config(
            '~/.%(appname)s.ini')

Some notes:

  • The tilda ‘~’ will be expanded to the user directory.
  • %(appdir)s will be replaced with the application directory
  • %(appname)s will be replaced with the application name
get_application_icon()[source]

Return the icon of the application.

get_application_name()[source]

Return the name of the application.

static get_running_app()[source]

Return the currently running application instance.

New in version 1.1.0.

icon

Icon of your application. The icon can be located in the same directory as your main file. You can set this as follows:

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class MyApp(App):
    def build(self):
        self.icon = 'myicon.png'

New in version 1.0.5.

Changed in version 1.8.0: icon is now a StringProperty. Don’t set the icon in the class as previously stated in the documentation.

Note

For Kivy prior to 1.8.0, you need to set this as follows:

class MyApp(App):
    icon = 'customicon.png'

Recommended 256x256 or 1024x1024? for GNU/Linux and Mac OSX 32x32 for Windows7 or less. <= 256x256 for windows 8 256x256 does work (on Windows 8 at least), but is scaled down and doesn’t look as good as a 32x32 icon.

kv_directory

Path of the directory where application kv is stored, defaults to None

New in version 1.8.0.

If a kv_directory is set, it will be used to get the initial kv file. By default, the file is assumed to be in the same directory as the current App definition file.

kv_file

Filename of the Kv file to load, defaults to None.

New in version 1.8.0.

If a kv_file is set, it will be loaded when the application starts. The loading of the “default” kv file will be prevented.

load_config()[source]

(internal) This function is used for returning a ConfigParser with the application configuration. It’s doing 3 things:

  1. Creating an instance of a ConfigParser
  2. Loading the default configuration by calling build_config(), then
  3. If it exists, it loads the application configuration file, otherwise it creates one.
Returns:ConfigParser instance
load_kv(filename=None)[source]

This method is invoked the first time the app is being run if no widget tree has been constructed before for this app. This method then looks for a matching kv file in the same directory as the file that contains the application class.

For example, say you have a file named main.py that contains:

class ShowcaseApp(App):
    pass

This method will search for a file named showcase.kv in the directory that contains main.py. The name of the kv file has to be the lowercase name of the class, without the ‘App’ postfix at the end if it exists.

You can define rules and a root widget in your kv file:

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<ClassName>: # this is a rule
    ...

ClassName: # this is a root widget
    ...

There must be only one root widget. See the Kivy Language documentation for more information on how to create kv files. If your kv file contains a root widget, it will be used as self.root, the root widget for the application.

Note

This function is called from run(), therefore, any widget whose styling is defined in this kv file and is created before run() is called (e.g. in __init__), won’t have its styling applied. Note that build() is called after load_kv has been called.

name

New in version 1.0.7.

Return the name of the application based on the class name.

on_config_change(config, section, key, value)[source]

Event handler fired when a configuration token has been changed by the settings page.

Changed in version 1.10.1: Added corresponding on_config_change event.

on_pause()[source]

Event handler called when Pause mode is requested. You should return True if your app can go into Pause mode, otherwise return False and your application will be stopped.

You cannot control when the application is going to go into this mode. It’s determined by the Operating System and mostly used for mobile devices (android/ios) and for resizing.

The default return value is True.

New in version 1.1.0.

Changed in version 1.10.0: The default return value is now True.

on_resume()[source]

Event handler called when your application is resuming from the Pause mode.

New in version 1.1.0.

Warning

When resuming, the OpenGL Context might have been damaged / freed. This is where you can reconstruct some of your OpenGL state e.g. FBO content.

on_start()[source]

Event handler for the on_start event which is fired after initialization (after build() has been called) but before the application has started running.

on_stop()[source]

Event handler for the on_stop event which is fired when the application has finished running (i.e. the window is about to be closed).

open_settings(*largs)[source]

Open the application settings panel. It will be created the very first time, or recreated if the previously cached panel has been removed by destroy_settings(). The settings panel will be displayed with the display_settings() method, which by default adds the settings panel to the Window attached to your application. You should override that method if you want to display the settings panel differently.

Returns:True if the settings has been opened.
options = None

Options passed to the __init__ of the App

root = None

The root widget returned by the build() method or by the load_kv() method if the kv file contains a root widget.

root_window

New in version 1.9.0.

Returns the root window instance used by run().

run()[source]

Launches the app in standalone mode.

settings_cls

New in version 1.8.0.

The class used to construct the settings panel and the instance passed to build_config(). You should use either Settings or one of the provided subclasses with different layouts (SettingsWithSidebar, SettingsWithSpinner, SettingsWithTabbedPanel, SettingsWithNoMenu). You can also create your own Settings subclass. See the documentation of Settings for more information.

settings_cls is an ObjectProperty and defaults to SettingsWithSpinner which displays settings panels with a spinner to switch between them. If you set a string, the Factory will be used to resolve the class.

stop(*largs)[source]

Stop the application.

If you use this method, the whole application will stop by issuing a call to stopTouchApp().

title

Title of your application. You can set this as follows:

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class MyApp(App):
    def build(self):
        self.title = 'Hello world'

New in version 1.0.5.

Changed in version 1.8.0: title is now a StringProperty. Don’t set the title in the class as previously stated in the documentation.

Note

For Kivy < 1.8.0, you can set this as follows:

class MyApp(App):
    title = 'Custom title'

If you want to dynamically change the title, you can do:

from kivy.base import EventLoop
EventLoop.window.title = 'New title'
use_kivy_settings = True

New in version 1.0.7.

If True, the application settings will also include the Kivy settings. If you don’t want the user to change any kivy settings from your settings UI, change this to False.

user_data_dir

New in version 1.7.0.

Returns the path to the directory in the users file system which the application can use to store additional data.

Different platforms have different conventions with regards to where the user can store data such as preferences, saved games and settings. This function implements these conventions. The <app_name> directory is created when the property is called, unless it already exists.

On iOS, ~/Documents/<app_name> is returned (which is inside the app’s sandbox).

On Android, /sdcard/<app_name> is returned.

On Windows, %APPDATA%/<app_name> is returned.

On OS X, ~/Library/Application Support/<app_name> is returned.

On Linux, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/<app_name> is returned.

Asynchronous data loader

This is the Asynchronous Loader. You can use it to load an image and use it, even if data are not yet available. You must specify a default loading image when using the loader:

from kivy.loader import Loader
image = Loader.image('mysprite.png')

You can also load an image from a url:

image = Loader.image('http://mysite.com/test.png')

If you want to change the default loading image, you can do:

Loader.loading_image = Image('another_loading.png')
Tweaking the asynchronous loader

New in version 1.6.0.

You can tweak the loader to provide a better user experience or more performance, depending of the images you are going to load. Take a look at the parameters:

  • Loader.num_workers - define the number of threads to start for loading images.
  • Loader.max_upload_per_frame - define the maximum image uploads in GPU to do per frame.
class kivy.loader.LoaderBase[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Common base for the Loader and specific implementations. By default, the Loader will be the best available loader implementation.

The _update() function is called every 1 / 25.s or each frame if we have less than 25 FPS.

error_image

Image used for error. You can change it by doing:

Loader.error_image = 'error.png'

Changed in version 1.6.0: Not readonly anymore.

image(filename, load_callback=None, post_callback=None, **kwargs)[source]

Load a image using the Loader. A ProxyImage is returned with a loading image. You can use it as follows:

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from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.image import Image
from kivy.loader import Loader

class TestApp(App):
    def _image_loaded(self, proxyImage):
        if proxyImage.image.texture:
            self.image.texture = proxyImage.image.texture

    def build(self):
        proxyImage = Loader.image("myPic.jpg")
        proxyImage.bind(on_load=self._image_loaded)
        self.image = Image()
        return self.image

TestApp().run()

In order to cancel all background loading, call Loader.stop().

loading_image

Image used for loading. You can change it by doing:

Loader.loading_image = 'loading.png'

Changed in version 1.6.0: Not readonly anymore.

max_upload_per_frame

The number of images to upload per frame. By default, we’ll upload only 2 images to the GPU per frame. If you are uploading many small images, you can easily increase this parameter to 10 or more. If you are loading multiple full HD images, the upload time may have consequences and block the application. If you want a smooth experience, use the default.

As a matter of fact, a Full-HD RGB image will take ~6MB in memory, so it may take time. If you have activated mipmap=True too, then the GPU must calculate the mipmap of these big images too, in real time. Then it may be best to reduce the max_upload_per_frame to 1 or 2. If you want to get rid of that (or reduce it a lot), take a look at the DDS format.

New in version 1.6.0.

num_workers

Number of workers to use while loading (used only if the loader implementation supports it). This setting impacts the loader only on initialization. Once the loader is started, the setting has no impact:

from kivy.loader import Loader
Loader.num_workers = 4

The default value is 2 for giving a smooth user experience. You could increase the number of workers, then all the images will be loaded faster, but the user will not been able to use the application while loading. Prior to 1.6.0, the default number was 20, and loading many full-hd images was completly blocking the application.

New in version 1.6.0.

pause()[source]

Pause the loader, can be useful during interactions.

New in version 1.6.0.

resume()[source]

Resume the loader, after a pause().

New in version 1.6.0.

run(*largs)[source]

Main loop for the loader.

start()[source]

Start the loader thread/process.

stop()[source]

Stop the loader thread/process.

class kivy.loader.ProxyImage(arg, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.core.image.Image

Image returned by the Loader.image() function.

Properties:
loaded: bool, defaults to False

This value may be True if the image is already cached.
Events:
on_load

Fired when the image is loaded or changed.

on_error

Fired when the image cannot be loaded. error: Exception data that ocurred

Atlas

New in version 1.1.0.

Atlas manages texture atlases: packing multiple textures into one. With it, you reduce the number of images loaded and speedup the application loading. This module contains both the Atlas class and command line processing for creating an atlas from a set of individual PNG files. The command line section requires the Pillow library, or the defunct Python Imaging Library (PIL), to be installed.

An Atlas is composed of 2 or more files:
  • a json file (.atlas) that contains the image file names and texture locations of the atlas.
  • one or multiple image files containing textures referenced by the .atlas file.
Definition of .atlas files

A file with <basename>.atlas is a json file formatted like this:

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{
    "<basename>-<index>.png": {
        "id1": [ <x>, <y>, <width>, <height> ],
        "id2": [ <x>, <y>, <width>, <height> ],
        # ...
    },
    # ...
}

Example from the Kivy data/images/defaulttheme.atlas:

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{
    "defaulttheme-0.png": {
        "progressbar_background": [431, 224, 59, 24],
        "image-missing": [253, 344, 48, 48],
        "filechooser_selected": [1, 207, 118, 118],
        "bubble_btn": [83, 174, 32, 32],
        # ... and more ...
    }
}

In this example, “defaulttheme-0.png” is a large image, with the pixels in the rectangle from (431, 224) to (431 + 59, 224 + 24) usable as atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/progressbar_background in any image parameter.

How to create an Atlas

Warning

The atlas creation requires the Pillow library (or the defunct Imaging/PIL library). This requirement will be removed in the future when the Kivy core Image is able to support loading, blitting, and saving operations.

You can directly use this module to create atlas files with this command:

$ python -m kivy.atlas <basename> <size> <list of images...>

Let’s say you have a list of images that you want to put into an Atlas. The directory is named images with lots of 64x64 png files inside:

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$ ls
images
$ cd images
$ ls
bubble.png bubble-red.png button.png button-down.png

You can combine all the png’s into one and generate the atlas file with:

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$ python -m kivy.atlas myatlas 256x256 *.png
Atlas created at myatlas.atlas
1 image has been created
$ ls
bubble.png bubble-red.png button.png button-down.png myatlas.atlas
myatlas-0.png

As you can see, we get 2 new files: myatlas.atlas and myatlas-0.png. myatlas-0.png is a new 256x256 .png composed of all your images.

Note

When using this script, the ids referenced in the atlas are the base names of the images without the extension. So, if you are going to name a file ../images/button.png, the id for this image will be button.

If you need path information included, you should include use_path as follows:

$ python -m kivy.atlas -- --use_path myatlas 256 *.png

In which case the id for ../images/button.png will be images_button

How to use an Atlas

Usually, you would specify the images by supplying the path:

a = Button(background_normal='images/button.png',
           background_down='images/button_down.png')

In our previous example, we have created the atlas containing both images and put them in images/myatlas.atlas. You can use url notation to reference them:

a = Button(background_normal='atlas://images/myatlas/button',
           background_down='atlas://images/myatlas/button_down')

In other words, the path to the images is replaced by:

atlas://path/to/myatlas/id
# will search for the ``path/to/myatlas.atlas`` and get the image ``id``

Note

In the atlas url, there is no need to add the .atlas extension. It will be automatically append to the filename.

Manual usage of the Atlas
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>>> from kivy.atlas import Atlas
>>> atlas = Atlas('path/to/myatlas.atlas')
>>> print(atlas.textures.keys())
['bubble', 'bubble-red', 'button', 'button-down']
>>> print(atlas['button'])
<kivy.graphics.texture.TextureRegion object at 0x2404d10>
class kivy.atlas.Atlas(filename)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Manage texture atlas. See module documentation for more information.

static create(outname, filenames, size, padding=2, use_path=False)[source]

This method can be used to create an atlas manually from a set of images.

Parameters:
outname: str

Basename to use for .atlas creation and -<idx>.png associated images.

filenames: list

List of filenames to put in the atlas.

size: int or list (width, height)

Size of the atlas image.

padding: int, defaults to 2

Padding to put around each image.

Be careful. If you’re using a padding < 2, you might have issues with the borders of the images. Because of the OpenGL linearization, it might use the pixels of the adjacent image.

If you’re using a padding >= 2, we’ll automatically generate a “border” of 1px around your image. If you look at the result, don’t be scared if the image inside is not exactly the same as yours :).

use_path: bool, defaults to False

If True, the relative path of the source png file names will be included in the atlas ids rather that just in the file names. Leading dots and slashes will be excluded and all other slashes in the path will be replaced with underscores. For example, if use_path is False (the default) and the file name is ../data/tiles/green_grass.png, the id will be green_grass. If use_path is True, it will be data_tiles_green_grass.

Changed in version 1.8.0: Parameter use_path added
filename

Filename of the current Atlas.

filename is an AliasProperty and defaults to None.

original_textures

List of original atlas textures (which contain the textures).

original_textures is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

New in version 1.9.1.

textures

List of available textures within the atlas.

textures is a DictProperty and defaults to {}.

Cache manager

The cache manager can be used to store python objects attached to a unique key. The cache can be controlled in two ways: with a object limit or a timeout.

For example, we can create a new cache with a limit of 10 objects and a timeout of 5 seconds:

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# register a new Cache
Cache.register('mycache', limit=10, timeout=5)

# create an object + id
key = 'objectid'
instance = Label(text=text)
Cache.append('mycache', key, instance)

# retrieve the cached object
instance = Cache.get('mycache', key)

If the instance is NULL, the cache may have trashed it because you’ve not used the label for 5 seconds and you’ve reach the limit.

class kivy.cache.Cache[source]

Bases: builtins.object

See module documentation for more information.

static append(category, key, obj, timeout=None)[source]

Add a new object to the cache.

Parameters:
category: str

Identifier of the category.

key: str

Unique identifier of the object to store.

obj: object

Object to store in cache.

timeout: double (optional)

Time after which to delete the object if it has not been used. If None, no timeout is applied.
static get(category, key, default=None)[source]

Get a object from the cache.

Parameters:
category: str

Identifier of the category.

key: str

Unique identifier of the object in the store.

default: anything, defaults to None

Default value to be returned if the key is not found.
static get_lastaccess(category, key, default=None)[source]

Get the objects last access time in the cache.

Parameters:
category: str

Identifier of the category.

key: str

Unique identifier of the object in the store.

default: anything, defaults to None

Default value to be returned if the key is not found.
static get_timestamp(category, key, default=None)[source]

Get the object timestamp in the cache.

Parameters:
category: str

Identifier of the category.

key: str

Unique identifier of the object in the store.

default: anything, defaults to None

Default value to be returned if the key is not found.
static print_usage()[source]

Print the cache usage to the console.

static register(category, limit=None, timeout=None)[source]

Register a new category in the cache with the specified limit.

Parameters:
category: str

Identifier of the category.

limit: int (optional)

Maximum number of objects allowed in the cache. If None, no limit is applied.

timeout: double (optional)

Time after which to delete the object if it has not been used. If None, no timeout is applied.
static remove(category, key=None)[source]

Purge the cache.

Parameters:
category: str

Identifier of the category.

key: str (optional)

Unique identifier of the object in the store. If this argument is not supplied, the entire category will be purged.

Clock object

The Clock object allows you to schedule a function call in the future; once or repeatedly at specified intervals. You can get the time elapsed between the scheduling and the calling of the callback via the dt argument:

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# dt means delta-time
def my_callback(dt):
    pass

# call my_callback every 0.5 seconds
Clock.schedule_interval(my_callback, 0.5)

# call my_callback in 5 seconds
Clock.schedule_once(my_callback, 5)

# call my_callback as soon as possible (usually next frame.)
Clock.schedule_once(my_callback)

Note

If the callback returns False, the schedule will be canceled and won’t repeat.

If you want to schedule a function to call with default arguments, you can use the functools.partial python module:

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from functools import partial

def my_callback(value, key, *largs):
    pass

Clock.schedule_interval(partial(my_callback, 'my value', 'my key'), 0.5)

Conversely, if you want to schedule a function that doesn’t accept the dt argument, you can use a lambda expression to write a short function that does accept dt. For Example:

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def no_args_func():
    print("I accept no arguments, so don't schedule me in the clock")

Clock.schedule_once(lambda dt: no_args_func(), 0.5)

Note

You cannot unschedule an anonymous function unless you keep a reference to it. It’s better to add *args to your function definition so that it can be called with an arbitrary number of parameters.

Important

The callback is weak-referenced: you are responsible for keeping a reference to your original object/callback. If you don’t keep a reference, the ClockBase will never execute your callback. For example:

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class Foo(object):
    def start(self):
        Clock.schedule_interval(self.callback, 0.5)

    def callback(self, dt):
        print('In callback')

# A Foo object is created and the method start is called.
# Because no reference is kept to the instance returned from Foo(),
# the object will be collected by the Python Garbage Collector and
# your callback will be never called.
Foo().start()

# So you should do the following and keep a reference to the instance
# of foo until you don't need it anymore!
foo = Foo()
foo.start()
Schedule before frame

New in version 1.0.5.

Sometimes you need to schedule a callback BEFORE the next frame. Starting from 1.0.5, you can use a timeout of -1:

Clock.schedule_once(my_callback, 0) # call after the next frame
Clock.schedule_once(my_callback, -1) # call before the next frame

The Clock will execute all the callbacks with a timeout of -1 before the next frame even if you add a new callback with -1 from a running callback. However, Clock has an iteration limit for these callbacks: it defaults to 10.

If you schedule a callback that schedules a callback that schedules a … etc more than 10 times, it will leave the loop and send a warning to the console, then continue after the next frame. This is implemented to prevent bugs from hanging or crashing the application.

If you need to increase the limit, set the max_iteration property:

from kivy.clock import Clock
Clock.max_iteration = 20
Triggered Events

New in version 1.0.5.

A triggered event is a way to defer a callback. It functions exactly like schedule_once() and schedule_interval() except that it doesn’t immediately schedule the callback. Instead, one schedules the callback using the ClockEvent returned by it. This ensures that you can call the event multiple times but it won’t be scheduled more than once. This is not the case with Clock.schedule_once():

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# will run the callback twice before the next frame
Clock.schedule_once(my_callback)
Clock.schedule_once(my_callback)

# will run the callback once before the next frame
event = Clock.create_trigger(my_callback)
event()
event()

# will also run the callback only once before the next frame
event = Clock.schedule_once(my_callback)  # now it's already scheduled
event()  # won't be scheduled again
event()

In addition, it is more convenient to create and bind to the triggered event than using Clock.schedule_once() in a function:

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from kivy.clock import Clock
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget

class Sample(Widget):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        self._trigger = Clock.create_trigger(self.cb)
        super(Sample, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.bind(x=self._trigger, y=self._trigger)

    def cb(self, *largs):
        pass

Even if x and y changes within one frame, the callback is only run once.

CyClockBase.create_trigger() has a timeout parameter that behaves exactly like CyClockBase.schedule_once().

Changed in version 1.10.0: CyClockBase.create_trigger() now has a interval parameter. If False, the default, it’ll create an event similar to CyClockBase.schedule_once(). Otherwise it’ll create an event similar to CyClockBase.schedule_interval().

Unscheduling

An event scheduled with CyClockBase.schedule_once(), CyClockBase.schedule_interval(), or with CyClockBase.create_trigger() and then triggered can be unscheduled in multiple ways. E.g:

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def my_callback(dt):
    pass

# call my_callback every 0.5 seconds
event = Clock.schedule_interval(my_callback, 0.5)

# call my_callback in 5 seconds
event2 = Clock.schedule_once(my_callback, 5)

event_trig = Clock.create_trigger(my_callback, 5)
event_trig()

# unschedule using cancel
event.cancel()

# unschedule using Clock.unschedule
Clock.unschedule(event2)

# unschedule using Clock.unschedule with the callback
# NOT RECOMMENDED
Clock.unschedule(my_callback)

The best way to unschedule a callback is with ClockEvent.cancel(). CyClockBase.unschedule() is mainly an alias for that for that function. However, if the original callback itself is passed to CyClockBase.unschedule(), it’ll unschedule all instances of that callback (provided all is True, the default, other just the first match is removed).

Calling CyClockBase.unschedule() on the original callback is highly discouraged because it’s significantly slower than when using the event.

Threading and Callback Order

Beginning with 1.10.0, all the events scheduled for the same frame, e.g. all the events scheduled in the same frame with a timeout of 0, well be executed in the order they were scheduled.

Also, all the scheduling and canceling methods are fully thread safe and can be safely used from external threads.

As a a consequence, calling CyClockBase.unschedule() with the original callback is now significantly slower and highly discouraged. Instead, the returned events should be used to cancel. As a tradeoff, all the other methods are now significantly faster than before.

Advanced Clock Details

The following section goes into the internal kivy clock details as well as the various clock options. It is meant only for advanced users.

Fundamentally, the Kivy clock attempts to execute any scheduled callback rhythmically as determined by the specified fps (frame per second, see maxfps in config). That is, ideally, given e.g. a desired fps of 30, the clock will execute the callbacks at intervals of 1 / 30 seconds, or every 33.33 ms. All the callbacks in a frame are given the same timestamp, i.e. the dt passed to the callback are all the same and it’s the difference in time between the start of this and the previous frame.

Because of inherent indeterminism, the frames do not actually occur exactly at intervals of the fps and dt may be under or over the desired fps. Also, once the timeout is “close enough” to the desired timeout, as determined internally, Kivy will execute the callback in the current frame even when the “actual time” has not elapsed the timeout amount.

Kivy offers now, since 1.10.0, multiple clocks with different behaviors.

Default Clock

The default clock (default) behaves as described above. When a callback with a timeout of zero or non-zero is scheduled, they are executed at the frame that is near the timeout, which is a function of the fps. So a timeout of zero would still result in a delay of one frame or about 1 / fps, typically a bit less but sometimes more depending on the CPU usage of the other events scheduled for that frame.

In a test using a fps of 30, a callback with a timeout of 0, 0.001, and 0.05, resulted in a mean callback delay of 0.02487, 0.02488, and 0.05011 seconds, respectively. When tested with a fps of 600 the delay for 0.05 was similar, except the standard deviation was reduced resulting in overall better accuracy.

Interruptible Clock

The default clock suffers from the quantization problem, as frames occur only on intervals and any scheduled timeouts will not be able to occur during an interval. For example, with the timeout of 0.05, while the mean was 0.05011, its values ranged between 0.02548 - 0.07348 and a standard deviation of 0.002. Also, there’s the minimum timeout of about 0.02487.

The interruptible clock (interrupt) will execute timeouts even during a frame. So a timeout of zero will execute as quickly as possible and similarly a non-zero timeout will be executed even during the interval.

This clock, and all the clocks described after this have an option, ClockBaseInterruptBehavior.interupt_next_only. When True, any of the behavior new behavior will only apply to the callbacks with a timeout of zero. Non-zero timeouts will behave like in the default clock. E.g. for this clock when True, only zero timeouts will execute during the the interval.

In a test using a fps of 30, a callback with a timeout of 0, 0.001, and 0.05, resulted in a mean callback delay of 0.00013, 0.00013, and 0.04120 seconds, respectively when ClockBaseInterruptBehavior.interupt_next_only was False. Also, compared to the default clock the standard deviation was reduced. When ClockBaseInterruptBehavior.interupt_next_only was True, the values were 0.00010, 0.02414, and 0.05034, respectively.

Free Clock

The interruptible clock may not be ideal for all cases because all the events are executed during the intervals and events are not executed anymore rhythmically as multiples of the fps. For example, there may not be any benefit for the graphics to update in a sub-interval, so the additional accuracy wastes CPU.

The Free clock (free_all) solves this by having Clock.xxx_free versions of all the Clock scheduling methods. By free, we mean the event is free from the fps because it’s not fps limited. E.g. CyClockBaseFree.create_trigger_free() corresponds to CyClockBase.create_trigger(). Only when an event scheduled using the Clock.xxx_free methods is present will the clock interrupt and execute the events during the interval. So, if no free event is present the clock behaves like the default clock, otherwise it behaves like the interrupt clock.

In a test using a fps of 30, a callback with a timeout of 0s, 0.001s, and 0.05s, resulted in a mean callback delay of 0.00012s, 0.00017s, and 0.04121s seconds, respectively when it was a free event and 0.02403s, 0.02405s, and 0.04829s, respectively when it wasn’t.

Free Only Clock

The Free clock executes all events when a free event was scheduled. This results in normal events also being execute in the middle of the interval when a free event is scheduled. For example, above, when a free event was absent, a normal event with a 0.001s timeout was delayed for 0.02405s. However, if a free event happened to be also scheduled, the normal event was only delayed 0.00014s, which may be undesirable.

The Free only clock (free_only) solves it by only executing free events during the interval and normal events are always executed like with the default clock. For example, in the presence of a free event, a normal event with a timeout of 0.001s still had a delay of 0.02406. So this clock, treats free and normal events independently, with normal events always being fps limited, but never the free events.

Summary

The kivy clock type to use can be set with the kivy_clock option the config. If KIVY_CLOCK is present in the environment it overwrites the config selection. Its possible values are as follows:

  • When kivy_clock is default, the normal clock, ClockBase, which limits callbacks to the maxfps quantization - is used.
  • When kivy_clock is interrupt, a interruptible clock, ClockBaseInterrupt, which doesn’t limit any callbacks to the maxfps - is used. Callbacks will be executed at any time.
  • When kivy_clock is free_all, a interruptible clock, ClockBaseFreeInterruptAll, which doesn’t limit any callbacks to the maxfps in the presence of free events, but in their absence it limits events to the fps quantization interval - is used.
  • When kivy_clock is free_only, a interruptible clock, ClockBaseFreeInterruptAll, which treats free and normal events independently; normal events are fps limited while free events are not - is used.
kivy.clock.Clock = None

The kivy Clock instance. See module documentation for details.

class kivy.clock.ClockEvent

Bases: builtins.object

A class that describes a callback scheduled with kivy’s Clock. This class is never created by the user; instead, kivy creates and returns an instance of this class when scheduling a callback.

An event can be triggered (scheduled) by calling it. If it’s already scheduled, nothing will happen, otherwise it’ll be scheduled. E.g.:

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event = Clock.schedule_once(my_callback, .5)
event()  # nothing will happen since it's already scheduled.
event.cancel()  # cancel it
event()  # now it's scheduled again.
cancel()

Cancels the callback if it was scheduled to be called. If not scheduled, nothing happens.

clock

The CyClockBase instance associated with the event.

get_callback()

Returns the callback associated with the event. Callbacks get stored with a indirect ref so that it doesn’t keep objects alive. If the callback is dead, None is returned.

is_triggered

Returns whether the event is scheduled to have its callback executed by the kivy thread.

loop

Whether this event repeats at intervals of timeout.

next

The next ClockEvent in order they were scheduled.

prev

The previous ClockEvent in order they were scheduled.

release()

(internal method) Converts the callback into a indirect ref.

tick()

(internal method) Processes the event for the kivy thread.

timeout

The duration after scheduling when the callback should be executed.

class kivy.clock.FreeClockEvent

Bases: kivy._clock.ClockEvent

The event returned by the Clock.XXX_free methods of CyClockBaseFree. It stores whether the event was scheduled as a free event.

free

Whether this event was scheduled as a free event.

class kivy.clock.CyClockBase

Bases: builtins.object

The base clock object with event support.

clock_resolution

If the remaining time until the event timeout is less than clock_resolution, the clock will execute the callback even if it hasn’t exactly timed out.

If -1, the default, the resolution will be computed from config’s maxfps. Otherwise, the provided value is used. Defaults to -1.

create_trigger()

Create a Trigger event. Check module documentation for more information.

Returns:A ClockEvent instance. To schedule the callback of this instance, you can call it.

New in version 1.0.5.

Changed in version 1.10.0: interval has been added. If True, it create a event that is called every <timeout> seconds similar to schedule_interval(). Defaults to False.

get_events()

Returns the list of ClockEvent instances currently scheduled.

get_min_timeout()

Returns the remaining time since the start of the current frame for the event with the smallest timeout.

get_resolution()

Returns the minimum resolution the clock has. It’s a function of clock_resolution and maxfps provided at the config.

max_iteration

The maximum number of callback iterations at the end of the frame, before the next frame. If more iterations occur, a warning is issued.

on_schedule()

Function that is called internally every time an event is triggered for this clock. It takes the event as a parameter.

schedule_del_safe()

Schedule a callback. Might be called from GC and cannot be cancelled.

It’s unsafe to call various kinds of code, such as code with a lock, from a __del__ or __dealloc__ methods. Since Kivy’s Clock uses a lock, it’s generally unsafe to call from these methods. Instead, use this method, which is thread safe and __del__ or __dealloc__ safe, to schedule the callback in the kivy thread. It’ll be executed in order after the normal events are processed.

The callback takes no parameters and cannot be canceled.

New in version 1.11.0.

schedule_interval()

Schedule an event to be called every <timeout> seconds.

Returns:A ClockEvent instance. As opposed to create_trigger() which only creates the trigger event, this method also schedules it.
schedule_once()

Schedule an event in <timeout> seconds. If <timeout> is unspecified or 0, the callback will be called after the next frame is rendered.

Returns:A ClockEvent instance. As opposed to create_trigger() which only creates the trigger event, this method also schedules it.

Changed in version 1.0.5: If the timeout is -1, the callback will be called before the next frame (at tick_draw()).

unschedule()

Remove a previously scheduled event.

Parameters:
callback: ClockEvent or a callable.

If it’s a ClockEvent instance, then the callback associated with this event will be canceled if it is scheduled.

If it’s a callable, then the callable will be unscheduled if it was scheduled.

Warning

Passing the callback function rather than the returned ClockEvent will result in a significantly slower unscheduling.

all: bool

If True and if callback is a callable, all instances of this callable will be unscheduled (i.e. if this callable was scheduled multiple times). Defaults to True.

Changed in version 1.9.0: The all parameter was added. Before, it behaved as if all was True.

class kivy.clock.CyClockBaseFree

Bases: kivy._clock.CyClockBase

A clock class that supports scheduling free events in addition to normal events.

Each of the create_trigger(), schedule_once(), and schedule_interval() methods, which create a normal event, have a corresponding method for creating a free event.

create_trigger()

Create a Trigger event. Check module documentation for more information.

Returns:A ClockEvent instance. To schedule the callback of this instance, you can call it.

New in version 1.0.5.

Changed in version 1.10.0: interval has been added. If True, it create a event that is called every <timeout> seconds similar to schedule_interval(). Defaults to False.

create_trigger_free()

Similar to create_trigger(), but instead creates a free event.

get_min_free_timeout()

Returns the remaining time since the start of the current frame for the free event with the smallest timeout.

schedule_interval()

Schedule an event to be called every <timeout> seconds.

Returns:A ClockEvent instance. As opposed to create_trigger() which only creates the trigger event, this method also schedules it.
schedule_interval_free()

Similar to schedule_interval(), but instead creates a free event.

schedule_once()

Schedule an event in <timeout> seconds. If <timeout> is unspecified or 0, the callback will be called after the next frame is rendered.

Returns:A ClockEvent instance. As opposed to create_trigger() which only creates the trigger event, this method also schedules it.

Changed in version 1.0.5: If the timeout is -1, the callback will be called before the next frame (at tick_draw()).

schedule_once_free()

Similar to schedule_once(), but instead creates a free event.

class kivy.clock.ClockBaseBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

The base of the kivy clock.

MIN_SLEEP = 0.005

The minimum time to sleep. If the remaining time is less than this, the event loop will continuo

frames

Number of internal frames (not necessarily drawed) from the start of the clock.

New in version 1.8.0.

frames_displayed

Number of displayed frames from the start of the clock.

frametime

Time spent between the last frame and the current frame (in seconds).

New in version 1.8.0.

get_boottime()[source]

Get the time in seconds from the application start.

get_fps()[source]

Get the current average FPS calculated by the clock.

get_rfps()[source]

Get the current “real” FPS calculated by the clock. This counter reflects the real framerate displayed on the screen.

In contrast to get_fps(), this function returns a counter of the number of frames, not the average of frames per second.

get_time()[source]

Get the last tick made by the clock.

idle()[source]

(internal) waits here until the next frame.

tick()[source]

Advance the clock to the next step. Must be called every frame. The default clock has a tick() function called by the core Kivy framework.

tick_draw()[source]

Tick the drawing counter.

time = functools.partial(<function _libc_clock_gettime_wrapper.<locals>._time>)
usleep(microseconds)[source]

Sleeps for the number of microseconds.

class kivy.clock.ClockBaseInterruptBehavior(interupt_next_only=False, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.clock.ClockBaseBehavior

A kivy clock which can be interrupted during a frame to execute events.

idle()[source]

(internal) waits here until the next frame.

usleep(microseconds)[source]

Sleeps for the number of microseconds.

class kivy.clock.ClockBaseInterruptFreeBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.clock.ClockBaseInterruptBehavior

A base class for the clock that interrupts the sleep interval for free events.

class kivy.clock.ClockBase(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.clock.ClockBaseBehavior, kivy._clock.CyClockBase

The default kivy clock. See module for details.

usleep(microseconds)[source]

Sleeps for the number of microseconds.

class kivy.clock.ClockBaseInterrupt(interupt_next_only=False, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.clock.ClockBaseInterruptBehavior, kivy._clock.CyClockBase

The interrupt kivy clock. See module for details.

class kivy.clock.ClockBaseFreeInterruptAll(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.clock.ClockBaseInterruptFreeBehavior, kivy._clock.CyClockBaseFree

The free_all kivy clock. See module for details.

class kivy.clock.ClockBaseFreeInterruptOnly(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.clock.ClockBaseInterruptFreeBehavior, kivy._clock.CyClockBaseFree

The free_only kivy clock. See module for details.

idle()[source]

(internal) waits here until the next frame.

kivy.clock.mainthread(func)[source]

Decorator that will schedule the call of the function for the next available frame in the mainthread. It can be useful when you use UrlRequest or when you do Thread programming: you cannot do any OpenGL-related work in a thread.

Please note that this method will return directly and no result can be returned:

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@mainthread
def callback(self, *args):
    print('The request succeeded!',
          'This callback is called in the main thread.')


self.req = UrlRequest(url='http://...', on_success=callback)

New in version 1.8.0.

Compatibility module for Python 2.7 and >= 3.4

This module provides a set of utility types and functions for optimization and to aid in writing Python 2/3 compatibile code.

kivy.compat.PY2 = False

True if this version of python is 2.x.

kivy.compat.clock() → float

A clock with the highest available resolution on your current Operating System.

kivy.compat.string_types

alias of builtins.str

kivy.compat.isclose(a, b, *, rel_tol=1e-09, abs_tol=0.0) → bool

Determine whether two floating point numbers are close in value.

rel_tol
maximum difference for being considered “close”, relative to the magnitude of the input values
abs_tol
maximum difference for being considered “close”, regardless of the magnitude of the input values

Return True if a is close in value to b, and False otherwise.

For the values to be considered close, the difference between them must be smaller than at least one of the tolerances.

-inf, inf and NaN behave similarly to the IEEE 754 Standard. That is, NaN is not close to anything, even itself. inf and -inf are only close to themselves.

Configuration object

The Config object is an instance of a modified Python ConfigParser. See the ConfigParser documentation for more information.

Kivy has a configuration file which determines the default settings. In order to change these settings, you can alter this file manually or use the Config object. Please see the Configure Kivy section for more information.

Applying configurations

Configuration options control the initialization of the App. In order to avoid situations where the config settings do not work or are not applied before window creation (like setting an initial window size), Config.set should be used before importing any other Kivy modules. Ideally, this means setting them right at the start of your main.py script.

Alternatively, you can save these settings permanently using Config.set then Config.write. In this case, you will need to restart the app for the changes to take effect. Note that this approach will effect all Kivy apps system wide.

Usage of the Config object

To read a configuration token from a particular section:

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>>> from kivy.config import Config
>>> Config.getint('kivy', 'show_fps')
0

Change the configuration and save it:

>>> Config.set('postproc', 'retain_time', '50')
>>> Config.write()

For information on configuring your App, please see the Application configuration section.

Changed in version 1.7.1: The ConfigParser should work correctly with utf-8 now. The values are converted from ascii to unicode only when needed. The method get() returns utf-8 strings.

Available configuration tokens
kivy:
desktop: int, 0 or 1

This option controls desktop OS specific features, such as enabling drag-able scroll-bar in scroll views, disabling of bubbles in TextInput etc. 0 is disabled, 1 is enabled.

exit_on_escape: int, 0 or 1

Enables exiting kivy when escape is pressed. 0 is disabled, 1 is enabled.

pause_on_minimize: int, 0 or 1

If set to 1, the main loop is paused and the on_pause event is dispatched when the window is minimized. This option is intended for desktop use only. Defaults to 0.

keyboard_layout: string

Identifier of the layout to use.

keyboard_mode: string

Specifies the keyboard mode to use. If can be one of the following:

  • ‘’ - Let Kivy choose the best option for your current platform.
  • ‘system’ - real keyboard.
  • ‘dock’ - one virtual keyboard docked to a screen side.
  • ‘multi’ - one virtual keyboard for every widget request.
  • ‘systemanddock’ - virtual docked keyboard plus input from real keyboard.
  • ‘systemandmulti’ - analogous.
log_dir: string

Path of log directory.

log_enable: int, 0 or 1

Activate file logging. 0 is disabled, 1 is enabled.

log_level: string, one of ‘trace’, ‘debug’, ‘info’, ‘warning’, ‘error’ or ‘critical’

Set the minimum log level to use.

log_name: string

Format string to use for the filename of log file.

log_maxfiles: int

Keep log_maxfiles recent logfiles while purging the log directory. Set ‘log_maxfiles’ to -1 to disable logfile purging (eg keep all logfiles).

Note

You end up with ‘log_maxfiles + 1’ logfiles because the logger adds a new one after purging.

window_icon: string

Path of the window icon. Use this if you want to replace the default pygame icon.
postproc:
double_tap_distance: float

Maximum distance allowed for a double tap, normalized inside the range 0 - 1000.

double_tap_time: int

Time allowed for the detection of double tap, in milliseconds.

ignore: list of tuples

List of regions where new touches are ignored. This configuration token can be used to resolve hotspot problems with DIY hardware. The format of the list must be:

ignore = [(xmin, ymin, xmax, ymax), ...]

All the values must be inside the range 0 - 1.

jitter_distance: int

Maximum distance for jitter detection, normalized inside the range 0 - 1000.

jitter_ignore_devices: string, separated with commas

List of devices to ignore from jitter detection.

retain_distance: int

If the touch moves more than is indicated by retain_distance, it will not be retained. Argument should be an int between 0 and 1000.

retain_time: int

Time allowed for a retain touch, in milliseconds.

triple_tap_distance: float

Maximum distance allowed for a triple tap, normalized inside the range 0 - 1000.

triple_tap_time: int

Time allowed for the detection of triple tap, in milliseconds.
graphics:
borderless: int , one of 0 or 1

If set to 1, removes the window border/decoration. Window resizing must also be disabled to hide the resizing border.

window_state: string , one of ‘visible’, ‘hidden’, ‘maximized’

or ‘minimized’

Sets the window state, defaults to ‘visible’. This option is available only for the SDL2 window provider and it should be used on desktop OSes.

fbo: string, one of ‘hardware’, ‘software’ or ‘force-hardware’

Selects the FBO backend to use.

fullscreen: int or string, one of 0, 1, ‘fake’ or ‘auto’

Activate fullscreen. If set to 1, a resolution of width times height pixels will be used. If set to auto, your current display’s resolution will be used instead. This is most likely what you want. If you want to place the window in another display, use fake, or set the borderless option from the graphics section, then adjust width, height, top and left.

height: int

Height of the Window, not used if fullscreen is set to auto.

left: int

Left position of the Window.

maxfps: int, defaults to 60

Maximum FPS allowed.

Warning

Setting maxfps to 0 will lead to max CPU usage.

‘multisamples’: int, defaults to 2

Sets the MultiSample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA) level. Increasing this value results in smoother graphics but at the cost of processing time.

Note

This feature is limited by device hardware support and will have no effect on devices which do not support the level of MSAA requested.

position: string, one of ‘auto’ or ‘custom’

Position of the window on your display. If auto is used, you have no control of the initial position: top and left are ignored.

show_cursor: int, one of 0 or 1

Set whether or not the cursor is shown on the window.

top: int

Top position of the Window.

resizable: int, one of 0 or 1

If 0, the window will have a fixed size. If 1, the window will be resizable.

rotation: int, one of 0, 90, 180 or 270

Rotation of the Window.

width: int

Width of the Window, not used if fullscreen is set to auto.

minimum_width: int

Minimum width to restrict the window to. (sdl2 only)

minimum_height: int

Minimum height to restrict the window to. (sdl2 only)

min_state_time: float, defaults to .035

Minimum time for widgets to display a given visual state. This attrib is currently used by widgets like DropDown & ButtonBehavior to make sure they display their current visual state for the given time.

kivy_clock: one of default, interrupt, free_all, free_only

The clock type to use with kivy. See kivy.clock.

default_font: list

Default fonts used for widgets displaying any text. It defaults to [‘Roboto’, ‘data/fonts/Roboto-Regular.ttf’, ‘data/fonts/Roboto-Italic.ttf’, ‘data/fonts/Roboto-Bold.ttf’, ‘data/fonts/Roboto-BoldItalic.ttf’].

allow_screensaver: int, one of 0 or 1, defaults to 1

Allow the device to show a screen saver, or to go to sleep on mobile devices. Only works for the sdl2 window provider.
input:

You can create new input devices using this syntax:

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# example of input provider instance
yourid = providerid,parameters

# example for tuio provider
default = tuio,127.0.0.1:3333
mytable = tuio,192.168.0.1:3334

See also

Check the providers in kivy.input.providers for the syntax to use inside the configuration file.
widgets:
scroll_distance: int

Default value of the scroll_distance property used by the ScrollView widget. Check the widget documentation for more information.

scroll_friction: float

Default value of the scroll_friction property used by the ScrollView widget. Check the widget documentation for more information.

Deprecated since version 1.7.0: Please use effect_cls instead.

scroll_timeout: int

Default value of the scroll_timeout property used by the ScrollView widget. Check the widget documentation for more information.

scroll_stoptime: int

Default value of the scroll_stoptime property used by the ScrollView widget. Check the widget documentation for more information.

Deprecated since version 1.7.0: Please use effect_cls instead.

scroll_moves: int

Default value of the scroll_moves property used by the ScrollView widget. Check the widget documentation for more information.

Deprecated since version 1.7.0: Please use effect_cls instead.
modules:

You can activate modules with this syntax:

modulename =

Anything after the = will be passed to the module as arguments. Check the specific module’s documentation for a list of accepted arguments.

Changed in version 1.10.0: min_state_time and allow_screensaver have been added to the graphics section. kivy_clock has been added to the kivy section. default_font has beed added to the kivy section.

Changed in version 1.9.0: borderless and window_state have been added to the graphics section. The fake setting of the fullscreen option has been deprecated, use the borderless option instead. pause_on_minimize has been added to the kivy section.

Changed in version 1.8.0: systemanddock and systemandmulti has been added as possible values for keyboard_mode in the kivy section. exit_on_escape has been added to the kivy section.

Changed in version 1.2.0: resizable has been added to graphics section.

Changed in version 1.1.0: tuio no longer listens by default. Window icons are not copied to user directory anymore. You can still set a new window icon by using the window_icon config setting.

Changed in version 1.0.8: scroll_timeout, scroll_distance and scroll_friction have been added. list_friction, list_trigger_distance and list_friction_bound have been removed. keyboard_type and keyboard_layout have been removed from the widget. keyboard_mode and keyboard_layout have been added to the kivy section.

kivy.config.Config = None

The default Kivy configuration object. This is a ConfigParser instance with the name set to ‘kivy’.

Config = ConfigParser(name='kivy')
class kivy.config.ConfigParser(name='', **kwargs)[source]

Bases: configparser.RawConfigParser, builtins.object

Enhanced ConfigParser class that supports the addition of default sections and default values.

By default, the kivy ConfigParser instance, Config, is named ‘kivy’ and the ConfigParser instance used by the App.build_settings method is named ‘app’.

Parameters:
name: string

The name of the instance. See name. Defaults to ‘’.

Changed in version 1.9.0: Each ConfigParser can now be named. You can get the ConfigParser associated with a name using get_configparser(). In addition, you can now control the config values with ConfigParserProperty.

New in version 1.0.7.

add_callback(callback, section=None, key=None)[source]

Add a callback to be called when a specific section or key has changed. If you don’t specify a section or key, it will call the callback for all section/key changes.

Callbacks will receive 3 arguments: the section, key and value.

New in version 1.4.1.

adddefaultsection(section)[source]

Add a section if the section is missing.

get(section, option, **kwargs)[source]

Get an option value for a given section.

If `vars’ is provided, it must be a dictionary. The option is looked up in `vars’ (if provided), `section’, and in `DEFAULTSECT’ in that order. If the key is not found and `fallback’ is provided, it is used as a fallback value. `None’ can be provided as a `fallback’ value.

If interpolation is enabled and the optional argument `raw’ is False, all interpolations are expanded in the return values.

Arguments `raw’, `vars’, and `fallback’ are keyword only.

The section DEFAULT is special.

static get_configparser(name)[source]

Returns the ConfigParser instance whose name is name, or None if not found.

Parameters:
name: string

The name of the ConfigParser instance to return.
getdefault(section, option, defaultvalue)[source]

Get the value of an option in the specified section. If not found, it will return the default value.

getdefaultint(section, option, defaultvalue)[source]

Get the value of an option in the specified section. If not found, it will return the default value. The value will always be returned as an integer.

New in version 1.6.0.

name

The name associated with this ConfigParser instance, if not ‘’. Defaults to ‘’. It can be safely changed dynamically or set to ‘’.

When a ConfigParser is given a name, that config object can be retrieved using get_configparser(). In addition, that config instance can also be used with a ConfigParserProperty instance that set its config value to this name.

Setting more than one ConfigParser with the same name will raise a ValueError.

read(filename)[source]

Read only one filename. In contrast to the original ConfigParser of Python, this one is able to read only one file at a time. The last read file will be used for the write() method.

Changed in version 1.9.0: read() now calls the callbacks if read changed any values.

remove_callback(callback, section=None, key=None)[source]

Removes a callback added with add_callback(). remove_callback() must be called with the same parameters as add_callback().

Raises a ValueError if not found.

New in version 1.9.0.

set(section, option, value)[source]

Functions similarly to PythonConfigParser’s set method, except that the value is implicitly converted to a string.

setall(section, keyvalues)[source]

Sets multiple key-value pairs in a section. keyvalues should be a dictionary containing the key-value pairs to be set.

setdefault(section, option, value)[source]

Set the default value for an option in the specified section.

setdefaults(section, keyvalues)[source]

Set multiple key-value defaults in a section. keyvalues should be a dictionary containing the new key-value defaults.

update_config(filename, overwrite=False)[source]

Upgrade the configuration based on a new default config file. Overwrite any existing values if overwrite is True.

write()[source]

Write the configuration to the last file opened using the read() method.

Return True if the write finished successfully, False otherwise.

Context

New in version 1.8.0.

Warning

This is experimental and subject to change as long as this warning notice is present.

Kivy has a few “global” instances that are used directly by many pieces of the framework: Cache, Builder, Clock.

TODO: document this module.

class kivy.context.Context(init=False)[source]

Bases: builtins.dict

pop(k[, d]) → v, remove specified key and return the corresponding value.[source]

If key is not found, d is returned if given, otherwise KeyError is raised

kivy.context.register_context(name, cls, *args, **kwargs)[source]

Register a new context.

kivy.context.get_current_context()[source]

Return the current context.

Event dispatcher

All objects that produce events in Kivy implement the EventDispatcher which provides a consistent interface for registering and manipulating event handlers.

Changed in version 1.0.9: Property discovery and methods have been moved from the Widget to the EventDispatcher.

class kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Bases: kivy.event.ObjectWithUid

Generic event dispatcher interface.

See the module docstring for usage.

apply_property()

Adds properties at runtime to the class. The function accepts keyword arguments of the form prop_name=prop, where prop is a Property instance and prop_name is the name of the attribute of the property.

New in version 1.9.1.

Warning

This method is not recommended for common usage because you should declare the properties in your class instead of using this method.

For example:

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>>> print(wid.property('sticks', quiet=True))
None
>>> wid.apply_property(sticks=ObjectProperty(55, max=10))
>>> print(wid.property('sticks', quiet=True))
<kivy.properties.ObjectProperty object at 0x04303130>
bind()

Bind an event type or a property to a callback.

Usage:

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# With properties
def my_x_callback(obj, value):
    print('on object', obj, 'x changed to', value)
def my_width_callback(obj, value):
    print('on object', obj, 'width changed to', value)
self.bind(x=my_x_callback, width=my_width_callback)

# With event
def my_press_callback(obj):
    print('event on object', obj)
self.bind(on_press=my_press_callback)

In general, property callbacks are called with 2 arguments (the object and the property’s new value) and event callbacks with one argument (the object). The example above illustrates this.

The following example demonstrates various ways of using the bind function in a complete application:

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from kivy.uix.boxlayout import BoxLayout
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.button import Button
from functools import partial


class DemoBox(BoxLayout):
    """
    This class demonstrates various techniques that can be used for binding to
    events. Although parts could me made more optimal, advanced Python concepts
    are avoided for the sake of readability and clarity.
    """
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(DemoBox, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.orientation = "vertical"

        # We start with binding to a normal event. The only argument
        # passed to the callback is the object which we have bound to.
        btn = Button(text="Normal binding to event")
        btn.bind(on_press=self.on_event)

        # Next, we bind to a standard property change event. This typically
        # passes 2 arguments: the object and the value
        btn2 = Button(text="Normal binding to a property change")
        btn2.bind(state=self.on_property)

        # Here we use anonymous functions (a.k.a lambdas) to perform binding.
        # Their advantage is that you can avoid declaring new functions i.e.
        # they offer a concise way to "redirect" callbacks.
        btn3 = Button(text="Using anonymous functions.")
        btn3.bind(on_press=lambda x: self.on_event(None))

        # You can also declare a function that accepts a variable number of
        # positional and keyword arguments and use introspection to determine
        # what is being passed in. This is very handy for debugging as well
        # as function re-use. Here, we use standard event binding to a function
        # that accepts optional positional and keyword arguments.
        btn4 = Button(text="Use a flexible function")
        btn4.bind(on_press=self.on_anything)

        # Lastly, we show how to use partial functions. They are sometimes
        # difficult to grasp, but provide a very flexible and powerful way to
        # reuse functions.
        btn5 = Button(text="Using partial functions. For hardcores.")
        btn5.bind(on_press=partial(self.on_anything, "1", "2", monthy="python"))

        for but in [btn, btn2, btn3, btn4, btn5]:
            self.add_widget(but)

    def on_event(self, obj):
        print("Typical event from", obj)

    def on_property(self, obj, value):
        print("Typical property change from", obj, "to", value)

    def on_anything(self, *args, **kwargs):
        print('The flexible function has *args of', str(args),
            "and **kwargs of", str(kwargs))


class DemoApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return DemoBox()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    DemoApp().run()

When binding a function to an event or property, a kivy.weakmethod.WeakMethod of the callback is saved, and when dispatching the callback is removed if the callback reference becomes invalid.

If a callback has already been bound to a given event or property, it won’t be added again.

create_property()

Create a new property at runtime.

New in version 1.0.9.

Changed in version 1.8.0: value parameter added, can be used to set the default value of the property. Also, the type of the value is used to specialize the created property.

Changed in version 1.9.0: In the past, if value was of type bool, a NumericProperty would be created, now a BooleanProperty is created.

Also, now and positional and keyword arguments are passed to the property when created.

Warning

This function is designed for the Kivy language, don’t use it in your code. You should declare the property in your class instead of using this method.

Parameters:
name: string

Name of the property

value: object, optional

Default value of the property. Type is also used for creating more appropriate property types. Defaults to None.

 
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>>> mywidget = Widget()
>>> mywidget.create_property('custom')
>>> mywidget.custom = True
>>> print(mywidget.custom)
True
dispatch()

Dispatch an event across all the handlers added in bind/fbind(). As soon as a handler returns True, the dispatching stops.

The function collects all the positional and keyword arguments and passes them on to the handlers.

Note

The handlers are called in reverse order than they were registered with bind().

Parameters:
event_type: basestring

the event name to dispatch.

Changed in version 1.9.0: Keyword arguments collection and forwarding was added. Before, only positional arguments would be collected and forwarded.

events()

Return all the events in the class. Can be used for introspection.

New in version 1.8.0.

fbind()

A method for advanced, and typically faster binding. This method is different than bind() and is meant for more advanced users and internal usage. It can be used as long as the following points are heeded.

  1. As opposed to bind(), it does not check that this function and largs/kwargs has not been bound before to this name. So binding the same callback multiple times will just keep adding it.
  2. Although bind() creates a WeakMethod of the callback when binding to an event or property, this method stores the callback directly. See fbind_proxy() to use a ref instead. This is useful when there’s no risk of a memory leak by storing the callback directly.
  3. This method returns a unique positive number if name was found and bound, and 0, otherwise. It does not raise an exception, like bind() if the property name is not found. If not zero, the uid returned is unique to this name and callback and can be used with unbind_uid() for unbinding.

When binding a callback with largs and/or kwargs, funbind() must be used for unbinding. If no largs and kwargs are provided, unbind() may be used as well. unbind_uid() can be used in either case.

This method passes on any caught positional and/or keyword arguments to the callback, removing the need to call partial. When calling the callback the expended largs are passed on followed by instance/value (just instance for kwargs) followed by expended kwargs.

Following is an example of usage similar to the example in bind():

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class DemoBox(BoxLayout):

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(DemoBox, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.orientation = "vertical"

        btn = Button(text="Normal binding to event")
        btn.fbind('on_press', self.on_event)

        btn2 = Button(text="Normal binding to a property change")
        btn2.fbind('state', self.on_property)

        btn3 = Button(text="A: Using function with args.")
        btn3.fbind('on_press', self.on_event_with_args, 'right',
                       tree='birch', food='apple')

        btn4 = Button(text="Unbind A.")
        btn4.fbind('on_press', self.unbind_a, btn3)

        btn5 = Button(text="Use a flexible function")
        btn5.fbind('on_press', self.on_anything)

        btn6 = Button(text="B: Using flexible functions with args. For hardcores.")
        btn6.fbind('on_press', self.on_anything, "1", "2", monthy="python")

        btn7 = Button(text="Force dispatch B with different params")
        btn7.fbind('on_press', btn6.dispatch, 'on_press', 6, 7, monthy="other python")

        for but in [btn, btn2, btn3, btn4, btn5, btn6, btn7]:
            self.add_widget(but)

    def on_event(self, obj):
        print("Typical event from", obj)

    def on_event_with_args(self, side, obj, tree=None, food=None):
        print("Event with args", obj, side, tree, food)

    def on_property(self, obj, value):
        print("Typical property change from", obj, "to", value)

    def on_anything(self, *args, **kwargs):
        print('The flexible function has *args of', str(args),
            "and **kwargs of", str(kwargs))
        return True

    def unbind_a(self, btn, event):
        btn.funbind('on_press', self.on_event_with_args, 'right',
                        tree='birch', food='apple')

Note

Since the kv lang uses this method to bind, one has to implement this method, instead of bind() when creating a non EventDispatcher based class used with the kv lang. See Observable for an example.

New in version 1.9.0.

Changed in version 1.9.1: The ref keyword argument has been added.

fbind_proxy()

Identical to fbind(), except that proxy_func must be a proxy to the callback function or method. The proxy is called internally with proxy_func() to get the original callback, which is only called if it’s still alive.

Typically, proxy_func is a WeakMethod.

funbind()

Similar to fbind().

When unbinding, unbind() will unbind all callbacks that match the callback, while this method will only unbind the first.

To unbind, the same positional and keyword arguments passed to fbind() must be passed on to funbind.

Note

It is safe to use funbind() to unbind a function bound with bind() as long as no keyword and positional arguments are provided to funbind().

New in version 1.9.0.

get_property_observers()

Returns a list of methods that are bound to the property/event passed as the name argument:

widget_instance.get_property_observers('on_release')
Parameters:
name: str

The name of the event or property.

args: bool

Whether to return the bound args. To keep compatibility, only the callback functions and not their provided args will be returned in the list when args is False.

If True, each element in the list is a 5-tuple of (callback, largs, kwargs, is_ref, uid), where is_ref indicates whether callback is a weakref, and uid is the uid given by fbind(), or None if bind() was used. Defaults to False.
Returns:

The list of bound callbacks. See args for details.

New in version 1.8.0.

Changed in version 1.9.0: args has been added.

getter()

Return the getter of a property.

New in version 1.0.9.

is_event_type()

Return True if the event_type is already registered.

New in version 1.0.4.

properties()

Return all the properties in the class in a dictionary of key/property class. Can be used for introspection.

New in version 1.0.9.

property()

Get a property instance from the property name. If quiet is True, None is returned instead of raising an exception when name is not a property. Defaults to False.

New in version 1.0.9.

Returns:A Property derived instance corresponding to the name.

Changed in version 1.9.0: quiet was added.

proxy_ref

Default implementation of proxy_ref, returns self. .. versionadded:: 1.9.0

register_event_type()

Register an event type with the dispatcher.

Registering event types allows the dispatcher to validate event handler names as they are attached and to search attached objects for suitable handlers. Each event type declaration must:

  1. start with the prefix on_.
  2. have a default handler in the class.

Example of creating a custom event:

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class MyWidget(Widget):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MyWidget, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.register_event_type('on_swipe')

    def on_swipe(self):
        pass

def on_swipe_callback(*largs):
    print('my swipe is called', largs)
w = MyWidget()
w.dispatch('on_swipe')
setter()

Return the setter of a property. Use: instance.setter(‘name’). The setter is a convenient callback function useful if you want to directly bind one property to another. It returns a partial function that will accept (obj, value) args and results in the property ‘name’ of instance being set to value.

New in version 1.0.9.

For example, to bind number2 to number1 in python you would do:

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class ExampleWidget(Widget):
    number1 = NumericProperty(None)
    number2 = NumericProperty(None)

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(ExampleWidget, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.bind(number1=self.setter('number2'))

This is equivalent to kv binding:

<ExampleWidget>:
    number2: self.number1
unbind()

Unbind properties from callback functions with similar usage as bind().

If a callback has been bound to a given event or property multiple times, only the first occurrence will be unbound.

Note

It is safe to use unbind() on a function bound with fbind() as long as that function was originally bound without any keyword and positional arguments. Otherwise, the function will fail to be unbound and you should use funbind() instead.

unbind_uid()

Uses the uid returned by fbind() to unbind the callback.

This method is much more efficient than funbind(). If uid evaluates to False (e.g. 0) a ValueError is raised. Also, only callbacks bound with fbind() can be unbound with this method.

Since each call to fbind() will generate a unique uid, only one callback will be removed. If uid is not found among the callbacks, no error is raised.

E.g.:

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btn6 = Button(text="B: Using flexible functions with args. For hardcores.")
uid = btn6.fbind('on_press', self.on_anything, "1", "2", monthy="python")
if not uid:
    raise Exception('Binding failed').
...
btn6.unbind_uid('on_press', uid)

New in version 1.9.0.

unregister_event_types()

Unregister an event type in the dispatcher.

class kivy.event.ObjectWithUid

Bases: builtins.object

(internal) This class assists in providing unique identifiers for class instances. It is not intended for direct usage.

class kivy.event.Observable

Bases: kivy.event.ObjectWithUid

Observable is a stub class defining the methods required for binding. EventDispatcher is (the) one example of a class that implements the binding interface. See EventDispatcher for details.

New in version 1.9.0.

fbind()

See EventDispatcher.fbind().

Note

To keep backward compatibility with derived classes which may have inherited from Observable before, the fbind() method was added. The default implementation of fbind() is to create a partial function that it passes to bind while saving the uid and largs/kwargs. However, funbind() (and unbind_uid()) are fairly inefficient since we have to first lookup this partial function using the largs/kwargs or uid and then call unbind() on the returned function. It is recommended to overwrite these methods in derived classes to bind directly for better performance.

Similarly to EventDispatcher.fbind(), this method returns 0 on failure and a positive unique uid on success. This uid can be used with unbind_uid().

funbind()

See fbind() and EventDispatcher.funbind().

unbind_uid()

See fbind() and EventDispatcher.unbind_uid().

Factory object

The factory can be used to automatically register any class or module and instantiate classes from it anywhere in your project. It is an implementation of the Factory Pattern.

The class list and available modules are automatically generated by setup.py.

Example for registering a class/module:

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>>> from kivy.factory import Factory
>>> Factory.register('Widget', module='kivy.uix.widget')
>>> Factory.register('Vector', module='kivy.vector')

Example of using the Factory:

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>>> from kivy.factory import Factory
>>> widget = Factory.Widget(pos=(456,456))
>>> vector = Factory.Vector(9, 2)

Example using a class name:

>>> from kivy.factory import Factory
>>> Factory.register('MyWidget', cls=MyWidget)

By default, the first classname you register via the factory is permanent. If you wish to change the registered class, you need to unregister the classname before you re-assign it:

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>>> from kivy.factory import Factory
>>> Factory.register('MyWidget', cls=MyWidget)
>>> widget = Factory.MyWidget()
>>> Factory.unregister('MyWidget')
>>> Factory.register('MyWidget', cls=CustomWidget)
>>> customWidget = Factory.MyWidget()
kivy.factory.Factory = <kivy.factory.FactoryBase object>

Factory instance to use for getting new classes

exception kivy.factory.FactoryException[source]

Bases: Exception

Geometry utilities

This module contains some helper functions for geometric calculations.

kivy.geometry.circumcircle(a, b, c)[source]

Computes the circumcircle of a triangle defined by a, b, c. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumscribed_circle

Parameters:
a: iterable containing at least 2 values (for x and y)

The 1st point of the triangle.

b: iterable containing at least 2 values (for x and y)

The 2nd point of the triangle.

c: iterable containing at least 2 values (for x and y)

The 3rd point of the triangle.
Return:
A tuple that defines the circle :
  • The first element in the returned tuple is the center as (x, y)
  • The second is the radius (float)
kivy.geometry.minimum_bounding_circle(points)[source]

Returns the minimum bounding circle for a set of points.

For a description of the problem being solved, see the Smallest Circle Problem.

The function uses Applet’s Algorithm, the runtime is O(h^3, *n), where h is the number of points in the convex hull of the set of points. But it runs in linear time in almost all real world cases. See: http://tinyurl.com/6e4n5yb

Parameters:
points: iterable

A list of points (2 tuple with x,y coordinates)
Return:
A tuple that defines the circle:
  • The first element in the returned tuple is the center (x, y)
  • The second the radius (float)

Gesture recognition

This class allows you to easily create new gestures and compare them:

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from kivy.gesture import Gesture, GestureDatabase

# Create a gesture
g = Gesture()
g.add_stroke(point_list=[(1,1), (3,4), (2,1)])
g.normalize()

# Add it to the database
gdb = GestureDatabase()
gdb.add_gesture(g)

# And for the next gesture, try to find it!
g2 = Gesture()
# ...
gdb.find(g2)

Warning

You don’t really want to do this: it’s more of an example of how to construct gestures dynamically. Typically, you would need a lot more points, so it’s better to record gestures in a file and reload them to compare later. Look in the examples/gestures directory for an example of how to do that.

class kivy.gesture.Gesture(tolerance=None)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

A python implementation of a gesture recognition algorithm by Oleg Dopertchouk: http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article2039.asp

Implemented by Jeiel Aranal (chemikhazi@gmail.com), released into the public domain.

add_stroke(point_list=None)[source]

Adds a stroke to the gesture and returns the Stroke instance. Optional point_list argument is a list of the mouse points for the stroke.

dot_product(comparison_gesture)[source]

Calculates the dot product of the gesture with another gesture.

get_rigid_rotation(dstpts)[source]

Extract the rotation to apply to a group of points to minimize the distance to a second group of points. The two groups of points are assumed to be centered. This is a simple version that just picks an angle based on the first point of the gesture.

get_score(comparison_gesture, rotation_invariant=True)[source]

Returns the matching score of the gesture against another gesture.

normalize(stroke_samples=32)[source]

Runs the gesture normalization algorithm and calculates the dot product with self.

class kivy.gesture.GestureDatabase[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Class to handle a gesture database.

add_gesture(gesture)[source]

Add a new gesture to the database.

find(gesture, minscore=0.9, rotation_invariant=True)[source]

Find a matching gesture in the database.

gesture_to_str(gesture)[source]

Convert a gesture into a unique string.

str_to_gesture(data)[source]

Convert a unique string to a gesture.

class kivy.gesture.GestureStroke[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Gestures can be made up of multiple strokes.

add_point(x=x_pos, y=y_pos)[source]

Adds a point to the stroke.

center_stroke(offset_x, offset_y)[source]

Centers the stroke by offsetting the points.

normalize_stroke(sample_points=32)[source]

Normalizes strokes so that every stroke has a standard number of points. Returns True if stroke is normalized, False if it can’t be normalized. sample_points controls the resolution of the stroke.

points_distance(point1=GesturePoint, point2=GesturePoint)[source]

Returns the distance between two GesturePoints.

scale_stroke(scale_factor=float)[source]

Scales the stroke down by scale_factor.

stroke_length(point_list=None)[source]

Finds the length of the stroke. If a point list is given, finds the length of that list.

Interactive launcher

New in version 1.3.0.

Deprecated since version 1.10.0: The interactive launcher has been deprecated.

The InteractiveLauncher provides a user-friendly python shell interface to an App so that it can be prototyped and debugged interactively.

Note

The Kivy API intends for some functions to only be run once or before the main EventLoop has started. Methods that can normally be called during the course of an application will work as intended, but specifically overriding methods such as on_touch() dynamically leads to trouble.

Creating an InteractiveLauncher

Take your existing subclass of App (this can be production code) and pass an instance to the InteractiveLauncher constructor.

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from kivy.interactive import InteractiveLauncher
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.button import Button

class MyApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return Button(text='Hello Shell')

launcher = InteractiveLauncher(MyApp())
launcher.run()

After pressing enter, the script will return. This allows the interpreter to continue running. Inspection or modification of the App can be done safely through the InteractiveLauncher instance or the provided SafeMembrane class instances.

Note

If you want to test this example, start Python without any file to have already an interpreter, and copy/paste all the lines. You’ll still have the interpreter at the end + the kivy application running.

Interactive Development

IPython provides a fast way to learn the Kivy API. The App instance and all of it’s attributes, including methods and the entire widget tree, can be quickly listed by using the ‘.’ operator and pressing ‘tab’. Try this code in an Ipython shell.

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from kivy.interactive import InteractiveLauncher
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
from kivy.graphics import Color, Ellipse

class MyPaintWidget(Widget):
    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        with self.canvas:
            Color(1, 1, 0)
            d = 30.
            Ellipse(pos=(touch.x - d/2, touch.y - d/2), size=(d, d))


class TestApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return Widget()


i = InteractiveLauncher(TestApp())
i.run()
i.       # press 'tab' to list attributes of the app
i.root.  # press 'tab' to list attributes of the root widget

# App is boring. Attach a new widget!
i.root.add_widget(MyPaintWidget())

i.safeIn()
# The application is now blocked.
# Click on the screen several times.
i.safeOut()
# The clicks will show up now

# Erase artwork and start over
i.root.canvas.clear()

Note

All of the proxies used in the module store their referent in the _ref attribute, which can be accessed directly if needed, such as for getting doc strings. help() and type() will access the proxy, not its referent.

Directly Pausing the Application

Both the InteractiveLauncher and SafeMembrane hold internal references to the EventLoop’s ‘safe’ and ‘confirmed’ threading.Event objects. You can use their safing methods to control the application manually.

SafeMembrane.safeIn() will cause the application to pause and SafeMembrane.safeOut() will allow a paused application to continue running. This is potentially useful for scripting actions into functions that need the screen to update etc.

Note

The pausing is implemented via the Clocks' schedule_once() method and occurs before the start of each frame.

Adding Attributes Dynamically

Note

This module uses threading and object proxies to encapsulate the running App. Deadlocks and memory corruption can occur if making direct references inside the thread without going through the provided proxy(s).

The InteractiveLauncher can have attributes added to it exactly like a normal object and if these were created from outside the membrane, they will not be threadsafe because the external references to them in the python interpreter do not go through InteractiveLauncher’s membrane behavior, inherited from SafeMembrane.

To threadsafe these external references, simply assign them to SafeMembrane instances of themselves like so:

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from kivy.interactive import SafeMembrane

interactiveLauncher.attribute = myNewObject
# myNewObject is unsafe
myNewObject = SafeMembrane(myNewObject)
# myNewObject is now safe. Call at will.
myNewObject.method()
TODO

Unit tests, examples, and a better explanation of which methods are safe in a running application would be nice. All three would be excellent.

Could be re-written with a context-manager style i.e.

with safe:
    foo()

Any use cases besides compacting code?

class kivy.interactive.SafeMembrane(ob, *args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

This help is for a proxy object. Did you want help on the proxy’s referent instead? Try using help(<instance>._ref)

The SafeMembrane is a threadsafe proxy that also returns attributes as new thread-safe objects and makes thread-safe method calls, preventing thread-unsafe objects from leaking into the user’s environment.

safeIn()[source]

Provides a thread-safe entry point for interactive launching.

safeOut()[source]

Provides a thread-safe exit point for interactive launching.

class kivy.interactive.InteractiveLauncher(app=None, *args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.interactive.SafeMembrane

Proxy to an application instance that launches it in a thread and then returns and acts as a proxy to the application in the thread.

Kivy Base

This module contains the Kivy core functionality and is not intended for end users. Feel free to look through it, but bare in mind that calling any of these methods directly may result in an unpredictable behavior as the calls access directly the event loop of an application.

kivy.base.EventLoop = <kivy.base.EventLoopBase object>

EventLoop instance

class kivy.base.EventLoopBase[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Main event loop. This loop handles the updating of input and dispatching events.

add_event_listener(listener)[source]

Add a new event listener for getting touch events.

add_input_provider(provider, auto_remove=False)[source]

Add a new input provider to listen for touch events.

add_postproc_module(mod)[source]

Add a postproc input module (DoubleTap, TripleTap, DeJitter RetainTouch are defaults).

close()[source]

Exit from the main loop and stop all configured input providers.

dispatch_input()[source]

Called by EventLoopBase.idle() to read events from input providers, pass events to postproc, and dispatch final events.

ensure_window()[source]

Ensure that we have a window.

exit()[source]

Close the main loop and close the window.

idle()[source]

This function is called after every frame. By default:

  • it “ticks” the clock to the next frame.
  • it reads all input and dispatches events.
  • it dispatches on_update, on_draw and on_flip events to the window.
on_pause()[source]

Event handler for on_pause which will be fired when the event loop is paused.

on_start()[source]

Event handler for on_start which will be fired right after all input providers have been started.

on_stop()[source]

Event handler for on_stop events which will be fired right after all input providers have been stopped.

post_dispatch_input(etype, me)[source]

This function is called by EventLoopBase.dispatch_input() when we want to dispatch an input event. The event is dispatched to all listeners and if grabbed, it’s dispatched to grabbed widgets.

remove_android_splash(*args)[source]

Remove android presplash in SDL2 bootstrap.

remove_event_listener(listener)[source]

Remove an event listener from the list.

remove_input_provider(provider)[source]

Remove an input provider.

remove_postproc_module(mod)[source]

Remove a postproc module.

run()[source]

Main loop

set_window(window)[source]

Set the window used for the event loop.

start()[source]

Must be called only once before EventLoopBase.run(). This starts all configured input providers.

stop()[source]

Stop all input providers and call callbacks registered using EventLoop.add_stop_callback().

touches

Return the list of all touches currently in down or move states.

class kivy.base.ExceptionHandler[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Base handler that catches exceptions in runTouchApp(). You can subclass and extend it as follows:

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class E(ExceptionHandler):
    def handle_exception(self, inst):
        Logger.exception('Exception catched by ExceptionHandler')
        return ExceptionManager.PASS

ExceptionManager.add_handler(E())

All exceptions will be set to PASS, and logged to the console!

handle_exception(exception)[source]

Handle one exception, defaults to returning ExceptionManager.RAISE.

class kivy.base.ExceptionManagerBase[source]

Bases: builtins.object

ExceptionManager manages exceptions handlers.

add_handler(cls)[source]

Add a new exception handler to the stack.

handle_exception(inst)[source]

Called when an exception occurred in the runTouchApp() main loop.

remove_handler(cls)[source]

Remove a exception handler from the stack.

kivy.base.ExceptionManager = <kivy.base.ExceptionManagerBase object>

Instance of a ExceptionManagerBase implementation.

kivy.base.runTouchApp(widget=None, slave=False)[source]

Static main function that starts the application loop. You can access some magic via the following arguments:

Parameters:
<empty>

To make dispatching work, you need at least one input listener. If not, application will leave. (MTWindow act as an input listener)

widget

If you pass only a widget, a MTWindow will be created and your widget will be added to the window as the root widget.

slave

No event dispatching is done. This will be your job.

widget + slave

No event dispatching is done. This will be your job but we try to get the window (must be created by you beforehand) and add the widget to it. Very useful for embedding Kivy in another toolkit. (like Qt, check kivy-designed)
kivy.base.stopTouchApp()[source]

Stop the current application by leaving the main loop

Logger object

Differents logging levels are available : trace, debug, info, warning, error and critical.

Examples of usage:

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from kivy.logger import Logger

Logger.info('title: This is a info message.')
Logger.debug('title: This is a debug message.')

try:
    raise Exception('bleh')
except Exception:
    Logger.exception('Something happened!')

The message passed to the logger is split into two parts, separated by a colon (:). The first part is used as a title, and the second part is used as the message. This way, you can “categorize” your message easily.

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Logger.info('Application: This is a test')

# will appear as

[INFO   ] [Application ] This is a test
Logger configuration

The Logger can be controlled via the Kivy configuration file:

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[kivy]
log_level = info
log_enable = 1
log_dir = logs
log_name = kivy_%y-%m-%d_%_.txt
log_maxfiles = 100

More information about the allowed values are described in the kivy.config module.

Logger history

Even if the logger is not enabled, you still have access to the last 100 messages:

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from kivy.logger import LoggerHistory

print(LoggerHistory.history)
kivy.logger.Logger = <logging.Logger object>[source]

Kivy default logger instance

class kivy.logger.LoggerHistory(level=0)[source]

Bases: logging.Handler

Kivy history handler

emit(message)[source]

Do whatever it takes to actually log the specified logging record.

This version is intended to be implemented by subclasses and so raises a NotImplementedError.

Metrics

New in version 1.5.0.

A screen is defined by its physical size, density and resolution. These factors are essential for creating UI’s with correct size everywhere.

In Kivy, all the graphics pipelines work with pixels. But using pixels as a measurement unit is problematic because sizes change according to the screen.

Dimensions

If you want to design your UI for different screen sizes, you will want better measurement units to work with. Kivy provides some more scalable alternatives.

Units:
pt

Points - 1/72 of an inch based on the physical size of the screen. Prefer to use sp instead of pt.

mm

Millimeters - Based on the physical size of the screen.

cm

Centimeters - Based on the physical size of the screen.

in

Inches - Based on the physical size of the screen.

dp

Density-independent Pixels - An abstract unit that is based on the physical density of the screen. With a density of 1, 1dp is equal to 1px. When running on a higher density screen, the number of pixels used to draw 1dp is scaled up a factor appropriate to the screen’s dpi, and the inverse for a lower dpi. The ratio of dp-to-pixels will change with the screen density, but not necessarily in direct proportion. Using the dp unit is a simple solution to making the view dimensions in your layout resize properly for different screen densities. In others words, it provides consistency for the real-world size of your UI across different devices.

sp

Scale-independent Pixels - This is like the dp unit, but it is also scaled by the user’s font size preference. We recommend you use this unit when specifying font sizes, so the font size will be adjusted to both the screen density and the user’s preference.
Examples

Here is an example of creating a label with a sp font_size and setting the height manually with a 10dp margin:

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#:kivy 1.5.0
<MyWidget>:
    Label:
        text: 'Hello world'
        font_size: '15sp'
        size_hint_y: None
        height: self.texture_size[1] + dp(10)
Manual control of metrics

The metrics cannot be changed at runtime. Once a value has been converted to pixels, you can’t retrieve the original value anymore. This stems from the fact that the DPI and density of a device cannot be changed at runtime.

We provide some environment variables to control metrics:

  • KIVY_METRICS_DENSITY: if set, this value will be used for density instead of the systems one. On android, the value varies between 0.75, 1, 1.5 and 2.
  • KIVY_METRICS_FONTSCALE: if set, this value will be used for fontscale instead of the systems one. On android, the value varies between 0.8 and 1.2.
  • KIVY_DPI: if set, this value will be used for dpi. Please note that setting the DPI will not impact the dp/sp notation because these are based on the screen density.

For example, if you want to simulate a high-density screen (like the HTC One X):

KIVY_DPI=320 KIVY_METRICS_DENSITY=2 python main.py --size 1280x720

Or a medium-density (like Motorola Droid 2):

KIVY_DPI=240 KIVY_METRICS_DENSITY=1.5 python main.py --size 854x480

You can also simulate an alternative user preference for fontscale as follows:

KIVY_METRICS_FONTSCALE=1.2 python main.py
kivy.metrics.Metrics = <kivy.metrics.MetricsBase object>

Default instance of MetricsBase, used everywhere in the code .. versionadded:: 1.7.0

class kivy.metrics.MetricsBase[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Class that contains the default attributes for Metrics. Don’t use this class directly, but use the Metrics instance.

density()

Return the density of the screen. This value is 1 by default on desktops but varies on android depending on the screen.

dpi()

Return the DPI of the screen. Depending on the platform, the DPI can be taken from the Window provider (Desktop mainly) or from a platform-specific module (like android/ios).

dpi_rounded()

Return the DPI of the screen, rounded to the nearest of 120, 160, 240 or 320.

fontscale()

Return the fontscale user preference. This value is 1 by default but can vary between 0.8 and 1.2.

kivy.metrics.pt(value)[source]

Convert from points to pixels

kivy.metrics.inch(value)[source]

Convert from inches to pixels

kivy.metrics.cm(value)[source]

Convert from centimeters to pixels

kivy.metrics.mm(value)[source]

Convert from millimeters to pixels

kivy.metrics.dp(value)[source]

Convert from density-independent pixels to pixels

kivy.metrics.sp(value)[source]

Convert from scale-independent pixels to pixels

Multistroke gesture recognizer

New in version 1.9.0.

Warning

This is experimental and subject to change as long as this warning notice is present.

See kivy/examples/demo/multistroke/main.py for a complete application example.

Conceptual Overview

This module implements the Protractor gesture recognition algorithm.

Recognizer is the search/database API similar to GestureDatabase. It maintains a list of MultistrokeGesture objects and allows you to search for a user-input gestures among them.

ProgressTracker tracks the progress of a Recognizer.recognize() call. It can be used to interact with the running recognizer task, for example forcing it to stop half-way, or analyzing results as they arrive.

MultistrokeGesture represents a gesture in the gesture database (Recognizer.db). It is a container for UnistrokeTemplate objects, and implements the heap permute algorithm to automatically generate all possible stroke orders (if desired).

UnistrokeTemplate represents a single stroke path. It’s typically instantiated automatically by MultistrokeGesture, but sometimes you may need to create them manually.

Candidate represents a user-input gesture that is used to search the gesture database for matches. It is normally instantiated automatically by calling Recognizer.recognize().

Usage examples

See kivy/examples/demo/multistroke/main.py for a complete application example.

You can bind to events on Recognizer to track the state of all calls to Recognizer.recognize(). The callback function will receive an instance of ProgressTracker that can be used to analyze and control various aspects of the recognition process

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from kivy.vector import Vector
from kivy.multistroke import Recognizer

gdb = Recognizer()

def search_start(gdb, pt):
    print("A search is starting with %d tasks" % (pt.tasks))

def search_stop(gdb, pt):
    # This will call max() on the result dictionary, so it's best to store
    # it instead of calling it 3 times consecutively
    best = pt.best
    print("Search ended (%s). Best is %s (score %f, distance %f)" % (
        pt.status, best['name'], best['score'], best['dist'] ))

# Bind your callbacks to track all matching operations
gdb.bind(on_search_start=search_start)
gdb.bind(on_search_complete=search_stop)

# The format below is referred to as `strokes`, a list of stroke paths.
# Note that each path shown here consists of two points, ie a straight
# line; if you plot them it looks like a T, hence the name.
gdb.add_gesture('T', [
    [Vector(30, 7), Vector(103, 7)],
    [Vector(66, 7), Vector(66, 87)]])

# Now you can search for the 'T' gesture using similar data (user input).
# This will trigger both of the callbacks bound above.
gdb.recognize([
    [Vector(45, 8), Vector(110, 12)],
    [Vector(88, 9), Vector(85, 95)]])

On the next Clock tick, the matching process starts (and, in this case, completes).

To track individual calls to Recognizer.recognize(), use the return value (also a ProgressTracker instance)

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# Same as above, but keep track of progress using returned value
progress = gdb.recognize([
    [Vector(45, 8), Vector(110, 12)],
    [Vector(88, 9), Vector(85, 95)]])

progress.bind(on_progress=my_other_callback)
print(progress.progress) # = 0

# [ assuming a kivy.clock.Clock.tick() here ]

print(result.progress) # = 1
Algorithm details

For more information about the matching algorithm, see:

“Protractor: A fast and accurate gesture recognizer” by Yang Li
http://yangl.org/pdf/protractor-chi2010.pdf
“$N-Protractor” by Lisa Anthony and Jacob O. Wobbrock
http://depts.washington.edu/aimgroup/proj/dollar/ndollar-protractor.pdf
Some of the code is derived from the JavaScript implementation here:
http://depts.washington.edu/aimgroup/proj/dollar/ndollar.html
class kivy.multistroke.Recognizer(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Recognizer provides a gesture database with matching facilities.

Events:
on_search_start

Fired when a new search is started using this Recognizer.

on_search_complete

Fired when a running search ends, for whatever reason. (use ProgressTracker.status to find out)
Properties:
db

A ListProperty that contains the available MultistrokeGesture objects.

db is a ListProperty and defaults to []
add_gesture(name, strokes, **kwargs)[source]

Add a new gesture to the database. This will instantiate a new MultistrokeGesture with strokes and append it to self.db.

Note

If you already have instantiated a MultistrokeGesture object and wish to add it, append it to Recognizer.db manually.

export_gesture(filename=None, **kwargs)[source]

Export a list of MultistrokeGesture objects. Outputs a base64-encoded string that can be decoded to a Python list with the parse_gesture() function or imported directly to self.db using Recognizer.import_gesture(). If filename is specified, the output is written to disk, otherwise returned.

This method accepts optional Recognizer.filter() arguments.

filter(**kwargs)[source]

filter() returns a subset of objects in self.db, according to given criteria. This is used by many other methods of the Recognizer; the arguments below can for example be used when calling Recognizer.recognize() or Recognizer.export_gesture(). You normally don’t need to call this directly.

Arguments:
name

Limits the returned list to gestures where MultistrokeGesture.name matches given regular expression(s). If re.match(name, MultistrokeGesture.name) tests true, the gesture is included in the returned list. Can be a string or an array of strings

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gdb = Recognizer()

# Will match all names that start with a capital N
# (ie Next, New, N, Nebraska etc, but not "n" or "next")
gdb.filter(name='N')

# exactly 'N'
gdb.filter(name='N$')

# Nebraska, teletubbies, France, fraggle, N, n, etc
gdb.filter(name=['[Nn]', '(?i)T', '(?i)F'])
priority

Limits the returned list to gestures with certain MultistrokeGesture.priority values. If specified as an integer, only gestures with a lower priority are returned. If specified as a list (min/max)

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# Max priority 50
gdb.filter(priority=50)

# Max priority 50 (same result as above)
gdb.filter(priority=[0, 50])

# Min priority 50, max 100
gdb.filter(priority=[50, 100])

When this option is used, Recognizer.db is automatically sorted according to priority, incurring extra cost. You can use force_priority_sort to override this behavior if your gestures are already sorted according to priority.

orientation_sensitive

Limits the returned list to gestures that are orientation sensitive (True), gestures that are not orientation sensitive (False) or None (ignore template sensitivity, this is the default).

numstrokes

Limits the returned list to gestures that have the specified number of strokes (in MultistrokeGesture.strokes). Can be a single integer or a list of integers.

numpoints

Limits the returned list to gestures that have specific MultistrokeGesture.numpoints values. This is provided for flexibility, do not use it unless you understand what it does. Can be a single integer or a list of integers.

force_priority_sort

Can be used to override the default sort behavior. Normally MultistrokeGesture objects are returned in priority order if the priority option is used. Setting this to True will return gestures sorted in priority order, False will return in the order gestures were added. None means decide automatically (the default).

Note

For improved performance, you can load your gesture database in priority order and set this to False when calling Recognizer.recognize()

db

Can be set if you want to filter a different list of objects than Recognizer.db. You probably don’t want to do this; it is used internally by import_gesture().
import_gesture(data=None, filename=None, **kwargs)[source]

Import a list of gestures as formatted by export_gesture(). One of data or filename must be specified.

This method accepts optional Recognizer.filter() arguments, if none are specified then all gestures in specified data are imported.

parse_gesture(data)[source]

Parse data formatted by export_gesture(). Returns a list of MultistrokeGesture objects. This is used internally by import_gesture(), you normally don’t need to call this directly.

prepare_templates(**kwargs)[source]

This method is used to prepare UnistrokeTemplate objects within the gestures in self.db. This is useful if you want to minimize punishment of lazy resampling by preparing all vectors in advance. If you do this before a call to Recognizer.export_gesture(), you will have the vectors computed when you load the data later.

This method accepts optional Recognizer.filter() arguments.

force_numpoints, if specified, will prepare all templates to the given number of points (instead of each template’s preferred n; ie UnistrokeTemplate.numpoints). You normally don’t want to do this.

recognize(strokes, goodscore=None, timeout=0, delay=0, **kwargs)[source]

Search for gestures matching strokes. Returns a ProgressTracker instance.

This method accepts optional Recognizer.filter() arguments.

Arguments:
strokes

A list of stroke paths (list of lists of Vector objects) that will be matched against gestures in the database. Can also be a Candidate instance.

Warning

If you manually supply a Candidate that has a skip-flag, make sure that the correct filter arguments are set. Otherwise the system will attempt to load vectors that have not been computed. For example, if you set skip_bounded and do not set orientation_sensitive to False, it will raise an exception if an orientation_sensitive UnistrokeTemplate is encountered.

goodscore

If this is set (between 0.0 - 1.0) and a gesture score is equal to or higher than the specified value, the search is immediately halted and the on_search_complete event is fired (+ the on_complete event of the associated ProgressTracker instance). Default is None (disabled).

timeout

Specifies a timeout (in seconds) for when the search is aborted and the results returned. This option applies only when max_gpf is not 0. Default value is 0, meaning all gestures in the database will be tested, no matter how long it takes.

max_gpf

Specifies the maximum number of MultistrokeGesture objects that can be processed per frame. When exceeded, will cause the search to halt and resume work in the next frame. Setting to 0 will complete the search immediately (and block the UI).

Warning

This does not limit the number of UnistrokeTemplate objects matched! If a single gesture has a million templates, they will all be processed in a single frame with max_gpf=1!

delay

Sets an optional delay between each run of the recognizer loop. Normally, a run is scheduled for the next frame until the tasklist is exhausted. If you set this, there will be an additional delay between each run (specified in seconds). Default is 0, resume in the next frame.

force_numpoints

forces all templates (and candidate) to be prepared to a certain number of points. This can be useful for example if you are evaluating templates for optimal n (do not use this unless you understand what it does).
transfer_gesture(tgt, **kwargs)[source]

Transfers MultistrokeGesture objects from Recognizer.db to another Recognizer instance tgt.

This method accepts optional Recognizer.filter() arguments.

class kivy.multistroke.ProgressTracker(candidate, tasks, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Represents an ongoing (or completed) search operation. Instantiated and returned by the Recognizer.recognize() method when it is called. The results attribute is a dictionary that is updated as the recognition operation progresses.

Note

You do not need to instantiate this class.

Arguments:
candidate

Candidate object to be evaluated

tasks

Total number of gestures in tasklist (to test against)
Events:
on_progress

Fired for every gesture that is processed

on_result

Fired when a new result is added, and it is the first match for the name so far, or a consecutive match with better score.

on_complete

Fired when the search is completed, for whatever reason. (use ProgressTracker.status to find out)
Attributes:
results

A dictionary of all results (so far). The key is the name of the gesture (ie UnistrokeTemplate.name usually inherited from MultistrokeGesture). Each item in the dictionary is a dict with the following entries:

name

Name of the matched template (redundant)

score

Computed score from 1.0 (perfect match) to 0.0

dist

Cosine distance from candidate to template (low=closer)

gesture

The MultistrokeGesture object that was matched

best_template

Index of the best matching template (in MultistrokeGesture.templates)

template_results

List of distances for all templates. The list index corresponds to a UnistrokeTemplate index in gesture.templates.

status
search

Currently working

stop

Was stopped by the user (stop() called)

timeout

A timeout occurred (specified as timeout= to recognize())

goodscore

The search was stopped early because a gesture with a high enough score was found (specified as goodscore= to recognize())

complete

The search is complete (all gestures matching filters were tested)
best

Return the best match found by recognize() so far. It returns a dictionary with three keys, ‘name’, ‘dist’ and ‘score’ representing the template’s name, distance (from candidate path) and the computed score value. This is a Python property.

progress

Returns the progress as a float, 0 is 0% done, 1 is 100%. This is a Python property.

stop()[source]

Raises a stop flag that is checked by the search process. It will be stopped on the next clock tick (if it is still running).

class kivy.multistroke.MultistrokeGesture(name, strokes=None, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

MultistrokeGesture represents a gesture. It maintains a set of strokes and generates unistroke (ie UnistrokeTemplate) permutations that are used for evaluating candidates against this gesture later.

Arguments:
name

Identifies the name of the gesture - it is returned to you in the results of a Recognizer.recognize() search. You can have any number of MultistrokeGesture objects with the same name; many definitions of one gesture. The same name is given to all the generated unistroke permutations. Required, no default.

strokes

A list of paths that represents the gesture. A path is a list of Vector objects:

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gesture = MultistrokeGesture('my_gesture', strokes=[
  [Vector(x1, y1), Vector(x2, y2), ...... ], # stroke 1
  [Vector(), Vector(), Vector(), Vector() ]  # stroke 2
  #, [stroke 3], [stroke 4], ...
])

For template matching purposes, all the strokes are combined to a single list (unistroke). You should still specify the strokes individually, and set stroke_sensitive True (whenever possible).

Once you do this, unistroke permutations are immediately generated and stored in self.templates for later, unless you set the permute flag to False.

priority

Determines when Recognizer.recognize() will attempt to match this template, lower priorities are evaluated first (only if a priority filter is used). You should use lower priority on gestures that are more likely to match. For example, set user templates at lower number than generic templates. Default is 100.

numpoints

Determines the number of points this gesture should be resampled to (for matching purposes). The default is 16.

stroke_sensitive

Determines if the number of strokes (paths) in this gesture is required to be the same in the candidate (user input) gesture during matching. If this is False, candidates will always be evaluated, disregarding the number of strokes. Default is True.

orientation_sensitive

Determines if this gesture is orientation sensitive. If True, aligns the indicative orientation with the one of eight base orientations that requires least rotation. Default is True.

angle_similarity

This is used by the Recognizer.recognize() function when a candidate is evaluated against this gesture. If the angles between them are too far off, the template is considered a non-match. Default is 30.0 (degrees)

permute

If False, do not use Heap Permute algorithm to generate different stroke orders when instantiated. If you set this to False, a single UnistrokeTemplate built from strokes is used.
add_stroke(stroke, permute=False)[source]

Add a stroke to the self.strokes list. If permute is True, the permute() method is called to generate new unistroke templates

get_distance(cand, tpl, numpoints=None)[source]

Compute the distance from this Candiate to a UnistrokeTemplate. Returns the Cosine distance between the stroke paths.

numpoints will prepare both the UnistrokeTemplate and Candidate path to n points (when necessary), you probably don’t want to do this.

match_candidate(cand, **kwargs)[source]

Match a given candidate against this MultistrokeGesture object. Will test against all templates and report results as a list of four items:

index 0
Best matching template’s index (in self.templates)
index 1
Computed distance from the template to the candidate path
index 2
List of distances for all templates. The list index corresponds to a UnistrokeTemplate index in self.templates.
index 3
Counter for the number of performed matching operations, ie templates matched against the candidate
permute()[source]

Generate all possible unistroke permutations from self.strokes and save the resulting list of UnistrokeTemplate objects in self.templates.

Quote from http://faculty.washington.edu/wobbrock/pubs/gi-10.2.pdf

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We use Heap Permute [16] (p. 179) to generate all stroke orders
in a multistroke gesture. Then, to generate stroke directions for
each order, we treat each component stroke as a dichotomous
[0,1] variable. There are 2^N combinations for N strokes, so we
convert the decimal values 0 to 2^N-1, inclusive, to binary
representations and regard each bit as indicating forward (0) or
reverse (1). This algorithm is often used to generate truth tables
in propositional logic.

See section 4.1: “$N Algorithm” of the linked paper for details.

Warning

Using heap permute for gestures with more than 3 strokes can result in very large number of templates (a 9-stroke gesture = 38 million templates). If you are dealing with these types of gestures, you should manually compose all the desired stroke orders.

class kivy.multistroke.UnistrokeTemplate(name, points=None, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Represents a (uni)stroke path as a list of Vectors. Normally, this class is instantiated by MultistrokeGesture and not by the programmer directly. However, it is possible to manually compose UnistrokeTemplate objects.

Arguments:
name

Identifies the name of the gesture. This is normally inherited from the parent MultistrokeGesture object when a template is generated.

points

A list of points that represents a unistroke path. This is normally one of the possible stroke order permutations from a MultistrokeGesture.

numpoints

The number of points this template should (ideally) be resampled to before the matching process. The default is 16, but you can use a template-specific settings if that improves results.

orientation_sensitive

Determines if this template is orientation sensitive (True) or fully rotation invariant (False). The default is True.

Note

You will get an exception if you set a skip-flag and then attempt to retrieve those vectors.

add_point(p)[source]

Add a point to the unistroke/path. This invalidates all previously computed vectors.

prepare(numpoints=None)[source]

This function prepares the UnistrokeTemplate for matching given a target number of points (for resample). 16 is optimal.

class kivy.multistroke.Candidate(strokes=None, numpoints=16, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Represents a set of unistroke paths of user input, ie data to be matched against a UnistrokeTemplate object using the Protractor algorithm. By default, data is precomputed to match both rotation bounded and fully invariant UnistrokeTemplate objects.

Arguments:
strokes

See MultistrokeGesture.strokes for format example. The Candidate strokes are simply combined to a unistroke in the order given. The idea is that this will match one of the unistroke permutations in MultistrokeGesture.templates.

numpoints

The Candidate’s default N; this is only for a fallback, it is not normally used since n is driven by the UnistrokeTemplate we are being compared to.

skip_bounded

If True, do not generate/store rotation bounded vectors

skip_invariant

If True, do not generate/store rotation invariant vectors

Note that you WILL get errors if you set a skip-flag and then attempt to retrieve the data.

add_stroke(stroke)[source]

Add a stroke to the candidate; this will invalidate all previously computed vectors

get_angle_similarity(tpl, **kwargs)[source]

(Internal use only) Compute the angle similarity between this Candidate and a UnistrokeTemplate object. Returns a number that represents the angle similarity (lower is more similar).

get_protractor_vector(numpoints, orientation_sens)[source]

(Internal use only) Return vector for comparing to a UnistrokeTemplate with Protractor

get_start_unit_vector(numpoints, orientation_sens)[source]

(Internal use only) Get the start vector for this Candidate, with the path resampled to numpoints points. This is the first step in the matching process. It is compared to a UnistrokeTemplate object’s start vector to determine angle similarity.

prepare(numpoints=None)[source]

Prepare the Candidate vectors. self.strokes is combined to a single unistroke (connected end-to-end), resampled to numpoints points, and then the vectors are calculated and stored in self.db (for use by get_distance and get_angle_similarity)

Parser utilities

Helper functions used for CSS parsing.

kivy.parser.parse_color(text)[source]

Parse a string to a kivy color. Supported formats:

  • rgb(r, g, b)
  • rgba(r, g, b, a)
  • rgb
  • rgba
  • rrggbb
  • rrggbbaa

For hexadecimal values, you case also use:

  • #rgb
  • #rgba
  • #rrggbb
  • #rrggbbaa
kivy.parser.parse_int

alias of builtins.int

kivy.parser.parse_float

alias of builtins.float

kivy.parser.parse_string(text)[source]

Parse a string to a string (removing single and double quotes).

kivy.parser.parse_bool(text)[source]

Parse a string to a boolean, ignoring case. “true”/”1” is True, “false”/”0” is False. Anything else throws an exception.

kivy.parser.parse_int2(text)[source]

Parse a string to a list of exactly 2 integers.

>>> print(parse_int2("12 54"))
12, 54
kivy.parser.parse_float4(text)[source]

Parse a string to a list of exactly 4 floats.

>>> parse_float4('54 87. 35 0')
54, 87., 35, 0
kivy.parser.parse_filename(filename)[source]

Parse a filename and search for it using resource_find(). If found, the resource path is returned, otherwise return the unmodified filename (as specified by the caller).

Properties

The Properties classes are used when you create an EventDispatcher.

Warning

Kivy’s Properties are not to be confused with Python’s properties (i.e. the @property decorator and the <property> type).

Kivy’s property classes support:

Value Checking / Validation
When you assign a new value to a property, the value is checked against validation constraints. For example, validation for an OptionProperty will make sure that the value is in a predefined list of possibilities. Validation for a NumericProperty will check that your value is a numeric type. This prevents many errors early on.
Observer Pattern
You can specify what should happen when a property’s value changes. You can bind your own function as a callback to changes of a Property. If, for example, you want a piece of code to be called when a widget’s pos property changes, you can bind a function to it.
Better Memory Management
The same instance of a property is shared across multiple widget instances.
Comparison Python vs. Kivy
Basic example

Let’s compare Python and Kivy properties by creating a Python class with ‘a’ as a float property:

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class MyClass(object):
    def __init__(self, a=1.0):
        super(MyClass, self).__init__()
        self.a = a

With Kivy, you can do:

class MyClass(EventDispatcher):
    a = NumericProperty(1.0)
Depth being tracked

Only the “top level” of a nested object is being tracked. For example:

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my_list_prop = ListProperty([1, {'hi': 0}])
# Changing a top level element will trigger all `on_my_list_prop` callbacks
my_list_prop[0] = 4
# Changing a deeper element will be ignored by all `on_my_list_prop` callbacks
my_list_prop[1]['hi'] = 4

The same holds true for all container-type kivy properties.

Value checking

If you wanted to add a check for a minimum / maximum value allowed for a property, here is a possible implementation in Python:

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class MyClass(object):
    def __init__(self, a=1):
        super(MyClass, self).__init__()
        self.a_min = 0
        self.a_max = 100
        self.a = a

    def _get_a(self):
        return self._a
    def _set_a(self, value):
        if value < self.a_min or value > self.a_max:
            raise ValueError('a out of bounds')
        self._a = value
    a = property(_get_a, _set_a)

The disadvantage is you have to do that work yourself. And it becomes laborious and complex if you have many properties. With Kivy, you can simplify the process:

class MyClass(EventDispatcher):
    a = BoundedNumericProperty(1, min=0, max=100)

That’s all!

Error Handling

If setting a value would otherwise raise a ValueError, you have two options to handle the error gracefully within the property. The first option is to use an errorvalue parameter. An errorvalue is a substitute for the invalid value:

# simply returns 0 if the value exceeds the bounds
bnp = BoundedNumericProperty(0, min=-500, max=500, errorvalue=0)

The second option in to use an errorhandler parameter. An errorhandler is a callable (single argument function or lambda) which can return a valid substitute:

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# returns the boundary value when exceeded
bnp = BoundedNumericProperty(0, min=-500, max=500,
    errorhandler=lambda x: 500 if x > 500 else -500)
Keyword arguments and __init__()

When working with inheritance, namely with the __init__() of an object that inherits from EventDispatcher e.g. a Widget, the properties protect you from a Python 3 object error. This error occurs when passing kwargs to the object instance through a super() call:

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class MyClass(EventDispatcher):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MyClass, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.my_string = kwargs.get('my_string')

print(MyClass(my_string='value').my_string)

While this error is silenced in Python 2, it will stop the application in Python 3 with:

TypeError: object.__init__() takes no parameters

Logically, to fix that you’d either put my_string directly in the __init__() definition as a required argument or as an optional keyword argument with a default value i.e.:

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class MyClass(EventDispatcher):
    def __init__(self, my_string, **kwargs):
        super(MyClass, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.my_string = my_string

or:

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class MyClass(EventDispatcher):
    def __init__(self, my_string='default', **kwargs):
        super(MyClass, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.my_string = my_string

Alternatively, you could pop the key-value pair from the kwargs dictionary before calling super():

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class MyClass(EventDispatcher):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        self.my_string = kwargs.pop('my_string')
        super(MyClass, self).__init__(**kwargs)

Kivy properties are more flexible and do the required kwargs.pop() in the background automatically (within the super() call to EventDispatcher) to prevent this distraction:

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class MyClass(EventDispatcher):
    my_string = StringProperty('default')
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MyClass, self).__init__(**kwargs)

print(MyClass(my_string='value').my_string)
Conclusion

Kivy properties are easier to use than the standard ones. See the next chapter for examples of how to use them :)

Observe Property changes

As we said in the beginning, Kivy’s Properties implement the Observer pattern. That means you can bind() to a property and have your own function called when the value changes.

There are multiple ways to observe the changes.

Observe using bind()

You can observe a property change by using the bind() method outside of the class:

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class MyClass(EventDispatcher):
    a = NumericProperty(1)

def callback(instance, value):
    print('My callback is call from', instance)
    print('and the a value changed to', value)

ins = MyClass()
ins.bind(a=callback)

# At this point, any change to the a property will call your callback.
ins.a = 5    # callback called
ins.a = 5    # callback not called, because the value did not change
ins.a = -1   # callback called

Note

Property objects live at the class level and manage the values attached to instances. Re-assigning at class level will remove the Property. For example, continuing with the code above, MyClass.a = 5 replaces the property object with a simple int.

Observe using ‘on_<propname>’

If you defined the class yourself, you can use the ‘on_<propname>’ callback:

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class MyClass(EventDispatcher):
    a = NumericProperty(1)

    def on_a(self, instance, value):
        print('My property a changed to', value)

Warning

Be careful with ‘on_<propname>’. If you are creating such a callback on a property you are inheriting, you must not forget to call the superclass function too.

Binding to properties of properties.

When binding to a property of a property, for example binding to a numeric property of an object saved in a object property, updating the object property to point to a new object will not re-bind the numeric property to the new object. For example:

<MyWidget>:
    Label:
        id: first
        text: 'First label'
    Label:
        id: second
        text: 'Second label'
    Button:
        label: first
        text: self.label.text
        on_press: self.label = second

When clicking on the button, although the label object property has changed to the second widget, the button text will not change because it is bound to the text property of the first label directly.

In 1.9.0, the rebind option has been introduced that will allow the automatic updating of the text when label is changed, provided it was enabled. See ObjectProperty.

class kivy.properties.Property

Bases: builtins.object

Base class for building more complex properties.

This class handles all the basic setters and getters, None type handling, the observer list and storage initialisation. This class should not be directly instantiated.

By default, a Property always takes a default value:

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class MyObject(Widget):

    hello = Property('Hello world')

The default value must be a value that agrees with the Property type. For example, you can’t set a list to a StringProperty because the StringProperty will check the default value.

None is a special case: you can set the default value of a Property to None, but you can’t set None to a property afterward. If you really want to do that, you must declare the Property with allownone=True:

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class MyObject(Widget):

    hello = ObjectProperty(None, allownone=True)

# then later
a = MyObject()
a.hello = 'bleh' # working
a.hello = None # working too, because allownone is True.
Parameters:
default:

Specifies the default value for the property.

**kwargs:

If the parameters include errorhandler, this should be a callable which must take a single argument and return a valid substitute value.

If the parameters include errorvalue, this should be an object. If set, it will replace an invalid property value (overrides errorhandler).

If the parameters include force_dispatch, it should be a boolean. If True, no value comparison will be done, so the property event will be dispatched even if the new value matches the old value (by default identical values are not dispatched to avoid infinite recursion in two-way binds). Be careful, this is for advanced use only.

comparator: callable or None

When not None, it’s called with two values to be compared. The function returns whether they are considered the same.

Changed in version 1.4.2: Parameters errorhandler and errorvalue added

Changed in version 1.9.0: Parameter force_dispatch added

bind()

Add a new observer to be called only when the value is changed.

dispatch()

Dispatch the value change to all observers.

Changed in version 1.1.0: The method is now accessible from Python.

This can be used to force the dispatch of the property, even if the value didn’t change:

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button = Button()
# get the Property class instance
prop = button.property('text')
# dispatch this property on the button instance
prop.dispatch(button)
fbind()

Similar to bind, except it doesn’t check if the observer already exists. It also expands and forwards largs and kwargs to the callback. funbind or unbind_uid should be called when unbinding. It returns a unique positive uid to be used with unbind_uid.

funbind()

Remove the observer from our widget observer list bound with fbind. It removes the first match it finds, as opposed to unbind which searches for all matches.

get()

Return the value of the property.

Link the instance with its real name.

Warning

Internal usage only.

When a widget is defined and uses a Property class, the creation of the property object happens, but the instance doesn’t know anything about its name in the widget class:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    uid = NumericProperty(0)

In this example, the uid will be a NumericProperty() instance, but the property instance doesn’t know its name. That’s why link() is used in Widget.__new__. The link function is also used to create the storage space of the property for this specific widget instance.

set()

Set a new value for the property.

unbind()

Remove the observer from our widget observer list.

unbind_uid()

Remove the observer from our widget observer list bound with fbind using the uid.

class kivy.properties.NumericProperty

Bases: kivy.properties.Property

Property that represents a numeric value.

Parameters:
defaultvalue: int or float, defaults to 0

Specifies the default value of the property.

 
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>>> wid = Widget()
>>> wid.x = 42
>>> print(wid.x)
42
>>> wid.x = "plop"
 Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
   File "properties.pyx", line 93, in kivy.properties.Property.__set__
   File "properties.pyx", line 111, in kivy.properties.Property.set
   File "properties.pyx", line 159, in kivy.properties.NumericProperty.check
 ValueError: NumericProperty accept only int/float

Changed in version 1.4.1: NumericProperty can now accept custom text and tuple value to indicate a type, like “in”, “pt”, “px”, “cm”, “mm”, in the format: ‘10pt’ or (10, ‘pt’).

get_format()

Return the format used for Numeric calculation. Default is px (mean the value have not been changed at all). Otherwise, it can be one of ‘in’, ‘pt’, ‘cm’, ‘mm’.

class kivy.properties.StringProperty

Bases: kivy.properties.Property

Property that represents a string value.

Parameters:
defaultvalue: string, defaults to ‘’

Specifies the default value of the property.
class kivy.properties.ListProperty

Bases: kivy.properties.Property

Property that represents a list.

Parameters:
defaultvalue: list, defaults to []

Specifies the default value of the property.

Warning

When assigning a list to a ListProperty, the list stored in the property is a shallow copy of the list and not the original list. This can be demonstrated with the following example:

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>>> class MyWidget(Widget):
>>>     my_list = ListProperty([])

>>> widget = MyWidget()
>>> my_list = [1, 5, {'hi': 'hello'}]
>>> widget.my_list = my_list
>>> print(my_list is widget.my_list)
False
>>> my_list.append(10)
>>> print(my_list, widget.my_list)
[1, 5, {'hi': 'hello'}, 10] [1, 5, {'hi': 'hello'}]

However, changes to nested levels will affect the property as well, since the property uses a shallow copy of my_list.

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>>> my_list[2]['hi'] = 'bye'
>>> print(my_list, widget.my_list)
[1, 5, {'hi': 'bye'}, 10] [1, 5, {'hi': 'bye'}]

Link the instance with its real name.

Warning

Internal usage only.

When a widget is defined and uses a Property class, the creation of the property object happens, but the instance doesn’t know anything about its name in the widget class:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    uid = NumericProperty(0)

In this example, the uid will be a NumericProperty() instance, but the property instance doesn’t know its name. That’s why link() is used in Widget.__new__. The link function is also used to create the storage space of the property for this specific widget instance.

set()

Set a new value for the property.

class kivy.properties.ObjectProperty

Bases: kivy.properties.Property

Property that represents a Python object.

Parameters:
defaultvalue: object type

Specifies the default value of the property.

rebind: bool, defaults to False

Whether kv rules using this object as an intermediate attribute in a kv rule, will update the bound property when this object changes.

That is the standard behavior is that if there’s a kv rule text: self.a.b.c.d, where a, b, and c are properties with rebind False and d is a StringProperty. Then when the rule is applied, text becomes bound only to d. If a, b, or c change, text still remains bound to d. Furthermore, if any of them were None when the rule was initially evaluated, e.g. b was None; then text is bound to b and will not become bound to d even when b is changed to not be None.

By setting rebind to True, however, the rule will be re-evaluated and all the properties rebound when that intermediate property changes. E.g. in the example above, whenever b changes or becomes not None if it was None before, text is evaluated again and becomes rebound to d. The overall result is that text is now bound to all the properties among a, b, or c that have rebind set to True.

**kwargs: a list of keyword arguments
baseclass

If kwargs includes a baseclass argument, this value will be used for validation: isinstance(value, kwargs[‘baseclass’]).

Warning

To mark the property as changed, you must reassign a new python object.

Changed in version 1.9.0: rebind has been introduced.

Changed in version 1.7.0: baseclass parameter added.

class kivy.properties.BooleanProperty

Bases: kivy.properties.Property

Property that represents only a boolean value.

Parameters:
defaultvalue: boolean

Specifies the default value of the property.
class kivy.properties.BoundedNumericProperty

Bases: kivy.properties.Property

Property that represents a numeric value within a minimum bound and/or maximum bound – within a numeric range.

Parameters:
default: numeric

Specifies the default value of the property.

**kwargs: a list of keyword arguments

If a min parameter is included, this specifies the minimum numeric value that will be accepted. If a max parameter is included, this specifies the maximum numeric value that will be accepted.
bounds

Return min/max of the value.

New in version 1.0.9.

get_max()

Return the maximum value acceptable for the BoundedNumericProperty in obj. Return None if no maximum value is set. Check get_min for a usage example.

New in version 1.1.0.

get_min()

Return the minimum value acceptable for the BoundedNumericProperty in obj. Return None if no minimum value is set:

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class MyWidget(Widget):
    number = BoundedNumericProperty(0, min=-5, max=5)

widget = MyWidget()
print(widget.property('number').get_min(widget))
# will output -5

New in version 1.1.0.

set_max()

Change the maximum value acceptable for the BoundedNumericProperty, only for the obj instance. Set to None if you want to disable it. Check set_min for a usage example.

Warning

Changing the bounds doesn’t revalidate the current value.

New in version 1.1.0.

set_min()

Change the minimum value acceptable for the BoundedNumericProperty, only for the obj instance. Set to None if you want to disable it:

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class MyWidget(Widget):
    number = BoundedNumericProperty(0, min=-5, max=5)

widget = MyWidget()
# change the minimum to -10
widget.property('number').set_min(widget, -10)
# or disable the minimum check
widget.property('number').set_min(widget, None)

Warning

Changing the bounds doesn’t revalidate the current value.

New in version 1.1.0.

class kivy.properties.OptionProperty

Bases: kivy.properties.Property

Property that represents a string from a predefined list of valid options.

If the string set in the property is not in the list of valid options (passed at property creation time), a ValueError exception will be raised.

Parameters:
default: any valid type in the list of options

Specifies the default value of the property.

**kwargs: a list of keyword arguments

Should include an options parameter specifying a list (not tuple) of valid options.

For example:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    state = OptionProperty("None", options=["On", "Off", "None"])
options

Return the options available.

New in version 1.0.9.

class kivy.properties.ReferenceListProperty

Bases: kivy.properties.Property

Property that allows the creation of a tuple of other properties.

For example, if x and y are NumericPropertys, we can create a ReferenceListProperty for the pos. If you change the value of pos, it will automatically change the values of x and y accordingly. If you read the value of pos, it will return a tuple with the values of x and y.

For example:

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class MyWidget(EventDispatcher):
    x = NumericProperty(0)
    y = NumericProperty(0)
    pos = ReferenceListProperty(x, y)
get()

Return the value of the property.

Link the instance with its real name.

Warning

Internal usage only.

When a widget is defined and uses a Property class, the creation of the property object happens, but the instance doesn’t know anything about its name in the widget class:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    uid = NumericProperty(0)

In this example, the uid will be a NumericProperty() instance, but the property instance doesn’t know its name. That’s why link() is used in Widget.__new__. The link function is also used to create the storage space of the property for this specific widget instance.

set()

Set a new value for the property.

class kivy.properties.AliasProperty

Bases: kivy.properties.Property

Create a property with a custom getter and setter.

If you don’t find a Property class that fits to your needs, you can make your own by creating custom Python getter and setter methods.

Example from kivy/uix/widget.py:

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def get_right(self):
    return self.x + self.width
def set_right(self, value):
    self.x = value - self.width
right = AliasProperty(get_right, set_right, bind=['x', 'width'])
Parameters:
getter: function

Function to use as a property getter

setter: function

Function to use as a property setter. Properties listening to the alias property won’t be updated when the property is set (e.g. right = 10), unless the setter returns True.

bind: list/tuple

Properties to observe for changes, as property name strings

cache: boolean

If True, the value will be cached, until one of the binded elements will changes

rebind: bool, defaults to False

See ObjectProperty for details.

Changed in version 1.9.0: rebind has been introduced.

Changed in version 1.4.0: Parameter cache added.

dispatch()

Dispatch the value change to all observers.

Changed in version 1.1.0: The method is now accessible from Python.

This can be used to force the dispatch of the property, even if the value didn’t change:

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button = Button()
# get the Property class instance
prop = button.property('text')
# dispatch this property on the button instance
prop.dispatch(button)
get()

Return the value of the property.

set()

Set a new value for the property.

class kivy.properties.DictProperty

Bases: kivy.properties.Property

Property that represents a dict.

Parameters:
defaultvalue: dict, defaults to None

Specifies the default value of the property.

rebind: bool, defaults to False

See ObjectProperty for details.

Changed in version 1.9.0: rebind has been introduced.

Warning

Similar to ListProperty, when assigning a dict to a DictProperty, the dict stored in the property is a shallow copy of the dict and not the original dict. See ListProperty for details.

Link the instance with its real name.

Warning

Internal usage only.

When a widget is defined and uses a Property class, the creation of the property object happens, but the instance doesn’t know anything about its name in the widget class:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    uid = NumericProperty(0)

In this example, the uid will be a NumericProperty() instance, but the property instance doesn’t know its name. That’s why link() is used in Widget.__new__. The link function is also used to create the storage space of the property for this specific widget instance.

set()

Set a new value for the property.

class kivy.properties.VariableListProperty

Bases: kivy.properties.Property

A ListProperty that allows you to work with a variable amount of list items and to expand them to the desired list size.

For example, GridLayout’s padding used to just accept one numeric value which was applied equally to the left, top, right and bottom of the GridLayout. Now padding can be given one, two or four values, which are expanded into a length four list [left, top, right, bottom] and stored in the property.

Parameters:
default: a default list of values

Specifies the default values for the list.

length: int, one of 2 or 4.

Specifies the length of the final list. The default list will be expanded to match a list of this length.

**kwargs: a list of keyword arguments

Not currently used.

Keeping in mind that the default list is expanded to a list of length 4, here are some examples of how VariabelListProperty’s are handled.

  • VariableListProperty([1]) represents [1, 1, 1, 1].
  • VariableListProperty([1, 2]) represents [1, 2, 1, 2].
  • VariableListProperty([‘1px’, (2, ‘px’), 3, 4.0]) represents [1, 2, 3, 4.0].
  • VariableListProperty(5) represents [5, 5, 5, 5].
  • VariableListProperty(3, length=2) represents [3, 3].

New in version 1.7.0.

Link the instance with its real name.

Warning

Internal usage only.

When a widget is defined and uses a Property class, the creation of the property object happens, but the instance doesn’t know anything about its name in the widget class:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    uid = NumericProperty(0)

In this example, the uid will be a NumericProperty() instance, but the property instance doesn’t know its name. That’s why link() is used in Widget.__new__. The link function is also used to create the storage space of the property for this specific widget instance.

class kivy.properties.ConfigParserProperty

Bases: kivy.properties.Property

Property that allows one to bind to changes in the configuration values of a ConfigParser as well as to bind the ConfigParser values to other properties.

A ConfigParser is composed of sections, where each section has a number of keys and values associated with these keys. ConfigParserProperty lets you automatically listen to and change the values of specified keys based on other kivy properties.

For example, say we want to have a TextInput automatically write its value, represented as an int, in the info section of a ConfigParser. Also, the textinputs should update its values from the ConfigParser’s fields. Finally, their values should be displayed in a label. In py:

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class Info(Label):

    number = ConfigParserProperty(0, 'info', 'number', 'example',
                                  val_type=int, errorvalue=41)

    def __init__(self, **kw):
        super(Info, self).__init__(**kw)
        config = ConfigParser(name='example')

The above code creates a property that is connected to the number key in the info section of the ConfigParser named example. Initially, this ConfigParser doesn’t exist. Then, in __init__, a ConfigParser is created with name example, which is then automatically linked with this property. then in kv:

BoxLayout:
    TextInput:
        id: number
        text: str(info.number)
    Info:
        id: info
        number: number.text
        text: 'Number: {}'.format(self.number)

You’ll notice that we have to do text: str(info.number), this is because the value of this property is always an int, because we specified int as the val_type. However, we can assign anything to the property, e.g. number: number.text which assigns a string, because it is instantly converted with the val_type callback.

Note

If a file has been opened for this ConfigParser using read(), then write() will be called every property change, keeping the file updated.

Warning

It is recommend that the config parser object be assigned to the property after the kv tree has been constructed (e.g. schedule on next frame from init). This is because the kv tree and its properties, when constructed, are evaluated on its own order, therefore, any initial values in the parser might be overwritten by objects it’s bound to. So in the example above, the TextInput might be initially empty, and if number: number.text is evaluated before text: str(info.number), the config value will be overwritten with the (empty) text value.

Parameters:
default: object type

Specifies the default value for the key. If the parser associated with this property doesn’t have this section or key, it’ll be created with the current value, which is the default value initially.

section: string type

The section in the ConfigParser where the key / value will be written. Must be provided. If the section doesn’t exist, it’ll be created.

key: string type

The key in section section where the value will be written to. Must be provided. If the key doesn’t exist, it’ll be created and the current value written to it, otherwise its value will be used.

config: string or ConfigParser instance.

The ConfigParser instance to associate with this property if not None. If it’s a string, the ConfigParser instance whose name is the value of config will be used. If no such parser exists yet, whenever a ConfigParser with this name is created, it will automatically be linked to this property.

Whenever a ConfigParser becomes linked with a property, if the section or key doesn’t exist, the current property value will be used to create that key, otherwise, the existing key value will be used for the property value; overwriting its current value. You can change the ConfigParser associated with this property if a string was used here, by changing the name of an existing or new ConfigParser instance. Or through set_config().

**kwargs: a list of keyword arguments
val_type: a callable object

The key values are saved in the ConfigParser as strings. When the ConfigParser value is read internally and assigned to the property or when the user changes the property value directly, if val_type is not None, it will be called with the new value as input and it should return the value converted to the proper type accepted ny this property. For example, if the property represent ints, val_type can simply be int.

If the val_type callback raises a ValueError, errorvalue or errorhandler will be used if provided. Tip: the getboolean function of the ConfigParser might also be useful here to convert to a boolean type.

verify: a callable object

Can be used to restrict the allowable values of the property. For every value assigned to the property, if this is specified, verify is called with the new value, and if it returns True the value is accepted, otherwise, errorvalue or errorhandler will be used if provided or a ValueError is raised.

New in version 1.9.0.

set()

Set a new value for the property.

set_config()

Sets the ConfigParser object to be used by this property. Normally, the ConfigParser is set when initializing the Property using the config parameter.

Parameters:
config: A ConfigParser instance.

The instance to use for listening to and saving property value changes. If None, it disconnects the currently used ConfigParser.

 
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class MyWidget(Widget):
    username = ConfigParserProperty('', 'info', 'name', None)

widget = MyWidget()
widget.property('username').set_config(ConfigParser())

Resources management

Resource management can be a pain if you have multiple paths and projects. Kivy offers 2 functions for searching for specific resources across a list of paths.

Resource lookup

When Kivy looks for a resource e.g. an image or a kv file, it searches through a predetermined set of folders. You can modify this folder list using the resource_add_path() and resource_remove_path() functions.

Customizing Kivy

These functions can also be helpful if you want to replace standard Kivy resources with your own. For example, if you wish to customize or re-style Kivy, you can force your style.kv or data/defaulttheme-0.png files to be used in preference to the defaults simply by adding the path to your preferred alternatives via the resource_add_path() method.

As almost all Kivy resources are looked up using the resource_find(), so you can use this approach to add fonts and keyboard layouts and to replace images and icons.

kivy.resources.resource_find(filename)[source]

Search for a resource in the list of paths. Use resource_add_path to add a custom path to the search.

kivy.resources.resource_add_path(path)[source]

Add a custom path to search in.

kivy.resources.resource_remove_path(path)[source]

Remove a search path.

New in version 1.0.8.

Support

Activate other frameworks/toolkits inside the kivy event loop.

kivy.support.install_gobject_iteration()[source]

Import and install gobject context iteration inside our event loop. This is used as soon as gobject is used (like gstreamer).

kivy.support.install_twisted_reactor(**kwargs)[source]

Installs a threaded twisted reactor, which will schedule one reactor iteration before the next frame only when twisted needs to do some work.

Any arguments or keyword arguments passed to this function will be passed on the the threadedselect reactors interleave function. These are the arguments one would usually pass to twisted’s reactor.startRunning.

Unlike the default twisted reactor, the installed reactor will not handle any signals unless you set the ‘installSignalHandlers’ keyword argument to 1 explicitly. This is done to allow kivy to handle the signals as usual unless you specifically want the twisted reactor to handle the signals (e.g. SIGINT).

Note

Twisted is not included in iOS build by default. To use it on iOS, put the twisted distribution (and zope.interface dependency) in your application directory.

kivy.support.uninstall_twisted_reactor()[source]

Uninstalls the Kivy’s threaded Twisted Reactor. No more Twisted tasks will run after this got called. Use this to clean the twisted.internet.reactor .

New in version 1.9.0.

kivy.support.install_android()[source]

Install hooks for the android platform.

  • Automatically sleep when the device is paused.
  • Automatically kill the application when the return key is pressed.

Utils

The Utils module provides a selection of general utility functions and classes that may be useful for various applications. These include maths, color, algebraic and platform functions.

Changed in version 1.6.0: The OrderedDict class has been removed. Use collections.OrderedDict instead.

kivy.utils.intersection(set1, set2)[source]

Return the intersection of 2 lists.

kivy.utils.difference(set1, set2)[source]

Return the difference between 2 lists.

kivy.utils.strtotuple(s)[source]

Convert a tuple string into a tuple with some security checks. Designed to be used with the eval() function:

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a = (12, 54, 68)
b = str(a)         # return '(12, 54, 68)'
c = strtotuple(b)  # return (12, 54, 68)
kivy.utils.get_color_from_hex(s)[source]

Transform a hex string color to a kivy Color.

kivy.utils.get_hex_from_color(color)[source]

Transform a kivy Color to a hex value:

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>>> get_hex_from_color((0, 1, 0))
'#00ff00'
>>> get_hex_from_color((.25, .77, .90, .5))
'#3fc4e57f'

New in version 1.5.0.

kivy.utils.get_random_color(alpha=1.0)[source]

Returns a random color (4 tuple).

Parameters:
alpha: float, defaults to 1.0

If alpha == ‘random’, a random alpha value is generated.
kivy.utils.is_color_transparent(c)[source]

Return True if the alpha channel is 0.

kivy.utils.boundary(value, minvalue, maxvalue)[source]

Limit a value between a minvalue and maxvalue.

kivy.utils.deprecated(func)[source]

This is a decorator which can be used to mark functions as deprecated. It will result in a warning being emitted the first time the function is used.

class kivy.utils.SafeList[source]

Bases: builtins.list

List with a clear() method.

Warning

Usage of the iterate() function will decrease your performance.

clear() → None -- remove all items from L[source]
kivy.utils.interpolate(value_from, value_to, step=10)[source]

Interpolate between two values. This can be useful for smoothing some transitions. For example:

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# instead of setting directly
self.pos = pos

# use interpolate, and you'll have a nicer transition
self.pos = interpolate(self.pos, new_pos)

Warning

These interpolations work only on lists/tuples/doubles with the same dimensions. No test is done to check the dimensions are the same.

class kivy.utils.QueryDict[source]

Bases: builtins.dict

QueryDict is a dict() that can be queried with dot.

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d = QueryDict()
# create a key named toto, with the value 1
d.toto = 1
# it's the same as
d['toto'] = 1

New in version 1.0.4.

kivy.utils.platform = 'linux'

A string identifying the current operating system. It is one of: ‘win’, ‘linux’, ‘android’, ‘macosx’, ‘ios’ or ‘unknown’. You can use it as follows:

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from kivy.utils import platform
if platform == 'linux':
    do_linux_things()

New in version 1.3.0.

Changed in version 1.8.0: platform is now a variable instead of a function.

kivy.utils.escape_markup(text)[source]

Escape markup characters found in the text. Intended to be used when markup text is activated on the Label:

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untrusted_text = escape_markup('Look at the example [1]')
text = '[color=ff0000]' + untrusted_text + '[/color]'
w = Label(text=text, markup=True)

New in version 1.3.0.

class kivy.utils.reify(func)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Put the result of a method which uses this (non-data) descriptor decorator in the instance dict after the first call, effectively replacing the decorator with an instance variable.

It acts like @property, except that the function is only ever called once; after that, the value is cached as a regular attribute. This gives you lazy attribute creation on objects that are meant to be immutable.

Taken from the Pyramid project.

To use this as a decorator:

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@reify
def lazy(self):
     ...
     return hard_to_compute_int
first_time = self.lazy   # lazy is reify obj, reify.__get__() runs
second_time = self.lazy  # lazy is hard_to_compute_int
kivy.utils.rgba(s, *args)[source]

Return a Kivy color (4 value from 0-1 range) from either a hex string or a list of 0-255 values.

New in version 1.10.0.

Vector

The Vector represents a 2D vector (x, y). Our implementation is built on top of a Python list.

An example of constructing a Vector:

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>>> # Construct a point at 82,34
>>> v = Vector(82, 34)
>>> v[0]
82
>>> v.x
82
>>> v[1]
34
>>> v.y
34

>>> # Construct by giving a list of 2 values
>>> pos = (93, 45)
>>> v = Vector(pos)
>>> v[0]
93
>>> v.x
93
>>> v[1]
45
>>> v.y
45
Optimized usage

Most of the time, you can use a list for arguments instead of using a Vector. For example, if you want to calculate the distance between 2 points:

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a = (10, 10)
b = (87, 34)

# optimized method
print('distance between a and b:', Vector(a).distance(b))

# non-optimized method
va = Vector(a)
vb = Vector(b)
print('distance between a and b:', va.distance(vb))
Vector operators

The Vector supports some numeric operators such as +, -, /:

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>>> Vector(1, 1) + Vector(9, 5)
[10, 6]

>>> Vector(9, 5) - Vector(5, 5)
[4, 0]

>>> Vector(10, 10) / Vector(2., 4.)
[5.0, 2.5]

>>> Vector(10, 10) / 5.
[2.0, 2.0]

You can also use in-place operators:

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>>> v = Vector(1, 1)
>>> v += 2
>>> v
[3, 3]
>>> v *= 5
[15, 15]
>>> v /= 2.
[7.5, 7.5]
class kivy.vector.Vector(*largs)[source]

Bases: builtins.list

Vector class. See module documentation for more information.

angle(a)[source]

Computes the angle between a and b, and returns the angle in degrees.

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>>> Vector(100, 0).angle((0, 100))
-90.0
>>> Vector(87, 23).angle((-77, 10))
-157.7920283010705
distance(to)[source]

Returns the distance between two points.

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>>> Vector(10, 10).distance((5, 10))
5.
>>> a = (90, 33)
>>> b = (76, 34)
>>> Vector(a).distance(b)
14.035668847618199
distance2(to)[source]

Returns the distance between two points squared.

>>> Vector(10, 10).distance2((5, 10))
25
dot(a)[source]

Computes the dot product of a and b.

>>> Vector(2, 4).dot((2, 2))
12
static in_bbox(point, a, b)[source]

Return True if point is in the bounding box defined by a and b.

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>>> bmin = (0, 0)
>>> bmax = (100, 100)
>>> Vector.in_bbox((50, 50), bmin, bmax)
True
>>> Vector.in_bbox((647, -10), bmin, bmax)
False
length()[source]

Returns the length of a vector.

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>>> Vector(10, 10).length()
14.142135623730951
>>> pos = (10, 10)
>>> Vector(pos).length()
14.142135623730951
length2()[source]

Returns the length of a vector squared.

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>>> Vector(10, 10).length2()
200
>>> pos = (10, 10)
>>> Vector(pos).length2()
200
static line_intersection(v1, v2, v3, v4)[source]

Finds the intersection point between the lines (1)v1->v2 and (2)v3->v4 and returns it as a vector object.

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>>> a = (98, 28)
>>> b = (72, 33)
>>> c = (10, -5)
>>> d = (20, 88)
>>> Vector.line_intersection(a, b, c, d)
[15.25931928687196, 43.911669367909241]

Warning

This is a line intersection method, not a segment intersection.

For math see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-line_intersection

normalize()[source]

Returns a new vector that has the same direction as vec, but has a length of one.

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>>> v = Vector(88, 33).normalize()
>>> v
[0.93632917756904444, 0.3511234415883917]
>>> v.length()
1.0
rotate(angle)[source]

Rotate the vector with an angle in degrees.

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>>> v = Vector(100, 0)
>>> v.rotate(45)
>>> v
[70.710678118654755, 70.710678118654741]
static segment_intersection(v1, v2, v3, v4)[source]

Finds the intersection point between segments (1)v1->v2 and (2)v3->v4 and returns it as a vector object.

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>>> a = (98, 28)
>>> b = (72, 33)
>>> c = (10, -5)
>>> d = (20, 88)
>>> Vector.segment_intersection(a, b, c, d)
None

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>>> a = (0, 0)
>>> b = (10, 10)
>>> c = (0, 10)
>>> d = (10, 0)
>>> Vector.segment_intersection(a, b, c, d)
[5, 5]
x

x represents the first element in the list.

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>>> v = Vector(12, 23)
>>> v[0]
12
>>> v.x
12
y

y represents the second element in the list.

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>>> v = Vector(12, 23)
>>> v[1]
23
>>> v.y
23

Weak Method

The WeakMethod is used by the Clock class to allow references to a bound method that permits the associated object to be garbage collected. Please refer to examples/core/clock_method.py for more information.

This WeakMethod class is taken from the recipe http://code.activestate.com/recipes/81253/, based on the nicodemus version. Many thanks nicodemus!

class kivy.weakmethod.WeakMethod(method, proxy_func=False)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Implementation of a weakref for functions and bound methods.

is_dead()[source]

Returns True if the referenced callable was a bound method and the instance no longer exists. Otherwise, return False.

Weak Proxy

In order to allow garbage collection, the weak proxy provides weak references to objects. It effectively enhances the weakref.proxy by adding comparison support.

class kivy.weakproxy.WeakProxy

Bases: builtins.object

Replacement for weakref.proxy to support comparisons

Adapters

New in version 1.5.0.

Deprecated since version 1.10.0: The feature has been deprecated.

An adapter is a mediating controller-type class that processes and presents data for use in views. It does this by generating models, generally lists of SelectableView items, that are consumed and presented by views. Views are top-level widgets, such as a ListView, that allow users to scroll through and (optionally) interact with your data.

The Concept

Kivy adapters are modelled on the Adapter design pattern. Conceptually, they play the role of a ‘controller’ between you data and views in a Model-View-Controller type architecture.

The role of an adapter can be depicted as follows:

_images/adapters.png

The Components

The components involved in this process are:

  • Adapters: The adapter plays a mediating role between the user interface and your data. It manages the creation of the view elements for the model using the args_converter to prepare the contructor arguments for your cls/template view items.

    The base Adapter is subclassed by the SimpleListAdapter and ListAdapter. The DictAdapter is a more advanced and flexible subclass of ListAdapter.

  • Models: The data for which an adapter serves as a bridge to views can be any sort of data. However, for convenience, model mixin classes can ease the preparation or shaping of data for use in the system. For selection operations, the SelectableDataItem can optionally prepare data items to provide and receive selection information (data items are not required to be “selection-aware”, but in some cases it may be desired).

  • Args Converters: Argument converters are made by the application programmer to do the work of converting data items to argument dictionaries suitable for instantiating views. In effect, they take each row of your data and create dictionaries that are passed into the constructors of your cls/template which are then used populate your View.

  • Views: Models of your data are presented to the user via views. Each of your data items create a corresponding view subitem (the cls or template) presented in a list by the View. The base AbstractView currently has one concrete implementation: the ListView.

Adapter

New in version 1.5.

Deprecated since version 1.10.0: The feature has been deprecated.

Warning

This code is still experimental, and its API is subject to change in a future version.

An Adapter is a bridge between data and an AbstractView or one of its subclasses, such as a ListView.

The following arguments can be passed to the contructor to initialise the corresponding properties:

  • data: for any sort of data to be used in a view. For an Adapter, data can be an object as well as a list, dict, etc. For a ListAdapter, data should be a list. For a DictAdapter, data should be a dict.
  • cls: the class used to instantiate each list item view instance (Use this or the template argument).
  • template: a kv template to use to instantiate each list item view instance (Use this or the cls argument).
  • args_converter: a function used to transform the data items in preparation for either a cls instantiation or a kv template invocation. If no args_converter is provided, the data items are assumed to be simple strings.

Please refer to the adapters documentation for an overview of how adapters are used.

class kivy.adapters.adapter.Adapter(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

An Adapter is a bridge between data and an AbstractView or one of its subclasses, such as a ListView.

args_converter

A function that prepares an args dict for the cls or kv template to build a view from a data item.

If an args_converter is not provided, a default one is set that assumes simple content in the form of a list of strings.

args_converter is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

cls

A class for instantiating a given view item (Use this or template). If this is not set and neither is the template, a Label is used for the view item.

cls is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

data

The data for which a view is to be constructed using either the cls or template provided, together with the args_converter provided or the default args_converter.

In this base class, data is an ObjectProperty, so it could be used for a wide variety of single-view needs.

Subclasses may override it in order to use another data type, such as a ListProperty or DictProperty as appropriate. For example, in a ListAdapter, data is a ListProperty.

data is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

get_cls()[source]

New in version 1.9.0.

Returns the widget type specified by self.cls. If it is a string, the Factory is queried to retrieve the widget class with the given name, otherwise it is returned directly.

template

A kv template for instantiating a given view item (Use this or cls).

template is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

DictAdapter

New in version 1.5.

Deprecated since version 1.10.0: The feature has been deprecated.

Warning

This code is still experimental, and its API is subject to change in a future version.

A DictAdapter is an adapter around a python dictionary of records. It extends the list-like capabilities of the ListAdapter.

If you wish to have a bare-bones list adapter, without selection, use the SimpleListAdapter.

class kivy.adapters.dictadapter.DictAdapter(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.adapters.listadapter.ListAdapter

A DictAdapter is an adapter around a python dictionary of records. It extends the list-like capabilities of the ListAdapter.

cut_to_sel(*args)[source]

Same as trim_to_sel, but intervening list items within the selected range are also cut, leaving only list items that are selected.

sorted_keys will be updated by update_for_new_data().

data

A dict that indexes records by keys that are equivalent to the keys in sorted_keys, or they are a superset of the keys in sorted_keys.

The values can be strings, class instances, dicts, etc.

data is a DictProperty and defaults to None.

sorted_keys

The sorted_keys list property contains a list of hashable objects (can be strings) that will be used directly if no args_converter function is provided. If there is an args_converter, the record received from a lookup of the data, using keys from sorted_keys, will be passed to it for instantiation of list item view class instances.

sorted_keys is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

trim_left_of_sel(*args)[source]

Cut list items with indices in sorted_keys that are less than the index of the first selected item, if there is a selection.

sorted_keys will be updated by update_for_new_data().

trim_right_of_sel(*args)[source]

Cut list items with indices in sorted_keys that are greater than the index of the last selected item, if there is a selection.

sorted_keys will be updated by update_for_new_data().

trim_to_sel(*args)[source]

Cut list items with indices in sorted_keys that are les than or greater than the index of the last selected item, if there is a selection. This preserves intervening list items within the selected range.

sorted_keys will be updated by update_for_new_data().

List Item View Argument Converters

New in version 1.5.

Deprecated since version 1.10.0: The feature has been deprecated.

The default list item args converter for list adapters is a function (shown below) that takes a row index and a string. It returns a dict with the string as the text item, along with two properties suited for simple text items with a height of 25.

Simple Usage

Argument converters may be normal functions or, as in the case of the default args converter, lambdas:

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list_item_args_converter = lambda row_index, x: {'text': x,
                                                 'size_hint_y': None,
                                                 'height': 25}
Advanced Usage

Typically, having the argument converter perform a simple mapping suffices. There are times, however, when more complex manipulation is required. When using CompositeListItem, it is possible to specify a list of cls dictionaries. This allows you to compose a single view item out of multiple classes, each of which can receive their own class constructor arguments via the kwargs keyword:

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args_converter = lambda row_index, rec: \
        {'text': rec['text'],
         'size_hint_y': None,
         'height': 25,
         'cls_dicts': [{'cls': ListItemButton,
                        'kwargs': {'text': rec['text']}},
                       {'cls': ListItemLabel,
                        'kwargs': {'text': rec['text'],
                                   'is_representing_cls': True}},
                       {'cls': ListItemButton,
                        'kwargs': {'text': rec['text']}}]}

Please see the list_composite.py for a complete example.

ListAdapter

New in version 1.5.

Deprecated since version 1.10.0: The feature has been deprecated.

Warning

This code is still experimental, and its API is subject to change in a future version.

A ListAdapter is an adapter around a python list and adds support for selection operations. If you wish to have a bare-bones list adapter, without selection, use a SimpleListAdapter.

From an Adapter, a ListAdapter inherits cls, template, and args_converter properties and adds others that control selection behaviour:

  • selection: a list of selected items.
  • selection_mode: one of ‘single’, ‘multiple’ or ‘none’.
  • allow_empty_selection: a boolean. If False, a selection is forced. If True, and only user or programmatic action will change selection, it can be empty.

A DictAdapter is a subclass of a ListAdapter. They both dispatch the on_selection_change event when selection changes.

Changed in version 1.6.0: Added data = ListProperty([]), which was probably inadvertently deleted at some point. This means that whenever data changes an update will fire, instead of having to reset the data object (Adapter has data defined as an ObjectProperty, so we need to reset it here to ListProperty). See also DictAdapter and its set of data = DictProperty().

class kivy.adapters.listadapter.ListAdapter(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.adapters.adapter.Adapter, kivy.event.EventDispatcher

A base class for adapters interfacing with lists, dictionaries or other collection type data, adding selection, view creation and management functionality.

allow_empty_selection

The allow_empty_selection may be used for cascading selection between several list views, or between a list view and an observing view. Such automatic maintenance of the selection is important for all but simple list displays. Set allow_empty_selection to False and the selection is auto-initialized and always maintained, so any observing views may likewise be updated to stay in sync.

allow_empty_selection is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

cached_views

View instances for data items are instantiated and managed by the adapter. Here we maintain a dictionary containing the view instances keyed to the indices in the data.

This dictionary works as a cache. get_view() only asks for a view from the adapter if one is not already stored for the requested index.

cached_views is a DictProperty and defaults to {}.

create_view(index)[source]

This method is more complicated than the ones in the Adapter and SimpleListAdapter classes because here we create bindings for the data items and their children back to the self.handle_selection() event. We also perform other selection-related tasks to keep item views in sync with the data.

cut_to_sel(*args)[source]

Same as trim_to_sel, but intervening list items within the selected range are also cut, leaving only list items that are selected.

data

The data list property is redefined here, overriding its definition as an ObjectProperty in the Adapter class. We bind to data so that any changes will trigger updates. See also how the DictAdapter redefines data as a DictProperty.

data is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

on_selection_change(*args)[source]

on_selection_change() is the default handler for the on_selection_change event. You can bind to this event to get notified of selection changes.

Parameters:
adapter: ListAdapter or subclass

The instance of the list adapter where the selection changed. Use the adapters selection property to see what has been selected.
propagate_selection_to_data

Normally, data items are not selected/deselected because the data items might not have an is_selected boolean property – only the item view for a given data item is selected/deselected as part of the maintained selection list. However, if the data items do have an is_selected property, or if they mix in SelectableDataItem, the selection machinery can propagate selection to data items. This can be useful for storing selection state in a local database or backend database for maintaining state in game play or other similar scenarios. It is a convenience function.

To propagate selection or not?

Consider a shopping list application for shopping for fruits at the market. The app allows for the selection of fruits to buy for each day of the week, presenting seven lists: one for each day of the week. Each list is loaded with all the available fruits, but the selection for each is a subset. There is only one set of fruit data shared between the lists, so it would not make sense to propagate selection to the data because selection in any of the seven lists would clash and mix with that of the others.

However, consider a game that uses the same fruits data for selecting fruits available for fruit-tossing. A given round of play could have a full fruits list, with fruits available for tossing shown selected. If the game is saved and rerun, the full fruits list, with selection marked on each item, would be reloaded correctly if selection is always propagated to the data. You could accomplish the same functionality by writing code to operate on list selection, but having selection stored in the data ListProperty might prove convenient in some cases.

Note

This setting should be set to True if you wish to initialize the view with item views already selected.

propagate_selection_to_data is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

select_list(view_list, extend=True)[source]

The select call is made for the items in the provided view_list.

Arguments:

view_list: the list of item views to become the new selection, or to add to the existing selection

extend: boolean for whether or not to extend the existing list

selection

The selection list property is the container for selected items.

selection is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

selection_limit

When the selection_mode is ‘multiple’ and the selection_limit is non-negative, this number will limit the number of selected items. It can be set to 1, which is equivalent to single selection. If selection_limit is not set, the default value is -1, meaning that no limit will be enforced.

selection_limit is a NumericProperty and defaults to -1 (no limit).

selection_mode

The selection_mode is a string and can be set to one of the following values:

  • ‘none’: use the list as a simple list (no select action). This option is here so that selection can be turned off, momentarily or permanently, for an existing list adapter. A ListAdapter is not meant to be used as a primary no-selection list adapter. Use a SimpleListAdapter for that.
  • ‘single’: multi-touch/click ignored. Single item selection only.
  • ‘multiple’: multi-touch / incremental addition to selection allowed; may be limited to a count by setting the selection_limit.

selection_mode is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘single’.

trim_left_of_sel(*args)[source]

Cut list items with indices in sorted_keys that are less than the index of the first selected item if there is a selection.

trim_right_of_sel(*args)[source]

Cut list items with indices in sorted_keys that are greater than the index of the last selected item if there is a selection.

trim_to_sel(*args)[source]

Cut list items with indices in sorted_keys that are less than or greater than the index of the last selected item if there is a selection. This preserves intervening list items within the selected range.

SelectableDataItem

New in version 1.5.

Deprecated since version 1.10.0: The feature has been deprecated.

Warning

This code is still experimental, and its API is subject to change in a future version.

Data Models

Kivy is open about the type of data used in applications built with the system. However, base classes are sometimes needed to ensure data conforms to the requirements of some parts of the system.

A SelectableDataItem is a basic Python data model class that can be used as a mixin to build data objects that are compatible with Kivy’s Adapter and selection system and which work with views such as a ListView. A boolean is_selected property a requirement.

The default operation of the selection system is to not propagate selection in views such as ListView to the underlying data: selection is by default a view-only operation. However, in some cases, it is useful to propagate selection to the actual data items.

You may, of course, build your own Python data model system as the backend for a Kivy application. For instance, to use the Google App Engine Data Modeling system with Kivy, you could define your class as follows:

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from google.appengine.ext import db

class MySelectableDataItem(db.Model):
    # ... other properties
    is_selected = db.BooleanProperty()

It is easy to build such a class with plain Python.

class kivy.adapters.models.SelectableDataItem(is_selected=False)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

A mixin class containing requirements for selection operations.

is_selected

A boolean property indicating whether the data item is selected or not.

SimpleListAdapter

New in version 1.5.

Deprecated since version 1.10.0: The feature has been deprecated.

Warning

This code is still experimental, and its API is subject to change in a future version.

The SimpleListAdapter is used for basic lists. For example, it can be used for displaying a list of read-only strings that do not require user interaction.

class kivy.adapters.simplelistadapter.SimpleListAdapter(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.adapters.adapter.Adapter

A SimpleListAdapter is an adapter around a Python list.

From Adapter, the ListAdapter gets cls, template, and args_converter properties.

data

The data list property contains a list of objects (which can be strings) that will be used directly if no args_converter function is provided. If there is an args_converter, the data objects will be passed to it for instantiating the item view class instances.

data is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

Core Abstraction

This module defines the abstraction layers for our core providers and their implementations. For further information, please refer to Architectural Overview and the Core Providers and Input Providers section of the documentation.

In most cases, you shouldn’t directly use a library that’s already covered by the core abstraction. Always try to use our providers first. In case we are missing a feature or method, please let us know by opening a new Bug report instead of relying on your library.

Warning

These are not widgets! These are just abstractions of the respective functionality. For example, you cannot add a core image to your window. You have to use the image widget class instead. If you’re really looking for widgets, please refer to kivy.uix instead.

exception kivy.core.CoreCriticalException[source]

Bases: Exception

Audio

Load an audio sound and play it with:

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from kivy.core.audio import SoundLoader

sound = SoundLoader.load('mytest.wav')
if sound:
    print("Sound found at %s" % sound.source)
    print("Sound is %.3f seconds" % sound.length)
    sound.play()

You should not use the Sound class directly. The class returned by SoundLoader.load() will be the best sound provider for that particular file type, so it might return different Sound classes depending the file type.

Event dispatching and state changes

Audio is often processed in parallel to your code. This means you often need to enter the Kivy eventloop in order to allow events and state changes to be dispatched correctly.

You seldom need to worry about this as Kivy apps typically always require this event loop for the GUI to remain responsive, but it is good to keep this in mind when debugging or running in a REPL (Read-eval-print loop).

Changed in version 1.10.0: The pygst and gi providers have been removed.

Changed in version 1.8.0: There are now 2 distinct Gstreamer implementations: one using Gi/Gst working for both Python 2+3 with Gstreamer 1.0, and one using PyGST working only for Python 2 + Gstreamer 0.10.

Note

The core audio library does not support recording audio. If you require this functionality, please refer to the audiostream extension.

class kivy.core.audio.Sound[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Represents a sound to play. This class is abstract, and cannot be used directly.

Use SoundLoader to load a sound.

Events:
on_play: None

Fired when the sound is played.

on_stop: None

Fired when the sound is stopped.
filename

Deprecated since version 1.3.0: Use source instead.

get_pos()[source]

Returns the current position of the audio file. Returns 0 if not playing.

New in version 1.4.1.

length

Get length of the sound (in seconds).

load()[source]

Load the file into memory.

loop

Set to True if the sound should automatically loop when it finishes.

New in version 1.8.0.

loop is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

pitch

Pitch of a sound. 2 is an octave higher, .5 one below. This is only implemented for SDL2 audio provider yet.

New in version 1.10.0.

pitch is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

play()[source]

Play the file.

seek(position)[source]

Go to the <position> (in seconds).

Note

Most sound providers cannot seek when the audio is stopped. Play then seek.

source

Filename / source of your audio file.

New in version 1.3.0.

source is a StringProperty that defaults to None and is read-only. Use the SoundLoader.load() for loading audio.

state

State of the sound, one of ‘stop’ or ‘play’.

New in version 1.3.0.

state is a read-only OptionProperty.

status

Deprecated since version 1.3.0: Use state instead.

stop()[source]

Stop playback.

unload()[source]

Unload the file from memory.

volume

Volume, in the range 0-1. 1 means full volume, 0 means mute.

New in version 1.3.0.

volume is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

class kivy.core.audio.SoundLoader[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Load a sound, using the best loader for the given file type.

static load(filename)[source]

Load a sound, and return a Sound() instance.

static register(classobj)[source]

Register a new class to load the sound.

Camera

Core class for acquiring the camera and converting its input into a Texture.

Changed in version 1.10.0: The pygst and videocapture providers have been removed.

Changed in version 1.8.0: There is now 2 distinct Gstreamer implementation: one using Gi/Gst working for both Python 2+3 with Gstreamer 1.0, and one using PyGST working only for Python 2 + Gstreamer 0.10.

class kivy.core.camera.CameraBase(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Abstract Camera Widget class.

Concrete camera classes must implement initialization and frame capturing to a buffer that can be uploaded to the gpu.

Parameters:
index: int

Source index of the camera.

size: tuple (int, int)

Size at which the image is drawn. If no size is specified, it defaults to the resolution of the camera image.

resolution: tuple (int, int)

Resolution to try to request from the camera. Used in the gstreamer pipeline by forcing the appsink caps to this resolution. If the camera doesnt support the resolution, a negotiation error might be thrown.
Events:
on_load

Fired when the camera is loaded and the texture has become available.

on_texture

Fired each time the camera texture is updated.
index

Source index of the camera

init_camera()[source]

Initialise the camera (internal)

resolution

Resolution of camera capture (width, height)

start()[source]

Start the camera acquire

stop()[source]

Release the camera

texture

Return the camera texture with the latest capture

Clipboard

Core class for accessing the Clipboard. If we are not able to access the system clipboard, a fake one will be used.

Usage example:

#:import Clipboard kivy.core.clipboard.Clipboard

Button:
    on_release:
        self.text = Clipboard.paste()
        Clipboard.copy('Data')

OpenGL

Select and use the best OpenGL library available. Depending on your system, the core provider can select an OpenGL ES or a ‘classic’ desktop OpenGL library.

Image

Core classes for loading images and converting them to a Texture. The raw image data can be keep in memory for further access.

In-memory image loading

New in version 1.9.0: Official support for in-memory loading. Not all the providers support it, but currently SDL2, pygame, pil and imageio work.

To load an image with a filename, you would usually do:

from kivy.core.image import Image as CoreImage
im = CoreImage("image.png")

You can also load the image data directly from a memory block. Instead of passing the filename, you’ll need to pass the data as a BytesIO object together with an “ext” parameter. Both are mandatory:

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import io
from kivy.core.image import Image as CoreImage
data = io.BytesIO(open("image.png", "rb").read())
im = CoreImage(data, ext="png")

By default, the image will not be cached as our internal cache requires a filename. If you want caching, add a filename that represents your file (it will be used only for caching):

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import io
from kivy.core.image import Image as CoreImage
data = io.BytesIO(open("image.png", "rb").read())
im = CoreImage(data, ext="png", filename="image.png")
class kivy.core.image.Image(arg, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Load an image and store the size and texture.

Changed in version 1.0.7: mipmap attribute has been added. The texture_mipmap and texture_rectangle have been deleted.

Changed in version 1.0.8: An Image widget can change its texture. A new event ‘on_texture’ has been introduced. New methods for handling sequenced animation have been added.

Parameters:
arg: can be a string (str), Texture, BytesIO or Image object

A string path to the image file or data URI to be loaded; or a Texture object, which will be wrapped in an Image object; or a BytesIO object containing raw image data; or an already existing image object, in which case, a real copy of the given image object will be returned.

keep_data: bool, defaults to False

Keep the image data when the texture is created.

mipmap: bool, defaults to False

Create mipmap for the texture.

anim_delay: float, defaults to .25

Delay in seconds between each animation frame. Lower values means faster animation.

ext: str, only with BytesIO arg

File extension to use in determining how to load raw image data.

filename: str, only with BytesIO arg

Filename to use in the image cache for raw image data.
anim_available

Return True if this Image instance has animation available.

New in version 1.0.8.

anim_delay

Delay between each animation frame. A lower value means faster animation.

New in version 1.0.8.

anim_index

Return the index number of the image currently in the texture.

New in version 1.0.8.

anim_reset(allow_anim)[source]

Reset an animation if available.

New in version 1.0.8.

Parameters:
allow_anim: bool

Indicate whether the animation should restart playing or not.

Usage:

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# start/reset animation
image.anim_reset(True)

# or stop the animation
image.anim_reset(False)

You can change the animation speed whilst it is playing:

# Set to 20 FPS
image.anim_delay = 1 / 20.
filename

Get/set the filename of image

height

Image height

image

Get/set the data image object

static load(filename, **kwargs)[source]

Load an image

Parameters:
filename: str

Filename of the image.

keep_data: bool, defaults to False

Keep the image data when the texture is created.
load_memory(data, ext, filename='__inline__')[source]

(internal) Method to load an image from raw data.

nocache

Indicate whether the texture will not be stored in the cache or not.

New in version 1.6.0.

on_texture(*largs)[source]
This event is fired when the texture reference or content has
changed. It is normally used for sequenced images.

New in version 1.0.8.

read_pixel(x, y)[source]

For a given local x/y position, return the pixel color at that position.

Warning

This function can only be used with images loaded with the keep_data=True keyword. For example:

m = Image.load('image.png', keep_data=True)
color = m.read_pixel(150, 150)
Parameters:
x: int

Local x coordinate of the pixel in question.

y: int

Local y coordinate of the pixel in question.
remove_from_cache()[source]

Remove the Image from cache. This facilitates re-loading of images from disk in case the image content has changed.

New in version 1.3.0.

Usage:

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im = CoreImage('1.jpg')
# -- do something --
im.remove_from_cache()
im = CoreImage('1.jpg')
# this time image will be re-loaded from disk
save(filename, flipped=False)[source]

Save image texture to file.

The filename should have the ‘.png’ extension because the texture data read from the GPU is in the RGBA format. ‘.jpg’ might work but has not been heavily tested so some providers might break when using it. Any other extensions are not officially supported.

The flipped parameter flips the saved image vertically, and defaults to False.

Example:

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# Save an core image object
from kivy.core.image import Image
img = Image('hello.png')
img.save('hello2.png')

# Save a texture
texture = Texture.create(...)
img = Image(texture)
img.save('hello3.png')

New in version 1.7.0.

Changed in version 1.8.0: Parameter flipped added to flip the image before saving, default to False.

size

Image size (width, height)

texture

Texture of the image

width

Image width

class kivy.core.image.ImageData(width, height, fmt, data, source=None, flip_vertical=True, source_image=None, rowlength=0)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Container for images and mipmap images. The container will always have at least the mipmap level 0.

add_mipmap(level, width, height, data, rowlength)[source]

Add a image for a specific mipmap level.

New in version 1.0.7.

data

Image data. (If the image is mipmapped, it will use the level 0)

flip_vertical

Indicate if the texture will need to be vertically flipped

fmt

Decoded image format, one of a available texture format

get_mipmap(level)[source]

Get the mipmap image at a specific level if it exists

New in version 1.0.7.

height

Image height in pixels. (If the image is mipmapped, it will use the level 0)

iterate_mipmaps()[source]

Iterate over all mipmap images available.

New in version 1.0.7.

mipmaps

Data for each mipmap.

rowlength

Image rowlength. (If the image is mipmapped, it will use the level 0)

New in version 1.9.0.

size

Image (width, height) in pixels. (If the image is mipmapped, it will use the level 0)

source

Image source, if available

width

Image width in pixels. (If the image is mipmapped, it will use the level 0)

Spelling

Provides abstracted access to a range of spellchecking backends as well as word suggestions. The API is inspired by enchant but other backends can be added that implement the same API.

Spelling currently requires python-enchant for all platforms except OSX, where a native implementation exists.

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>>> from kivy.core.spelling import Spelling
>>> s = Spelling()
>>> s.list_languages()
['en', 'en_CA', 'en_GB', 'en_US']
>>> s.select_language('en_US')
>>> s.suggest('helo')
[u'hole', u'help', u'helot', u'hello', u'halo', u'hero', u'hell', u'held',
 u'helm', u'he-lo']
class kivy.core.spelling.SpellingBase(language=None)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Base class for all spelling providers. Supports some abstract methods for checking words and getting suggestions.

check(word)[source]

If word is a valid word in self._language (the currently active language), returns True. If the word shouldn’t be checked, returns None (e.g. for ‘’). If it is not a valid word in self._language, return False.

Parameters:
word: str

The word to check.
list_languages()[source]

Return a list of all supported languages. E.g. [‘en’, ‘en_GB’, ‘en_US’, ‘de’, …]

select_language(language)[source]

From the set of registered languages, select the first language for language.

Parameters:
language: str

Language identifier. Needs to be one of the options returned by list_languages(). Sets the language used for spell checking and word suggestions.
suggest(fragment)[source]

For a given fragment (i.e. part of a word or a word by itself), provide corrections (fragment may be misspelled) or completions as a list of strings.

Parameters:
fragment: str

The word fragment to get suggestions/corrections for. E.g. ‘foo’ might become ‘of’, ‘food’ or ‘foot’.
exception kivy.core.spelling.NoSuchLangError[source]

Bases: Exception

Exception to be raised when a specific language could not be found.

exception kivy.core.spelling.NoLanguageSelectedError[source]

Bases: Exception

Exception to be raised when a language-using method is called but no language was selected prior to the call.

Text

An abstraction of text creation. Depending of the selected backend, the accuracy of text rendering may vary.

Changed in version 1.5.0: LabelBase.line_height added.

Changed in version 1.0.7: The LabelBase does not generate any texture if the text has a width <= 1.

This is the backend layer for getting text out of different text providers, you should only be using this directly if your needs aren’t fulfilled by the Label.

Usage example:

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from kivy.core.text import Label as CoreLabel

...
...
my_label = CoreLabel()
my_label.text = 'hello'
# the label is usually not drawn until needed, so force it to draw.
my_label.refresh()
# Now access the texture of the label and use it wherever and
# however you may please.
hello_texture = my_label.texture
class kivy.core.text.LabelBase(text='', font_size=12, font_name=None, bold=False, italic=False, underline=False, strikethrough=False, halign='left', valign='bottom', shorten=False, text_size=None, mipmap=False, color=None, line_height=1.0, strip=False, strip_reflow=True, shorten_from='center', split_str=' ', unicode_errors='replace', font_hinting='normal', font_kerning=True, font_blended=True, outline_width=None, outline_color=None, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Core text label. This is the abstract class used by different backends to render text.

Warning

The core text label can’t be changed at runtime. You must recreate one.

Parameters:
font_size: int, defaults to 12

Font size of the text

font_name: str, defaults to DEFAULT_FONT

Font name of the text

bold: bool, defaults to False

Activate “bold” text style

italic: bool, defaults to False

Activate “italic” text style

text_size: tuple, defaults to (None, None)

Add constraint to render the text (inside a bounding box). If no size is given, the label size will be set to the text size.

padding: float, defaults to None

If it’s a float, it will set padding_x and padding_y

padding_x: float, defaults to 0.0

Left/right padding

padding_y: float, defaults to 0.0

Top/bottom padding

halign: str, defaults to “left”

Horizontal text alignment inside the bounding box

valign: str, defaults to “bottom”

Vertical text alignment inside the bounding box

shorten: bool, defaults to False

Indicate whether the label should attempt to shorten its textual contents as much as possible if a size is given. Setting this to True without an appropriately set size will lead to unexpected results.

shorten_from: str, defaults to center

The side from which we should shorten the text from, can be left, right, or center. E.g. if left, the ellipsis will appear towards the left side and it will display as much text starting from the right as possible.

split_str: string, defaults to ‘ ‘ (space)

The string to use to split the words by when shortening. If empty, we can split after every character filling up the line as much as possible.

max_lines: int, defaults to 0 (unlimited)

If set, this indicate how maximum line are allowed to render the text. Works only if a limitation on text_size is set.

mipmap: bool, defaults to False

Create a mipmap for the texture

strip: bool, defaults to False

Whether each row of text has its leading and trailing spaces stripped. If halign is justify it is implicitly True.

strip_reflow: bool, defaults to True

Whether text that has been reflowed into a second line should be stripped, even if strip is False. This is only in effect when size_hint_x is not None, because otherwise lines are never split.

unicode_errors: str, defaults to ‘replace’

How to handle unicode decode errors. Can be ‘strict’, ‘replace’ or ‘ignore’.

outline_width: int, defaults to None

Width in pixels for the outline.

outline_color: tuple, defaults to (0, 0, 0)

Color of the outline.

Changed in version 1.10.0: outline_width and outline_color were added.

Changed in version 1.9.0: strip, strip_reflow, shorten_from, split_str, and unicode_errors were added.

Changed in version 1.9.0: padding_x and padding_y has been fixed to work as expected. In the past, the text was padded by the negative of their values.

Changed in version 1.8.0: max_lines parameters has been added.

Changed in version 1.0.8: size have been deprecated and replaced with text_size.

Changed in version 1.0.7: The valign is now respected. This wasn’t the case previously so you might have an issue in your application if you have not considered this.

content_height

Return the content height; i.e. the height of the text without any padding.

content_size

Return the content size (width, height)

content_width

Return the content width; i.e. the width of the text without any padding.

fontid

Return a unique id for all font parameters

get_cached_extents()[source]

Returns a cached version of the get_extents() function.

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>>> func = self._get_cached_extents()
>>> func
<built-in method size of pygame.font.Font object at 0x01E45650>
>>> func('a line')
(36, 18)

Warning

This method returns a size measuring function that is valid for the font settings used at the time get_cached_extents() was called. Any change in the font settings will render the returned function incorrect. You should only use this if you know what you’re doing.

New in version 1.9.0.

get_extents(text)[source]

Return a tuple (width, height) indicating the size of the specified text

static get_system_fonts_dir()[source]

Return the directories used by the system for fonts.

label

Get/Set the text

refresh()[source]

Force re-rendering of the text

static register(name, fn_regular, fn_italic=None, fn_bold=None, fn_bolditalic=None)[source]

Register an alias for a Font.

New in version 1.1.0.

If you’re using a ttf directly, you might not be able to use the bold/italic properties of the ttf version. If the font is delivered in multiple files (one regular, one italic and one bold), then you need to register these files and use the alias instead.

All the fn_regular/fn_italic/fn_bold parameters are resolved with kivy.resources.resource_find(). If fn_italic/fn_bold are None, fn_regular will be used instead.

render(real=False)[source]

Return a tuple (width, height) to create the image with the user constraints. (width, height) includes the padding.

shorten(text, margin=2)[source]

Shortens the text to fit into a single line by the width specified by text_size [0]. If text_size [0] is None, it returns text text unchanged.

split_str and shorten_from determines how the text is shortened.

Params:text str, the text to be shortened. margin int, the amount of space to leave between the margins and the text. This is in addition to padding_x.
Returns:the text shortened to fit into a single line.
text

Get/Set the text

text_size

Get/set the (width, height) of the ‘ ‘contrained rendering box

usersize

(deprecated) Use text_size instead.

Text layout

An internal module for laying out text according to options and constraints. This is not part of the API and may change at any time.

kivy.core.text.text_layout.layout_text()

Lays out text into a series of LayoutWord and LayoutLine instances according to the options specified.

The function is designed to be called many times, each time new text is appended to the last line (or first line if appending upwards), unless a newline is present in the text. Each text appended is described by it’s own options which can change between successive calls. If the text is constrained, we stop as soon as the constraint is reached.

Parameters:
text: string or bytes

the text to be broken down into lines. If lines is not empty, the text is added to the last line (or first line if append_down is False) until a newline is reached which creates a new line in lines. See LayoutLine.

lines: list

a list of LayoutLine instances, each describing a line of the text. Calls to layout_text() append or create new LayoutLine instances in lines.

size: 2-tuple of ints

the size of the laid out text so far. Upon first call it should probably be (0, 0), afterwards it should be the (w, h) returned by this function in a previous call. When size reaches the constraining size, text_size, we stop adding lines and return True for the clipped parameter. size includes the x and y padding.

text_size: 2-tuple of ints or None.

the size constraint on the laid out text. If either element is None, the text is not constrained in that dimension. For example, (None, 200) will constrain the height, including padding to 200, while the width is unconstrained. The first line, and the first character of a line is always returned, even if it exceeds the constraint. The value be changed between different calls.

options: dict

the label options of this text. The options are saved with each word allowing different words to have different options from successive calls.

Note, options must include a space_width key with a value indicating the width of a space for that set of options.

get_extents: callable

a function called with a string, which returns a tuple containing the width, height of the string.

append_down: bool

Whether successive calls to the function appends lines before or after the existing lines. If True, they are appended to the last line and below it. If False, it’s appended at the first line and above. For example, if False, everything after the last newline in text is appended to the first line in lines. Everything before the last newline is inserted at the start of lines in same order as text; that is we do not invert the line order.

This allows laying out from top to bottom until the constrained is reached, or from bottom to top until the constrained is reached.

complete: bool

whether this text complete lines. It use is that normally is strip in options is True, all leading and trailing spaces are removed from each line except from the last line (or first line if append_down is False) which only removes leading spaces. That’s because further text can still be appended to the last line so we cannot strip them. If complete is True, it indicates no further text is coming and all lines will be stripped.

The function can also be called with text set to the empty string and complete set to True in order for the last (first) line to be stripped.
Returns:

3-tuple, (w, h, clipped). w and h is the width and height of the text in lines so far and includes padding. This can be larger than text_size, e.g. if not even a single fitted, the first line would still be returned. clipped is True if not all the text has been added to lines because w, h reached the constrained size.

Following is a simple example with no padding and no stripping:

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>>> from kivy.core.text import Label
>>> from kivy.core.text.text_layout import layout_text

>>> l = Label()
>>> lines = []
>>> # layout text with width constraint by 50, but no height constraint
>>> w, h, clipped = layout_text('heres some text\nah, another line',
... lines, (0, 0), (50, None), l.options, l.get_cached_extents(), True,
... False)
>>> w, h, clipped
(46, 90, False)
# now add text from bottom up, and constrain width only be 100
>>> w, h, clipped = layout_text('\nyay, more text\n', lines, (w, h),
... (100, None), l.options, l.get_cached_extents(), False, True)
>>> w, h, clipped
(77, 120, 0)
>>> for line in lines:
...     print('line w: {}, line h: {}'.format(line.w, line.h))
...     for word in line.words:
...         print('w: {}, h: {}, text: {}'.format(word.lw, word.lh,
...         [word.text]))
line w: 0, line h: 15
line w: 77, line h: 15
w: 77, h: 15, text: ['yay, more text']
line w: 31, line h: 15
w: 31, h: 15, text: ['heres']
line w: 34, line h: 15
w: 34, h: 15, text: [' some']
line w: 24, line h: 15
w: 24, h: 15, text: [' text']
line w: 17, line h: 15
w: 17, h: 15, text: ['ah,']
line w: 46, line h: 15
w: 46, h: 15, text: [' another']
line w: 23, line h: 15
w: 23, h: 15, text: [' line']
class kivy.core.text.text_layout.LayoutWord

Bases: builtins.object

Formally describes a word contained in a line. The name word simply means a chunk of text and can be used to describe any text.

A word has some width, height and is rendered according to options saved in options. See LayoutLine for its usage.

Parameters:
options: dict

the label options dictionary for this word.

lw: int

the width of the text in pixels.

lh: int

the height of the text in pixels.

text: string

the text of the word.
class kivy.core.text.text_layout.LayoutLine

Bases: builtins.object

Formally describes a line of text. A line of text is composed of many LayoutWord instances, each with it’s own text, size and options.

A LayoutLine instance does not always imply that the words contained in the line ended with a newline. That is only the case if is_last_line is True. For example a single real line of text can be split across multiple LayoutLine instances if the whole line doesn’t fit in the constrained width.

Parameters:
x: int

the location in a texture from where the left side of this line is began drawn.

y: int

the location in a texture from where the bottom of this line is drawn.

w: int

the width of the line. This is the sum of the individual widths of its LayoutWord instances. Does not include any padding.

h: int

the height of the line. This is the maximum of the individual heights of its LayoutWord instances multiplied by the line_height of these instance. So this is larger then the word height.

is_last_line: bool

whether this line was the last line in a paragraph. When True, it implies that the line was followed by a newline. Newlines should not be included in the text of words, but is implicit by setting this to True.

line_wrap: bool

whether this line is continued from a previous line which didn’t fit into a constrained width and was therefore split across multiple LayoutLine instances. line_wrap can be True or False independently of is_last_line.

words: python list

a list that contains only LayoutWord instances describing the text of the line.
Text Markup

New in version 1.1.0.

We provide a simple text-markup for inline text styling. The syntax look the same as the BBCode.

A tag is defined as [tag], and should have a corresponding [/tag] closing tag. For example:

[b]Hello [color=ff0000]world[/color][/b]

The following tags are available:

[b][/b]
Activate bold text
[i][/i]
Activate italic text
[u][/u]
Underlined text
[s][/s]
Strikethrough text
[font=<str>][/font]
Change the font
[size=<size>][/size]
Change the font size. <size> should be an integer, optionally with a unit (i.e. 16sp)
[color=#<color>][/color]
Change the text color
[ref=<str>][/ref]
Add an interactive zone. The reference + all the word box inside the reference will be available in MarkupLabel.refs
[anchor=<str>]
Put an anchor in the text. You can get the position of your anchor within the text with MarkupLabel.anchors
[sub][/sub]
Display the text at a subscript position relative to the text before it.
[sup][/sup]
Display the text at a superscript position relative to the text before it.

If you need to escape the markup from the current text, use kivy.utils.escape_markup().

class kivy.core.text.markup.MarkupLabel(*largs, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.core.text.LabelBase

Markup text label.

See module documentation for more informations.

anchors

Get the position of all the [anchor=...]:

{ 'anchorA': (x, y), 'anchorB': (x, y), ... }
markup

Return the text with all the markup splitted:

>>> MarkupLabel('[b]Hello world[/b]').markup
>>> ('[b]', 'Hello world', '[/b]')
refs

Get the bounding box of all the [ref=...]:

{ 'refA': ((x1, y1, x2, y2), (x1, y1, x2, y2)), ... }
render(real=False)[source]

Return a tuple (width, height) to create the image with the user constraints. (width, height) includes the padding.

shorten_post(lines, w, h, margin=2)[source]

Shortens the text to a single line according to the label options.

This function operates on a text that has already been laid out because for markup, parts of text can have different size and options.

If text_size [0] is None, the lines are returned unchanged. Otherwise, the lines are converted to a single line fitting within the constrained width, text_size [0].

Params:lines: list of LayoutLine instances describing the text. w: int, the width of the text in lines, including padding. h: int, the height of the text in lines, including padding. margin int, the additional space left on the sides. This is in addition to padding_x.
Returns:3-tuple of (xw, h, lines), where w, and h is similar to the input and contains the resulting width / height of the text, including padding. lines, is a list containing a single LayoutLine, which contains the words for the line.

Video

Core class for reading video files and managing the video Texture.

Changed in version 1.10.0: The pyglet, pygst and gi providers have been removed.

Changed in version 1.8.0: There are now 2 distinct Gstreamer implementations: one using Gi/Gst working for both Python 2+3 with Gstreamer 1.0, and one using PyGST working only for Python 2 + Gstreamer 0.10.

Note

Recording is not supported.

class kivy.core.video.VideoBase(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

VideoBase, a class used to implement a video reader.

Parameters:
filename: str

Filename of the video. Can be a file or an URI.

eos: str, defaults to ‘pause’

Action to take when EOS is hit. Can be one of ‘pause’, ‘stop’ or ‘loop’.

Changed in version unknown: added ‘pause’

async: bool, defaults to True

Load the video asynchronously (may be not supported by all providers).

autoplay: bool, defaults to False

Auto play the video on init.
Events:
on_eos

Fired when EOS is hit.

on_load

Fired when the video is loaded and the texture is available.

on_frame

Fired when a new frame is written to the texture.
duration

Get the video duration (in seconds)

filename

Get/set the filename/uri of the current video

load()[source]

Load the video from the current filename

pause()[source]

Pause the video

New in version 1.4.0.

play()[source]

Play the video

position

Get/set the position in the video (in seconds)

seek(percent, precise=True)[source]

Move on percent position

state

Get the video playing status

stop()[source]

Stop the video playing

texture

Get the video texture

unload()[source]

Unload the actual video

volume

Get/set the volume in the video (1.0 = 100%)

Window

Core class for creating the default Kivy window. Kivy supports only one window per application: please don’t try to create more than one.

class kivy.core.window.Keyboard(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Keyboard interface that is returned by WindowBase.request_keyboard(). When you request a keyboard, you’ll get an instance of this class. Whatever the keyboard input is (system or virtual keyboard), you’ll receive events through this instance.

Events:
on_key_down: keycode, text, modifiers

Fired when a new key is pressed down

on_key_up: keycode

Fired when a key is released (up)

Here is an example of how to request a Keyboard in accordance with the current configuration:

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import kivy
kivy.require('1.0.8')

from kivy.core.window import Window
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget


class MyKeyboardListener(Widget):

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MyKeyboardListener, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self._keyboard = Window.request_keyboard(
            self._keyboard_closed, self, 'text')
        if self._keyboard.widget:
            # If it exists, this widget is a VKeyboard object which you can use
            # to change the keyboard layout.
            pass
        self._keyboard.bind(on_key_down=self._on_keyboard_down)

    def _keyboard_closed(self):
        print('My keyboard have been closed!')
        self._keyboard.unbind(on_key_down=self._on_keyboard_down)
        self._keyboard = None

    def _on_keyboard_down(self, keyboard, keycode, text, modifiers):
        print('The key', keycode, 'have been pressed')
        print(' - text is %r' % text)
        print(' - modifiers are %r' % modifiers)

        # Keycode is composed of an integer + a string
        # If we hit escape, release the keyboard
        if keycode[1] == 'escape':
            keyboard.release()

        # Return True to accept the key. Otherwise, it will be used by
        # the system.
        return True


if __name__ == '__main__':
    from kivy.base import runTouchApp
    runTouchApp(MyKeyboardListener())
callback = None

Callback that will be called when the keyboard is released

keycode_to_string(value)[source]

Convert a keycode number to a string according to the Keyboard.keycodes. If the value is not found in the keycodes, it will return ‘’.

release()[source]

Call this method to release the current keyboard. This will ensure that the keyboard is no longer attached to your callback.

string_to_keycode(value)[source]

Convert a string to a keycode number according to the Keyboard.keycodes. If the value is not found in the keycodes, it will return -1.

target = None

Target that have requested the keyboard

widget = None

VKeyboard widget, if allowed by the configuration

window = None

Window which the keyboard is attached too

class kivy.core.window.WindowBase(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

WindowBase is an abstract window widget for any window implementation.

Parameters:
borderless: str, one of (‘0’, ‘1’)

Set the window border state. Check the config documentation for a more detailed explanation on the values.

fullscreen: str, one of (‘0’, ‘1’, ‘auto’, ‘fake’)

Make the window fullscreen. Check the config documentation for a more detailed explanation on the values.

width: int

Width of the window.

height: int

Height of the window.

minimum_width: int

Minimum width of the window (only works for sdl2 window provider).

minimum_height: int

Minimum height of the window (only works for sdl2 window provider).

allow_screensaver: bool

Allow the device to show a screen saver, or to go to sleep on mobile devices. Defaults to True. Only works for sdl2 window provider.
Events:
on_motion: etype, motionevent

Fired when a new MotionEvent is dispatched

on_touch_down:

Fired when a new touch event is initiated.

on_touch_move:

Fired when an existing touch event changes location.

on_touch_up:

Fired when an existing touch event is terminated.

on_draw:

Fired when the Window is being drawn.

on_flip:

Fired when the Window GL surface is being flipped.

on_rotate: rotation

Fired when the Window is being rotated.

on_close:

Fired when the Window is closed.

on_request_close:

Fired when the event loop wants to close the window, or if the escape key is pressed and exit_on_escape is True. If a function bound to this event returns True, the window will not be closed. If the the event is triggered because of the keyboard escape key, the keyword argument source is dispatched along with a value of keyboard to the bound functions.

New in version 1.9.0.

on_cursor_enter:

Fired when the cursor enters the window.

New in version 1.9.1.

on_cursor_leave:

Fired when the cursor leaves the window.

New in version 1.9.1.

on_minimize:

Fired when the window is minimized.

New in version 1.10.0.

on_maximize:

Fired when the window is maximized.

New in version 1.10.0.

on_restore:

Fired when the window is restored.

New in version 1.10.0.

on_hide:

Fired when the window is hidden.

New in version 1.10.0.

on_show:

Fired when when the window is shown.

New in version 1.10.0.

on_keyboard: key, scancode, codepoint, modifier

Fired when the keyboard is used for input.

Changed in version 1.3.0: The unicode parameter has been deprecated in favor of codepoint, and will be removed completely in future versions.

on_key_down: key, scancode, codepoint, modifier

Fired when a key pressed.

Changed in version 1.3.0: The unicode parameter has been deprecated in favor of codepoint, and will be removed completely in future versions.

on_key_up: key, scancode, codepoint

Fired when a key is released.

Changed in version 1.3.0: The unicode parameter has be deprecated in favor of codepoint, and will be removed completely in future versions.

on_dropfile: str

Fired when a file is dropped on the application.

Note

This event doesn’t work for apps with elevated permissions, because the OS API calls are filtered. Check issue #4999 for pointers to workarounds.

on_memorywarning:

Fired when the platform have memory issue (iOS / Android mostly) You can listen to this one, and clean whatever you can.

New in version 1.9.0.

on_textedit(self, text):

Fired when inputting with IME. The string inputting with IME is set as the parameter of this event.

New in version 1.10.1.
add_widget(widget, canvas=None)[source]

Add a widget to a window

allow_screensaver

Whether the screen saver is enabled, or on mobile devices whether the device is allowed to go to sleep while the app is open.

New in version 1.10.0.

allow_screensaver is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

borderless

When set to True, this property removes the window border/decoration. Check the config documentation for a more detailed explanation on the values.

New in version 1.9.0.

borderless is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

center

Center of the rotated window.

New in version 1.0.9.

center is an AliasProperty.

children

List of the children of this window.

children is a ListProperty instance and defaults to an empty list.

Use add_widget() and remove_widget() to manipulate the list of children. Don’t manipulate the list directly unless you know what you are doing.

clear()[source]

Clear the window with the background color

clearcolor

Color used to clear the window.

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from kivy.core.window import Window

# red background color
Window.clearcolor = (1, 0, 0, 1)

# don't clear background at all
Window.clearcolor = None

Changed in version 1.7.2: The clearcolor default value is now: (0, 0, 0, 1).

New in version 1.0.9.

clearcolor is an AliasProperty and defaults to (0, 0, 0, 1).

close()[source]

Close the window

create_window(*largs)[source]

Will create the main window and configure it.

Warning

This method is called automatically at runtime. If you call it, it will recreate a RenderContext and Canvas. This means you’ll have a new graphics tree, and the old one will be unusable.

This method exist to permit the creation of a new OpenGL context AFTER closing the first one. (Like using runTouchApp() and stopTouchApp()).

This method has only been tested in a unittest environment and is not suitable for Applications.

Again, don’t use this method unless you know exactly what you are doing!

dpi()

Return the DPI of the screen. If the implementation doesn’t support any DPI lookup, it will just return 96.

Warning

This value is not cross-platform. Use kivy.base.EventLoop.dpi instead.

flip()[source]

Flip between buffers

focus

Check whether or not the window currently has focus.

New in version 1.9.1.

focus is a read-only AliasProperty and defaults to True.

fullscreen

This property sets the fullscreen mode of the window. Available options are: True, False, ‘auto’ and ‘fake’. Check the config documentation for more detailed explanations on these values.

fullscreen is an OptionProperty and defaults to False.

New in version 1.2.0.

Note

The ‘fake’ option has been deprecated, use the borderless property instead.

grab_mouse()[source]

Grab mouse - so won’t leave window

New in version 1.10.0.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider.

height

Rotated window height.

height is a read-only AliasProperty.

hide()[source]

Hides the window. This method should be used on desktop platforms only.

New in version 1.9.0.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider and is currently only supported on desktop platforms.

icon

A path to the window icon.

New in version 1.1.2.

icon is a StringProperty.

keyboard_anim_args = {'d': 0.5, 't': 'in_out_quart'}

The attributes for animating softkeyboard/IME. t = transition, d = duration. This value will have no effect on desktops.

New in version 1.10.0.

keyboard_anim_args is a dict and defaults to {‘t’: ‘in_out_quart’, ‘d’: .5}.

keyboard_height

Returns the height of the softkeyboard/IME on mobile platforms. Will return 0 if not on mobile platform or if IME is not active.

Note

This property returns 0 with SDL2 on Android, but setting Window.softinput_mode does works.

New in version 1.9.0.

keyboard_height is a read-only AliasProperty and defaults to 0.

keyboard_padding

The padding to have between the softkeyboard/IME & target or bottom of window. Will have no effect on desktops.

New in version 1.10.0.

keyboard_padding is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

left

Left position of the window.

Note

It’s an SDL2 property with [0, 0] in the top-left corner.

Changed in version 1.10.0: left is now an AliasProperty

New in version 1.9.1.

left is an AliasProperty and defaults to the position set in Config.

maximize()[source]

Maximizes the window. This method should be used on desktop platforms only.

New in version 1.9.0.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider and is currently only supported on desktop platforms.

minimize()[source]

Minimizes the window. This method should be used on desktop platforms only.

New in version 1.9.0.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider and is currently only supported on desktop platforms.

minimum_height

The minimum height to restrict the window to.

New in version 1.9.1.

minimum_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

minimum_width

The minimum width to restrict the window to.

New in version 1.9.1.

minimum_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

modifiers

List of keyboard modifiers currently active.

New in version 1.0.9.

modifiers is an AliasProperty.

mouse_pos

2d position of the mouse within the window.

New in version 1.2.0.

mouse_pos is an ObjectProperty and defaults to [0, 0].

on_close(*largs)[source]

Event called when the window is closed.

on_cursor_enter(*largs)[source]

Event called when the cursor enters the window.

New in version 1.9.1.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider.

on_cursor_leave(*largs)[source]

Event called when the cursor leaves the window.

New in version 1.9.1.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider.

on_dropfile(filename)[source]

Event called when a file is dropped on the application.

Warning

This event currently works with sdl2 window provider, on pygame window provider and OS X with a patched version of pygame. This event is left in place for further evolution (ios, android etc.)

New in version 1.2.0.

on_flip()[source]

Flip between buffers (event)

on_hide(*largs)[source]

Event called when the window is hidden.

New in version 1.10.0.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider.

on_joy_axis(stickid, axisid, value)[source]

Event called when a joystick has a stick or other axis moved.

New in version 1.9.0.

on_joy_ball(stickid, ballid, xvalue, yvalue)[source]

Event called when a joystick has a ball moved.

New in version 1.9.0.

on_joy_button_down(stickid, buttonid)[source]

Event called when a joystick has a button pressed.

New in version 1.9.0.

on_joy_button_up(stickid, buttonid)[source]

Event called when a joystick has a button released.

New in version 1.9.0.

on_joy_hat(stickid, hatid, value)[source]

Event called when a joystick has a hat/dpad moved.

New in version 1.9.0.

on_key_down(key, scancode=None, codepoint=None, modifier=None, **kwargs)[source]

Event called when a key is down (same arguments as on_keyboard)

on_key_up(key, scancode=None, codepoint=None, modifier=None, **kwargs)[source]

Event called when a key is released (same arguments as on_keyboard).

on_keyboard(key, scancode=None, codepoint=None, modifier=None, **kwargs)[source]

Event called when keyboard is used.

Warning

Some providers may omit scancode, codepoint and/or modifier.

on_maximize(*largs)[source]

Event called when the window is maximized.

New in version 1.10.0.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider.

on_memorywarning()[source]

Event called when the platform have memory issue. Your goal is to clear the cache in your app as much as you can, release unused widgets, do garbage collection etc.

Currently, this event is fired only from the SDL2 provider, for iOS and Android.

New in version 1.9.0.

on_minimize(*largs)[source]

Event called when the window is minimized.

New in version 1.10.0.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider.

on_motion(etype, me)[source]

Event called when a Motion Event is received.

Parameters:
etype: str

One of ‘begin’, ‘update’, ‘end’

me: MotionEvent

The Motion Event currently dispatched.
on_mouse_down(x, y, button, modifiers)[source]

Event called when the mouse is used (pressed/released).

on_mouse_move(x, y, modifiers)[source]

Event called when the mouse is moved with buttons pressed.

on_mouse_up(x, y, button, modifiers)[source]

Event called when the mouse is moved with buttons pressed.

on_request_close(*largs, **kwargs)[source]

Event called before we close the window. If a bound function returns True, the window will not be closed. If the the event is triggered because of the keyboard escape key, the keyword argument source is dispatched along with a value of keyboard to the bound functions.

Warning

When the bound function returns True the window will not be closed, so use with care because the user would not be able to close the program, even if the red X is clicked.

on_resize(width, height)[source]

Event called when the window is resized.

on_restore(*largs)[source]

Event called when the window is restored.

New in version 1.10.0.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider.

on_rotate(rotation)[source]

Event called when the screen has been rotated.

on_show(*largs)[source]

Event called when the window is shown.

New in version 1.10.0.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider.

on_textedit(text)[source]

Event called when inputting with IME. The string inputting with IME is set as the parameter of this event.

New in version 1.10.1.

on_textinput(text)[source]

Event called when text: i.e. alpha numeric non control keys or set of keys is entered. As it is not guaranteed whether we get one character or multiple ones, this event supports handling multiple characters.

New in version 1.9.0.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Event called when a touch down event is initiated.

Changed in version 1.9.0: The touch pos is now transformed to window coordinates before this method is called. Before, the touch pos coordinate would be (0, 0) when this method was called.

on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Event called when a touch event moves (changes location).

Changed in version 1.9.0: The touch pos is now transformed to window coordinates before this method is called. Before, the touch pos coordinate would be (0, 0) when this method was called.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Event called when a touch event is released (terminated).

Changed in version 1.9.0: The touch pos is now transformed to window coordinates before this method is called. Before, the touch pos coordinate would be (0, 0) when this method was called.

parent

Parent of this window.

parent is a ObjectProperty instance and defaults to None. When created, the parent is set to the window itself. You must take care of it if you are doing a recursive check.

raise_window()[source]

Raise the window. This method should be used on desktop platforms only.

New in version 1.9.1.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider and is currently only supported on desktop platforms.

release_all_keyboards()[source]

New in version 1.0.8.

This will ensure that no virtual keyboard / system keyboard is requested. All instances will be closed.

release_keyboard(target=None)[source]

New in version 1.0.4.

Internal method for the widget to release the real-keyboard. Check request_keyboard() to understand how it works.

remove_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from a window

request_keyboard(callback, target, input_type='text')[source]

New in version 1.0.4.

Internal widget method to request the keyboard. This method is rarely required by the end-user as it is handled automatically by the TextInput. We expose it in case you want to handle the keyboard manually for unique input scenarios.

A widget can request the keyboard, indicating a callback to call when the keyboard is released (or taken by another widget).

Parameters:
callback: func

Callback that will be called when the keyboard is closed. This can be because somebody else requested the keyboard or the user closed it.

target: Widget

Attach the keyboard to the specified target. This should be the widget that requested the keyboard. Ensure you have a different target attached to each keyboard if you’re working in a multi user mode.

New in version 1.0.8.

input_type: string

Choose the type of soft keyboard to request. Can be one of ‘text’, ‘number’, ‘url’, ‘mail’, ‘datetime’, ‘tel’, ‘address’.

Note

input_type is currently only honored on mobile devices.

New in version 1.8.0.
Return:

An instance of Keyboard containing the callback, target, and if the configuration allows it, a VKeyboard instance attached as a .widget property.

Note

The behavior of this function is heavily influenced by the current keyboard_mode. Please see the Config’s configuration tokens section for more information.

restore()[source]

Restores the size and position of a maximized or minimized window. This method should be used on desktop platforms only.

New in version 1.9.0.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider and is currently only supported on desktop platforms.

rotation

Get/set the window content rotation. Can be one of 0, 90, 180, 270 degrees.

New in version 1.0.9.

rotation is an AliasProperty.

screenshot(name='screenshot{:04d}.png')[source]

Save the actual displayed image to a file.

set_icon(filename)[source]

Set the icon of the window.

New in version 1.0.5.

set_system_cursor(cursor_name)[source]

Set type of a mouse cursor in the Window.

It can be one of ‘arrow’, ‘ibeam’, ‘wait’, ‘crosshair’, ‘wait_arrow’, ‘size_nwse’, ‘size_nesw’, ‘size_we’, ‘size_ns’, ‘size_all’, ‘no’, or ‘hand’.

On some platforms there might not be a specific cursor supported and such an option falls back to one of the substitutable alternatives:

  Windows MacOS Linux X11 Linux Wayland
arrow arrow arrow arrow arrow
ibeam ibeam ibeam ibeam ibeam
wait wait arrow wait wait
crosshair crosshair crosshair crosshair hand
wait_arrow arrow arrow wait wait
size_nwse size_nwse size_all size_all hand
size_nesw size_nesw size_all size_all hand
size_we size_we size_we size_we hand
size_ns size_ns size_ns size_ns hand
size_all size_all size_all size_all hand
no no no no ibeam
hand hand hand hand hand

New in version 1.10.1.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider and is currently only supported on desktop platforms.

set_title(title)[source]

Set the window title.

New in version 1.0.5.

set_vkeyboard_class(cls)[source]

New in version 1.0.8.

Set the VKeyboard class to use. If set to None, it will use the kivy.uix.vkeyboard.VKeyboard.

shape_color_key

Color key of the shaped window - sets which color will be hidden from the window shape_image (only works for sdl2 window provider).

New in version 1.10.1.

shape_color_key is a ListProperty instance and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

shape_cutoff

The window shape_image cutoff property (only works for sdl2 window provider).

New in version 1.10.1.

shape_cutoff is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

shape_image

An image for the window shape (only works for sdl2 window provider).

Warning

The image size has to be the same like the window’s size!

New in version 1.10.1.

shape_image is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘data/images/defaultshape.png’. This value is taken from Config.

shape_mode

Window mode for shaping (only works for sdl2 window provider).

  • can be RGB only
    • default - does nothing special
    • colorkey - hides a color of the shape_color_key
  • has to contain alpha channel
    • binalpha - hides an alpha channel of the shape_image
    • reversebinalpha - shows only the alpha of the shape_image

Note

Before actually setting the mode make sure the Window has the same size like the shape_image, preferably via Config before the Window is actually created.

If the shape_image isn’t set, the default one will be used and the mode might not take the desired visual effect.

New in version 1.10.1.

shape_mode is an AliasProperty.

shaped

Read only property to check if the window is shapable or not (only works for sdl2 window provider).

New in version 1.10.1.

shaped is an AliasProperty.

show()[source]

Shows the window. This method should be used on desktop platforms only.

New in version 1.9.0.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider and is currently only supported on desktop platforms.

show_cursor

Set whether or not the cursor is shown on the window.

New in version 1.9.1.

show_cursor is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

size

Get the rotated size of the window. If rotation is set, then the size will change to reflect the rotation.

New in version 1.0.9.

size is an AliasProperty.

softinput_mode

This specifies the behavior of window contents on display of the soft keyboard on mobile platforms. It can be one of ‘’, ‘pan’, ‘scale’, ‘resize’ or ‘below_target’. Their effects are listed below.

Value Effect
‘’ The main window is left as is, allowing you to use the keyboard_height to manage the window contents manually.
‘pan’ The main window pans, moving the bottom part of the window to be always on top of the keyboard.
‘resize’ The window is resized and the contents scaled to fit the remaining space.
‘below_target’ The window pans so that the current target TextInput widget requesting the keyboard is presented just above the soft keyboard.

softinput_mode is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘’.

Note

The resize option does not currently work with SDL2 on Android.

New in version 1.9.0.

Changed in version 1.9.1: The ‘below_target’ option was added.

system_size

Real size of the window ignoring rotation.

New in version 1.0.9.

system_size is an AliasProperty.

toggle_fullscreen()[source]

Toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode.

Deprecated since version 1.9.0: Use fullscreen instead.

top

Top position of the window.

Note

It’s an SDL2 property with [0, 0] in the top-left corner.

Changed in version 1.10.0: top is now an AliasProperty

New in version 1.9.1.

top is an AliasProperty and defaults to the position set in Config.

ungrab_mouse()[source]

Ungrab mouse

New in version 1.10.0.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 window provider.

width

Rotated window width.

width is a read-only AliasProperty.

Kivy module for binary dependencies.

Binary dependencies such as gstreamer is installed as a namespace module of kivy.deps. These modules are responsible for making sure that the binaries are available to kivy.

Effects

New in version 1.7.0.

Everything starts with the KineticEffect, the base class for computing velocity out of a movement.

This base class is used to implement the ScrollEffect, a base class used for our ScrollView widget effect. We have multiple implementations:

  • ScrollEffect: base class used for implementing an effect. It only calculates the scrolling and the overscroll.
  • DampedScrollEffect: uses the overscroll information to allow the user to drag more than expected. Once the user stops the drag, the position is returned to one of the bounds.
  • OpacityScrollEffect: uses the overscroll information to reduce the opacity of the scrollview widget. When the user stops the drag, the opacity is set back to 1.

Damped scroll effect

New in version 1.7.0.

This damped scroll effect will use the overscroll to calculate the scroll value, and slows going back to the upper or lower limit.

class kivy.effects.dampedscroll.DampedScrollEffect(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.effects.scroll.ScrollEffect

DampedScrollEffect class. See the module documentation for more information.

edge_damping

Edge damping.

edge_damping is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.25

min_overscroll

An overscroll less than this amount will be normalized to 0.

New in version 1.8.0.

min_overscroll is a NumericProperty and defaults to .5.

round_value

If True, when the motion stops, value is rounded to the nearest integer.

New in version 1.8.0.

round_value is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

spring_constant

Spring constant.

spring_constant is a NumericProperty and defaults to 2.0

update_velocity(dt)[source]

(internal) Update the velocity according to the frametime and friction.

Kinetic effect

New in version 1.7.0.

The KineticEffect is the base class that is used to compute the velocity out of a movement. When the movement is finished, the effect will compute the position of the movement according to the velocity, and reduce the velocity with a friction. The movement stop until the velocity is 0.

Conceptually, the usage could be:

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>>> effect = KineticEffect()
>>> effect.start(10)
>>> effect.update(15)
>>> effect.update(30)
>>> effect.stop(48)

Over the time, you will start a movement of a value, update it, and stop the movement. At this time, you’ll get the movement value into KineticEffect.value. On the example i’ve typed manually, the computed velocity will be:

>>> effect.velocity
3.1619100231163046

After multiple clock interaction, the velocity will decrease according to KineticEffect.friction. The computed value will be stored in KineticEffect.value. The output of this value could be:

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46.30038145219605
54.58302451968686
61.9229016256196
# ...
class kivy.effects.kinetic.KineticEffect(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Kinetic effect class. See module documentation for more information.

cancel()[source]

Cancel a movement. This can be used in case stop() cannot be called. It will reset is_manual to False, and compute the movement if the velocity is > 0.

friction

Friction to apply on the velocity

velocity is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.05.

is_manual

Indicate if a movement is in progress (True) or not (False).

velocity is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

max_history

Save up to max_history movement value into the history. This is used for correctly calculating the velocity according to the movement.

max_history is a NumericProperty and defaults to 5.

min_distance

The minimal distance for a movement to have nonzero velocity.

New in version 1.8.0.

min_distance is NumericProperty and defaults to 0.1.

min_velocity

Velocity below this quantity is normalized to 0. In other words, any motion whose velocity falls below this number is stopped.

New in version 1.8.0.

min_velocity is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.5.

start(val, t=None)[source]

Start the movement.

Parameters:
val: float or int

Value of the movement

t: float, defaults to None

Time when the movement happen. If no time is set, it will use time.time()
stop(val, t=None)[source]

Stop the movement.

See start() for the arguments.

update(val, t=None)[source]

Update the movement.

See start() for the arguments.

update_velocity(dt)[source]

(internal) Update the velocity according to the frametime and friction.

value

Value (during the movement and computed) of the effect.

velocity is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

velocity

Velocity of the movement.

velocity is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

Opacity scroll effect

Based on the DampedScrollEffect, this one will also decrease the opacity of the target widget during the overscroll.

class kivy.effects.opacityscroll.OpacityScrollEffect(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.effects.dampedscroll.DampedScrollEffect

OpacityScrollEffect class. Uses the overscroll information to reduce the opacity of the scrollview widget. When the user stops the drag, the opacity is set back to 1.

Scroll effect

New in version 1.7.0.

Based on the kinetic effect, the ScrollEffect will limit the movement to bounds determined by its min and max properties. If the movement exceeds these bounds, it will calculate the amount of overscroll and try to return to the value of one of the bounds.

This is very useful for implementing a scrolling list. We actually use this class as a base effect for our ScrollView widget.

class kivy.effects.scroll.ScrollEffect(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.effects.kinetic.KineticEffect

ScrollEffect class. See the module documentation for more informations.

displacement

Cumulative distance of the movement during the interaction. This is used to determine if the movement is a drag (more than drag_threshold) or not.

displacement is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

drag_threshold

Minimum distance to travel before the movement is considered as a drag.

velocity is a NumericProperty and defaults to 20sp.

max

Maximum boundary to use for scrolling.

max is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

min

Minimum boundary to use for scrolling.

min is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

overscroll

Computed value when the user over-scrolls i.e. goes out of the bounds.

overscroll is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

reset(pos)[source]

(internal) Reset the value and the velocity to the pos. Mostly used when the bounds are checked.

scroll

Computed value for scrolling. This value is different from kivy.effects.kinetic.KineticEffect.value in that it will return to one of the min/max bounds.

scroll is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

start(val, t=None)[source]

Start the movement.

Parameters:
val: float or int

Value of the movement

t: float, defaults to None

Time when the movement happen. If no time is set, it will use time.time()
stop(val, t=None)[source]

Stop the movement.

See start() for the arguments.

target_widget

Widget to attach to this effect. Even if this class doesn’t make changes to the target_widget by default, subclasses can use it to change the graphics or apply custom transformations.

target_widget is a ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

update(val, t=None)[source]

Update the movement.

See start() for the arguments.

Garden

New in version 1.7.0.

Changed in version 1.8.0.

Garden is a project to centralize addons for Kivy maintained by users. You can find more information at Kivy Garden. All the garden packages are centralized on the kivy-garden Github repository.

Garden is now distributed as a separate Python module, kivy-garden. You can install it with pip:

pip install kivy-garden

The garden module does not initially include any packages. You can download them with the garden tool installed by the pip package:

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# Installing a garden package
garden install graph

# Upgrade a garden package
garden install --upgrade graph

# Uninstall a garden package
garden uninstall graph

# List all the garden packages installed
garden list

# Search new packages
garden search

# Search all the packages that contain "graph"
garden search graph

# Show the help
garden --help

All the garden packages are installed by default in ~/.kivy/garden.

Note

In previous versions of Kivy, garden was a tool at kivy/tools/garden. This no longer exists, but the kivy-garden module provides exactly the same functionality.

Packaging

If you want to include garden packages in your application, you can add –app to the install command. This will create a libs/garden directory in your current directory which will be used by kivy.garden.

For example:

cd myapp
garden install --app graph
kivy.garden.garden_system_dir = 'garden'

system path where garden modules can be installed

Graphics

This package assembles many low level functions used for drawing. The whole graphics package is compatible with OpenGL ES 2.0 and has many rendering optimizations.

The basics

For drawing on a screen, you will need :

  1. a Canvas object.
  2. Instruction objects.

Each Widget in Kivy already has a Canvas by default. When you create a widget, you can create all the instructions needed for drawing. If self is your current widget, you can do:

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from kivy.graphics import *
with self.canvas:
    # Add a red color
    Color(1., 0, 0)

    # Add a rectangle
    Rectangle(pos=(10, 10), size=(500, 500))

The instructions Color and Rectangle are automatically added to the canvas object and will be used when the window is drawn.

Note

Kivy drawing instructions are not automatically relative to the widgets position or size. You therefore you need to consider these factors when drawing. In order to make your drawing instructions relative to the widget, the instructions need either to be declared in the KvLang or bound to pos and size changes. Please see Adding a Background to a Layout for more detail.

GL Reloading mechanism

New in version 1.2.0.

During the lifetime of the application, the OpenGL context might be lost. This happens:

  • when the window is resized on OS X or the Windows platform and you’re using pygame as a window provider. This is due to SDL 1.2. In the SDL 1.2 design, it needs to recreate a GL context everytime the window is resized. This was fixed in SDL 1.3 but pygame is not yet available on it by default.
  • when Android releases the app resources: when your application goes to the background, Android might reclaim your opengl context to give the resource to another app. When the user switches back to your application, a newly created gl context is given to your app.

Starting from 1.2.0, we have introduced a mechanism for reloading all the graphics resources using the GPU: Canvas, FBO, Shader, Texture, VBO, and VertexBatch:

  • VBO and VertexBatch are constructed by our graphics instructions. We have all the data needed to reconstruct when reloading.
  • Shader: same as VBO, we store the source and values used in the shader so we are able to recreate the vertex/fragment/program.
  • Texture: if the texture has a source (an image file or atlas), the image is reloaded from the source and reuploaded to the GPU.

You should cover these cases yourself:

  • Textures without a source: if you manually created a texture and manually blit data / a buffer to it, you must handle the reloading yourself. Check the Texture to learn how to manage that case. (The text rendering already generates the texture and handles the reloading. You don’t need to reload text yourself.)
  • FBO: if you added / removed / drew things multiple times on the FBO, we can’t reload it. We don’t keep a history of the instructions put on it. As for textures without a source, check the Framebuffer to learn how to manage that case.
class kivy.graphics.Bezier

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A 2d Bezier curve.

New in version 1.0.8.

Parameters:
points: list

List of points in the format (x1, y1, x2, y2…)

segments: int, defaults to 180

Define how many segments are needed for drawing the curve. The drawing will be smoother if you have many segments.

loop: bool, defaults to False

Set the bezier curve to join the last point to the first.

dash_length: int

Length of a segment (if dashed), defaults to 1.

dash_offset: int

Distance between the end of a segment and the start of the next one, defaults to 0. Changing this makes it dashed.
dash_length

Property for getting/setting the length of the dashes in the curve.

dash_offset

Property for getting/setting the offset between the dashes in the curve.

points

Property for getting/settings the points of the triangle.

Warning

This will always reconstruct the whole graphic from the new points list. It can be very CPU intensive.

segments

Property for getting/setting the number of segments of the curve.

class kivy.graphics.BindTexture

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

BindTexture Graphic instruction. The BindTexture Instruction will bind a texture and enable GL_TEXTURE_2D for subsequent drawing.

Parameters:
texture: Texture

Specifies the texture to bind to the given index.
source

Set/get the source (filename) to load for the texture.

class kivy.graphics.BorderImage

Bases: kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Rectangle

A 2d border image. The behavior of the border image is similar to the concept of a CSS3 border-image.

Parameters:
border: list

Border information in the format (bottom, right, top, left). Each value is in pixels.

auto_scale: string

New in version 1.9.1.

Changed in version 1.9.2: This used to be a bool and has been changed to be a string state.

Can be one of ‘off’, ‘both’, ‘x_only’, ‘y_only’, ‘y_full_x_lower’, ‘x_full_y_lower’, ‘both_lower’.

Autoscale controls the behavior of the 9-slice.

By default the border values are preserved exactly, meaning that if the total size of the object is smaller than the border values you will have some ‘rendering errors’ where your texture appears inside out. This also makes it impossible to achieve a rounded button that scales larger than the size of its source texture. The various options for auto_scale will let you achieve some mixes of the 2 types of rendering.

‘off’: is the default and behaves as BorderImage did when auto_scale was False before.

‘both’: Scales both x and y dimension borders according to the size of the BorderImage, this disables the BorderImage making it render the same as a regular Image.

‘x_only’: The Y dimension functions as the default, and the X scales to the size of the BorderImage’s width.

‘y_only’: The X dimension functions as the default, and the Y scales to the size of the BorderImage’s height.

‘y_full_x_lower’: Y scales as in ‘y_only’, Y scales if the size of the scaled version would be smaller than the provided border only.

‘x_full_y_lower’: X scales as in ‘x_only’, Y scales if the size of the scaled version would be smaller than the provided border only.

‘both_lower’: This is what auto_scale did when it was True in 1.9.1 Both X and Y dimensions will be scaled if the BorderImage is smaller than the source.

If the BorderImage’s size is less than the sum of it’s borders, horizontally or vertically, and this property is set to True, the borders will be rescaled to accommodate for the smaller size.
auto_scale

Property for setting if the corners are automatically scaled when the BorderImage is too small.

border

Property for getting/setting the border of the class.

display_border

Property for getting/setting the border display size.

class kivy.graphics.Callback

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

New in version 1.0.4.

A Callback is an instruction that will be called when the drawing operation is performed. When adding instructions to a canvas, you can do this:

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with self.canvas:
    Color(1, 1, 1)
    Rectangle(pos=self.pos, size=self.size)
    Callback(self.my_callback)

The definition of the callback must be:

def my_callback(self, instr):
    print('I have been called!')

Warning

Note that if you perform many and/or costly calls to callbacks, you might potentially slow down the rendering performance significantly.

The updating of your canvas does not occur until something new happens. From your callback, you can ask for an update:

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with self.canvas:
    self.cb = Callback(self.my_callback)
# then later in the code
self.cb.ask_update()

If you use the Callback class to call rendering methods of another toolkit, you will have issues with the OpenGL context. The OpenGL state may have been manipulated by the other toolkit, and as soon as program flow returns to Kivy, it will just break. You can have glitches, crashes, black holes might occur, etc. To avoid that, you can activate the reset_context option. It will reset the OpenGL context state to make Kivy’s rendering correct after the call to your callback.

Warning

The reset_context is not a full OpenGL reset. If you have issues regarding that, please contact us.

ask_update()

Inform the parent canvas that we’d like it to update on the next frame. This is useful when you need to trigger a redraw due to some value having changed for example.

New in version 1.0.4.

callback

Property for getting/setting func.

reset_context

Set this to True if you want to reset the OpenGL context for Kivy after the callback has been called.

class kivy.graphics.Canvas

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.CanvasBase

The important Canvas class. Use this class to add graphics or context instructions that you want to be used for drawing.

Note

The Canvas supports Python’s with statement and its enter & exit semantics.

Usage of a canvas without the with statement:

self.canvas.add(Color(1., 1., 0))
self.canvas.add(Rectangle(size=(50, 50)))

Usage of a canvas with Python’s with statement:

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with self.canvas:
    Color(1., 1., 0)
    Rectangle(size=(50, 50))
add()

Add a new Instruction to our list.

after

Property for getting the ‘after’ group.

ask_update()

Inform the canvas that we’d like it to update on the next frame. This is useful when you need to trigger a redraw due to some value having changed for example.

before

Property for getting the ‘before’ group.

clear()

Clears every Instruction in the canvas, leaving it clean.

draw()

Apply the instruction to our window.

has_after

Property to see if the after group has already been created.

New in version 1.7.0.

has_before

Property to see if the before group has already been created.

New in version 1.7.0.

opacity

Property to get/set the opacity value of the canvas.

New in version 1.4.1.

The opacity attribute controls the opacity of the canvas and its children. Be careful, it’s a cumulative attribute: the value is multiplied to the current global opacity and the result is applied to the current context color.

For example: if your parent has an opacity of 0.5 and a child has an opacity of 0.2, the real opacity of the child will be 0.5 * 0.2 = 0.1.

Then, the opacity is applied on the shader as:

frag_color = color * vec4(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, opacity);
remove()

Remove an existing Instruction from our list.

class kivy.graphics.CanvasBase

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.InstructionGroup

CanvasBase provides the context manager methods for the Canvas.

class kivy.graphics.Color

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Instruction to set the color state for any vertices being drawn after it.

This represents a color between 0 and 1, but is applied as a multiplier to the texture of any vertex instructions following it in a canvas. If no texture is set, the vertex instruction takes the precise color of the Color instruction.

For instance, if a Rectangle has a texture with uniform color (0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1.0) and the preceding Color has rgba=(1, 0.5, 2, 1), the actual visible color will be (0.5, 0.25, 1.0, 1.0) since the Color instruction is applied as a multiplier to every rgba component. In this case, a Color component outside the 0-1 range gives a visible result as the intensity of the blue component is doubled.

To declare a Color in Python, you can do:

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from kivy.graphics import Color

# create red v
c = Color(1, 0, 0)
# create blue color
c = Color(0, 1, 0)
# create blue color with 50% alpha
c = Color(0, 1, 0, .5)

# using hsv mode
c = Color(0, 1, 1, mode='hsv')
# using hsv mode + alpha
c = Color(0, 1, 1, .2, mode='hsv')

You can also set color components that are available as properties by passing them as keyword arguments:

c = Color(b=0.5)  # sets the blue component only

In kv lang you can set the color properties directly:

<Rule>:
    canvas:
        # red color
        Color:
            rgb: 1, 0, 0
        # blue color
        Color:
            rgb: 0, 1, 0
        # blue color with 50% alpha
        Color:
            rgba: 0, 1, 0, .5

        # using hsv mode
        Color:
            hsv: 0, 1, 1
        # using hsv mode + alpha
        Color:
            hsv: 0, 1, 1
            a: .5
a

Alpha component, between 0 and 1.

b

Blue component, between 0 and 1.

g

Green component, between 0 and 1.

h

Hue component, between 0 and 1.

hsv

HSV color, list of 3 values in 0-1 range, alpha will be 1.

r

Red component, between 0 and 1.

rgb

RGB color, list of 3 values in 0-1 range. The alpha will be 1.

rgba

RGBA color, list of 4 values in 0-1 range.

s

Saturation component, between 0 and 1.

v

Value component, between 0 and 1.

class kivy.graphics.ContextInstruction

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

The ContextInstruction class is the base for the creation of instructions that don’t have a direct visual representation, but instead modify the current Canvas’ state, e.g. texture binding, setting color parameters, matrix manipulation and so on.

class kivy.graphics.Ellipse

Bases: kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Rectangle

A 2D ellipse.

Changed in version 1.0.7: Added angle_start and angle_end.

Parameters:
segments: int, defaults to 180

Define how many segments are needed for drawing the ellipse. The drawing will be smoother if you have many segments.

angle_start: int, defaults to 0

Specifies the starting angle, in degrees, of the disk portion.

angle_end: int, defaults to 360

Specifies the ending angle, in degrees, of the disk portion.
angle_end

End angle of the ellipse in degrees, defaults to 360.

angle_start

Start angle of the ellipse in degrees, defaults to 0.

segments

Property for getting/setting the number of segments of the ellipse.

class kivy.graphics.Fbo

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.RenderContext

Fbo class for wrapping the OpenGL Framebuffer extension. The Fbo support “with” statement.

Parameters:
clear_color: tuple, defaults to (0, 0, 0, 0)

Define the default color for clearing the framebuffer

size: tuple, defaults to (1024, 1024)

Default size of the framebuffer

push_viewport: bool, defaults to True

If True, the OpenGL viewport will be set to the framebuffer size, and will be automatically restored when the framebuffer released.

with_depthbuffer: bool, defaults to False

If True, the framebuffer will be allocated with a Z buffer.

with_stencilbuffer: bool, defaults to False

New in version 1.9.0.

If True, the framebuffer will be allocated with a stencil buffer.

texture: Texture, defaults to None

If None, a default texture will be created.

Note

Using both of with_stencilbuffer and with_depthbuffer is not supported in kivy 1.9.0

add_reload_observer()

Add a callback to be called after the whole graphics context has been reloaded. This is where you can reupload your custom data in GPU.

New in version 1.2.0.

Parameters:
callback: func(context) -> return None

The first parameter will be the context itself
bind()

Bind the FBO to the current opengl context. Bind mean that you enable the Framebuffer, and all the drawing operations will act inside the Framebuffer, until release() is called.

The bind/release operations are automatically called when you add graphics objects into it. If you want to manipulate a Framebuffer yourself, you can use it like this:

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self.fbo = FBO()
self.fbo.bind()
# do any drawing command
self.fbo.release()

# then, your fbo texture is available at
print(self.fbo.texture)
clear_buffer()

Clear the framebuffer with the clear_color.

You need to bind the framebuffer yourself before calling this method:

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fbo.bind()
fbo.clear_buffer()
fbo.release()
clear_color

Clear color in (red, green, blue, alpha) format.

get_pixel_color()

Get the color of the pixel with specified window coordinates wx, wy. It returns result in RGBA format.

New in version 1.8.0.

pixels

Get the pixels texture, in RGBA format only, unsigned byte. The origin of the image is at bottom left.

New in version 1.7.0.

release()

Release the Framebuffer (unbind).

remove_reload_observer()

Remove a callback from the observer list, previously added by add_reload_observer().

New in version 1.2.0.

size

Size of the framebuffer, in (width, height) format.

If you change the size, the framebuffer content will be lost.

texture

Return the framebuffer texture

exception kivy.graphics.GraphicException

Bases: Exception

Exception raised when a graphics error is fired.

class kivy.graphics.Instruction

Bases: kivy.event.ObjectWithUid

Represents the smallest instruction available. This class is for internal usage only, don’t use it directly.

proxy_ref

Return a proxy reference to the Instruction i.e. without creating a reference of the widget. See weakref.proxy for more information.

New in version 1.7.2.

class kivy.graphics.InstructionGroup

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Group of Instructions. Allows for the adding and removing of graphics instructions. It can be used directly as follows:

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blue = InstructionGroup()
blue.add(Color(0, 0, 1, 0.2))
blue.add(Rectangle(pos=self.pos, size=(100, 100)))

green = InstructionGroup()
green.add(Color(0, 1, 0, 0.4))
green.add(Rectangle(pos=(100, 100), size=(100, 100)))

# Here, self should be a Widget or subclass
[self.canvas.add(group) for group in [blue, green]]
add()

Add a new Instruction to our list.

clear()

Remove all the Instructions.

get_group()

Return an iterable for all the Instructions with a specific group name.

insert()

Insert a new Instruction into our list at index.

remove()

Remove an existing Instruction from our list.

remove_group()

Remove all Instructions with a specific group name.

class kivy.graphics.Line

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A 2d line.

Drawing a line can be done easily:

with self.canvas:
    Line(points=[100, 100, 200, 100, 100, 200], width=10)

The line has 3 internal drawing modes that you should be aware of for optimal results:

  1. If the width is 1.0, then the standard GL_LINE drawing from OpenGL will be used. dash_length and dash_offset will work, while properties for cap and joint have no meaning here.
  2. If the width is greater than 1.0, then a custom drawing method, based on triangulation, will be used. dash_length and dash_offset do not work in this mode. Additionally, if the current color has an alpha less than 1.0, a stencil will be used internally to draw the line.
_images/line-instruction.png
Parameters:
points: list

List of points in the format (x1, y1, x2, y2…)

dash_length: int

Length of a segment (if dashed), defaults to 1.

dash_offset: int

Offset between the end of a segment and the beginning of the next one, defaults to 0. Changing this makes it dashed.

width: float

Width of the line, defaults to 1.0.

cap: str, defaults to ‘round’

See cap for more information.

joint: str, defaults to ‘round’

See joint for more information.

cap_precision: int, defaults to 10

See cap_precision for more information

joint_precision: int, defaults to 10

See joint_precision for more information See cap_precision for more information.

joint_precision: int, defaults to 10

See joint_precision for more information.

close: bool, defaults to False

If True, the line will be closed.

circle: list

If set, the points will be set to build a circle. See circle for more information.

ellipse: list

If set, the points will be set to build an ellipse. See ellipse for more information.

rectangle: list

If set, the points will be set to build a rectangle. See rectangle for more information.

bezier: list

If set, the points will be set to build a bezier line. See bezier for more information.

bezier_precision: int, defaults to 180

Precision of the Bezier drawing.

Changed in version 1.0.8: dash_offset and dash_length have been added.

Changed in version 1.4.1: width, cap, joint, cap_precision, joint_precision, close, ellipse, rectangle have been added.

Changed in version 1.4.1: bezier, bezier_precision have been added.

bezier

Use this property to build a bezier line, without calculating the points. You can only set this property, not get it.

The argument must be a tuple of 2n elements, n being the number of points.

Usage:

Line(bezier=(x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3)

New in version 1.4.2.

Note

Bezier lines calculations are inexpensive for a low number of points, but complexity is quadratic, so lines with a lot of points can be very expensive to build, use with care!

bezier_precision

Number of iteration for drawing the bezier between 2 segments, defaults to 180. The bezier_precision must be at least 1.

New in version 1.4.2.

cap

Determine the cap of the line, defaults to ‘round’. Can be one of ‘none’, ‘square’ or ‘round’

New in version 1.4.1.

cap_precision

Number of iteration for drawing the “round” cap, defaults to 10. The cap_precision must be at least 1.

New in version 1.4.1.

circle

Use this property to build a circle, without calculating the points. You can only set this property, not get it.

The argument must be a tuple of (center_x, center_y, radius, angle_start, angle_end, segments):

  • center_x and center_y represent the center of the circle
  • radius represent the radius of the circle
  • (optional) angle_start and angle_end are in degree. The default value is 0 and 360.
  • (optional) segments is the precision of the ellipse. The default value is calculated from the range between angle.

Note that it’s up to you to close the circle or not.

For example, for building a simple ellipse, in python:

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# simple circle
Line(circle=(150, 150, 50))

# only from 90 to 180 degrees
Line(circle=(150, 150, 50, 90, 180))

# only from 90 to 180 degrees, with few segments
Line(circle=(150, 150, 50, 90, 180, 20))

New in version 1.4.1.

close

If True, the line will be closed.

New in version 1.4.1.

dash_length

Property for getting/setting the length of the dashes in the curve

New in version 1.0.8.

dash_offset

Property for getting/setting the offset between the dashes in the curve

New in version 1.0.8.

ellipse

Use this property to build an ellipse, without calculating the points. You can only set this property, not get it.

The argument must be a tuple of (x, y, width, height, angle_start, angle_end, segments):

  • x and y represent the bottom left of the ellipse
  • width and height represent the size of the ellipse
  • (optional) angle_start and angle_end are in degree. The default value is 0 and 360.
  • (optional) segments is the precision of the ellipse. The default value is calculated from the range between angle.

Note that it’s up to you to close the ellipse or not.

For example, for building a simple ellipse, in python:

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# simple ellipse
Line(ellipse=(0, 0, 150, 150))

# only from 90 to 180 degrees
Line(ellipse=(0, 0, 150, 150, 90, 180))

# only from 90 to 180 degrees, with few segments
Line(ellipse=(0, 0, 150, 150, 90, 180, 20))

New in version 1.4.1.

joint

Determine the join of the line, defaults to ‘round’. Can be one of ‘none’, ‘round’, ‘bevel’, ‘miter’.

New in version 1.4.1.

joint_precision

Number of iteration for drawing the “round” joint, defaults to 10. The joint_precision must be at least 1.

New in version 1.4.1.

points

Property for getting/settings points of the line

Warning

This will always reconstruct the whole graphics from the new points list. It can be very CPU expensive.

rectangle

Use this property to build a rectangle, without calculating the points. You can only set this property, not get it.

The argument must be a tuple of (x, y, width, height):

  • x and y represent the bottom-left position of the rectangle
  • width and height represent the size

The line is automatically closed.

Usage:

Line(rectangle=(0, 0, 200, 200))

New in version 1.4.1.

rounded_rectangle

Use this property to build a rectangle, without calculating the points. You can only set this property, not get it.

The argument must be a tuple of one of the following forms:

  • (x, y, width, height, corner_radius)
  • (x, y, width, height, corner_radius, resolution)
  • (x, y, width, height, corner_radius1, corner_radius2, corner_radius3, corner_radius4)
  • (x, y, width, height, corner_radius1, corner_radius2, corner_radius3, corner_radius4, resolution)
  • x and y represent the bottom-left position of the rectangle
  • width and height represent the size
  • corner_radius is the number of pixels between two borders and the center of the circle arc joining them
  • resolution is the number of line segment that will be used to draw the circle arc at each corner (defaults to 30)

The line is automatically closed.

Usage:

Line(rounded_rectangle=(0, 0, 200, 200, 10, 20, 30, 40, 100))

New in version 1.9.0.

width

Determine the width of the line, defaults to 1.0.

New in version 1.4.1.

class kivy.graphics.SmoothLine

Bases: kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Line

Experimental line using over-draw methods to get better anti-aliasing results. It has few drawbacks:

  • drawing a line with alpha will probably not have the intended result if the line crosses itself.
  • cap, joint and dash properties are not supported.
  • it uses a custom texture with a premultiplied alpha.
  • lines under 1px in width are not supported: they will look the same.

Warning

This is an unfinished work, experimental, and subject to crashes.

New in version 1.9.0.

overdraw_width

Determine the overdraw width of the line, defaults to 1.2.

class kivy.graphics.MatrixInstruction

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Base class for Matrix Instruction on the canvas.

matrix

Matrix property. Matrix from the transformation module. Setting the matrix using this property when a change is made is important because it will notify the context about the update.

stack

Name of the matrix stack to use. Can be ‘modelview_mat’, ‘projection_mat’ or ‘frag_modelview_mat’.

New in version 1.6.0.

class kivy.graphics.Mesh

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A 2d mesh.

In OpenGL ES 2.0 and in our graphics implementation, you cannot have more than 65535 indices.

A list of vertices is described as:

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vertices = [x1, y1, u1, v1, x2, y2, u2, v2, ...]
            |            |  |            |
            +---- i1 ----+  +---- i2 ----+

If you want to draw a triangle, add 3 vertices. You can then make an indices list as follows:

indices = [0, 1, 2]

New in version 1.1.0.

Parameters:
vertices: iterable

List of vertices in the format (x1, y1, u1, v1, x2, y2, u2, v2…).

indices: iterable

List of indices in the format (i1, i2, i3…).

mode: str

Mode of the vbo. Check mode for more information. Defaults to ‘points’.

fmt: list

The format for vertices, by default, each vertex is described by 2D coordinates (x, y) and 2D texture coordinate (u, v). Each element of the list should be a tuple or list, of the form

(variable_name, size, type)

which will allow mapping vertex data to the glsl instructions.

[(b’v_pos’, 2, ‘float’), (b’v_tc’, 2, ‘float’),]

will allow using

attribute vec2 v_pos; attribute vec2 v_tc;

in glsl’s vertex shader.

Changed in version 1.8.1: Before, vertices and indices would always be converted to a list, now, they are only converted to a list if they do not implement the buffer interface. So e.g. numpy arrays, python arrays etc. are used in place, without creating any additional copies. However, the buffers cannot be readonly (even though they are not changed, due to a cython limitation) and must be contiguous in memory.

Note

When passing a memoryview or a instance that implements the buffer interface, vertices should be a buffer of floats (‘f’ code in python array) and indices should be a buffer of unsigned short (‘H’ code in python array). Arrays in other formats will still have to be converted internally, negating any potential gain.

indices

Vertex indices used to specify the order when drawing the mesh.

mode

VBO Mode used for drawing vertices/indices. Can be one of ‘points’, ‘line_strip’, ‘line_loop’, ‘lines’, ‘triangles’, ‘triangle_strip’ or ‘triangle_fan’.

vertices

List of x, y, u, v coordinates used to construct the Mesh. Right now, the Mesh instruction doesn’t allow you to change the format of the vertices, which means it’s only x, y + one texture coordinate.

class kivy.graphics.Point

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A list of 2d points. Each point is represented as a square with a width/height of 2 times the pointsize.

Parameters:
points: list

List of points in the format (x1, y1, x2, y2…), where each pair of coordinates specifies the center of a new point.

pointsize: float, defaults to 1.

The size of the point, measured from the center to the edge. A value of 1.0 therefore means the real size will be 2.0 x 2.0.

Warning

Starting from version 1.0.7, vertex instruction have a limit of 65535 vertices (indices of vertex to be accurate). 2 entries in the list (x, y) will be converted to 4 vertices. So the limit inside Point() class is 2^15-2.

add_point()

Add a point to the current points list.

If you intend to add multiple points, prefer to use this method instead of reassigning a new points list. Assigning a new points list will recalculate and reupload the whole buffer into the GPU. If you use add_point, it will only upload the changes.

points

Property for getting/settings the center points in the points list. Each pair of coordinates specifies the center of a new point.

pointsize

Property for getting/setting point size. The size is measured from the center to the edge, so a value of 1.0 means the real size will be 2.0 x 2.0.

class kivy.graphics.PopMatrix

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Pop the matrix from the context’s matrix stack onto the model view.

stack

Name of the matrix stack to use. Can be ‘modelview_mat’, ‘projection_mat’ or ‘frag_modelview_mat’.

New in version 1.6.0.

class kivy.graphics.PushMatrix

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Push the matrix onto the context’s matrix stack.

stack

Name of the matrix stack to use. Can be ‘modelview_mat’, ‘projection_mat’ or ‘frag_modelview_mat’.

New in version 1.6.0.

class kivy.graphics.Quad

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A 2d quad.

Parameters:
points: list

List of point in the format (x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3, x4, y4).
points

Property for getting/settings points of the quad.

class kivy.graphics.Rectangle

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A 2d rectangle.

Parameters:
pos: list

Position of the rectangle, in the format (x, y).

size: list

Size of the rectangle, in the format (width, height).
pos

Property for getting/settings the position of the rectangle.

size

Property for getting/settings the size of the rectangle.

class kivy.graphics.RenderContext

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Canvas

The render context stores all the necessary information for drawing, i.e.:

  • The vertex shader
  • The fragment shader
  • The default texture
  • The state stack (color, texture, matrix…)
shader

Return the shader attached to the render context.

use_parent_frag_modelview

If True, the parent fragment modelview matrix will be used.

New in version 1.10.1: rc = RenderContext(use_parent_frag_modelview=True)

use_parent_modelview

If True, the parent modelview matrix will be used.

New in version 1.7.0.

Before:

rc['modelview_mat'] = Window.render_context['modelview_mat']

Now:

rc = RenderContext(use_parent_modelview=True)
use_parent_projection

If True, the parent projection matrix will be used.

New in version 1.7.0.

Before:

rc['projection_mat'] = Window.render_context['projection_mat']

Now:

rc = RenderContext(use_parent_projection=True)
class kivy.graphics.Rotate

Bases: kivy.graphics.context_instructions.Transform

Rotate the coordinate space by applying a rotation transformation on the modelview matrix. You can set the properties of the instructions afterwards with e.g.

rot.angle = 90
rot.axis = (0, 0, 1)
angle

Property for getting/setting the angle of the rotation.

axis

Property for getting/setting the axis of the rotation.

The format of the axis is (x, y, z).

origin

Origin of the rotation.

New in version 1.7.0.

The format of the origin can be either (x, y) or (x, y, z).

set()

Set the angle and axis of rotation.

>>> rotationobject.set(90, 0, 0, 1)

Deprecated since version 1.7.0: The set() method doesn’t use the new origin property.

class kivy.graphics.Scale

Bases: kivy.graphics.context_instructions.Transform

Instruction to create a non uniform scale transformation.

Create using one or three arguments:

Scale(s)         # scale all three axes the same
Scale(x, y, z)   # scale the axes independently

Deprecated since version 1.6.0: Deprecated single scale property in favor of x, y, z, xyz axis independent scaled factors.

origin

Origin of the scale.

New in version 1.9.0.

The format of the origin can be either (x, y) or (x, y, z).

scale

Property for getting/setting the scale.

Deprecated since version 1.6.0: Deprecated in favor of per axis scale properties x,y,z, xyz, etc.

x

Property for getting/setting the scale on the X axis.

Changed in version 1.6.0.

xyz

3 tuple scale vector in 3D in x, y, and z axis.

Changed in version 1.6.0.

y

Property for getting/setting the scale on the Y axis.

Changed in version 1.6.0.

z

Property for getting/setting the scale on Z axis.

Changed in version 1.6.0.

class kivy.graphics.StencilPop

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Pop the stencil stack. See the module documentation for more information.

class kivy.graphics.StencilPush

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Push the stencil stack. See the module documentation for more information.

class kivy.graphics.StencilUse

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Use current stencil buffer as a mask. Check the module documentation for more information.

func_op

Determine the stencil operation to use for glStencilFunc(). Can be one of ‘never’, ‘less’, ‘equal’, ‘lequal’, ‘greater’, ‘notequal’, ‘gequal’ or ‘always’.

By default, the operator is set to ‘equal’.

New in version 1.5.0.

class kivy.graphics.StencilUnUse

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Use current stencil buffer to unset the mask.

class kivy.graphics.Translate

Bases: kivy.graphics.context_instructions.Transform

Instruction to create a translation of the model view coordinate space.

Construct by either:

Translate(x, y)         # translate in just the two axes
Translate(x, y, z)      # translate in all three axes
x

Property for getting/setting the translation on the X axis.

xy

2 tuple with translation vector in 2D for x and y axis.

xyz

3 tuple translation vector in 3D in x, y, and z axis.

y

Property for getting/setting the translation on the Y axis.

z

Property for getting/setting the translation on the Z axis.

class kivy.graphics.Triangle

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A 2d triangle.

Parameters:
points: list

List of points in the format (x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3).
points

Property for getting/settings points of the triangle.

class kivy.graphics.VertexInstruction

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

The VertexInstruction class is the base for all graphics instructions that have a direct visual representation on the canvas, such as Rectangles, Triangles, Lines, Ellipse and so on.

source

This property represents the filename to load the texture from. If you want to use an image as source, do it like this:

with self.canvas:
    Rectangle(source='mylogo.png', pos=self.pos, size=self.size)

Here’s the equivalent in Kivy language:

<MyWidget>:
    canvas:
        Rectangle:
            source: 'mylogo.png'
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size

Note

The filename will be searched for using the kivy.resources.resource_find() function.

tex_coords

This property represents the texture coordinates used for drawing the vertex instruction. The value must be a list of 8 values.

A texture coordinate has a position (u, v), and a size (w, h). The size can be negative, and would represent the ‘flipped’ texture. By default, the tex_coords are:

[u, v, u + w, v, u + w, v + h, u, v + h]

You can pass your own texture coordinates if you want to achieve fancy effects.

Warning

The default values just mentioned can be negative. Depending on the image and label providers, the coordinates are flipped vertically because of the order in which the image is internally stored. Instead of flipping the image data, we are just flipping the texture coordinates to be faster.

texture

Property that represents the texture used for drawing this Instruction. You can set a new texture like this:

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from kivy.core.image import Image

texture = Image('logo.png').texture
with self.canvas:
    Rectangle(texture=texture, pos=self.pos, size=self.size)

Usually, you will use the source attribute instead of the texture.

class kivy.graphics.ClearColor

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

ClearColor Graphics Instruction.

New in version 1.3.0.

Sets the clear color used to clear buffers with the glClear function or ClearBuffers graphics instructions.

a

Alpha component, between 0 and 1.

b

Blue component, between 0 and 1.

g

Green component, between 0 and 1.

r

Red component, between 0 and 1.

rgb

RGB color, a list of 3 values in 0-1 range where alpha will be 1.

rgba

RGBA color used for the clear color, a list of 4 values in the 0-1 range.

class kivy.graphics.ClearBuffers

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Clearbuffer Graphics Instruction.

New in version 1.3.0.

Clear the buffers specified by the instructions buffer mask property. By default, only the coloc buffer is cleared.

clear_color

If True, the color buffer will be cleared.

clear_depth

If True, the depth buffer will be cleared.

clear_stencil

If True, the stencil buffer will be cleared.

class kivy.graphics.PushState

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Instruction that pushes arbitrary states/uniforms onto the context state stack.

New in version 1.6.0.

class kivy.graphics.ChangeState

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Instruction that changes the values of arbitrary states/uniforms on the current render context.

New in version 1.6.0.

class kivy.graphics.PopState

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Instruction that pops arbitrary states/uniforms off the context state stack.

New in version 1.6.0.

class kivy.graphics.ApplyContextMatrix

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Pre-multiply the matrix at the top of the stack specified by target_stack by the matrix at the top of the ‘source_stack’

New in version 1.6.0.

source_stack

Name of the matrix stack to use as a source. Can be ‘modelview_mat’, ‘projection_mat’ or ‘frag_modelview_mat’.

New in version 1.6.0.

target_stack

Name of the matrix stack to use as a target. Can be ‘modelview_mat’, ‘projection_mat’ or ‘frag_modelview_mat’.

New in version 1.6.0.

class kivy.graphics.UpdateNormalMatrix

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Update the normal matrix ‘normal_mat’ based on the current modelview matrix. This will compute ‘normal_mat’ uniform as: inverse( transpose( mat3(mvm) ) )

New in version 1.6.0.

class kivy.graphics.LoadIdentity

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Load the identity Matrix into the matrix stack specified by the instructions stack property (default=’modelview_mat’)

New in version 1.6.0.

stack

Name of the matrix stack to use. Can be ‘modelview_mat’, ‘projection_mat’ or ‘frag_modelview_mat’.

Canvas

The Canvas is the root object used for drawing by a Widget. Check the class documentation for more information about the usage of Canvas.

class kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Bases: kivy.event.ObjectWithUid

Represents the smallest instruction available. This class is for internal usage only, don’t use it directly.

proxy_ref

Return a proxy reference to the Instruction i.e. without creating a reference of the widget. See weakref.proxy for more information.

New in version 1.7.2.

class kivy.graphics.instructions.InstructionGroup

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Group of Instructions. Allows for the adding and removing of graphics instructions. It can be used directly as follows:

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blue = InstructionGroup()
blue.add(Color(0, 0, 1, 0.2))
blue.add(Rectangle(pos=self.pos, size=(100, 100)))

green = InstructionGroup()
green.add(Color(0, 1, 0, 0.4))
green.add(Rectangle(pos=(100, 100), size=(100, 100)))

# Here, self should be a Widget or subclass
[self.canvas.add(group) for group in [blue, green]]
add()

Add a new Instruction to our list.

clear()

Remove all the Instructions.

get_group()

Return an iterable for all the Instructions with a specific group name.

insert()

Insert a new Instruction into our list at index.

remove()

Remove an existing Instruction from our list.

remove_group()

Remove all Instructions with a specific group name.

class kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

The ContextInstruction class is the base for the creation of instructions that don’t have a direct visual representation, but instead modify the current Canvas’ state, e.g. texture binding, setting color parameters, matrix manipulation and so on.

class kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

The VertexInstruction class is the base for all graphics instructions that have a direct visual representation on the canvas, such as Rectangles, Triangles, Lines, Ellipse and so on.

source

This property represents the filename to load the texture from. If you want to use an image as source, do it like this:

with self.canvas:
    Rectangle(source='mylogo.png', pos=self.pos, size=self.size)

Here’s the equivalent in Kivy language:

<MyWidget>:
    canvas:
        Rectangle:
            source: 'mylogo.png'
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size

Note

The filename will be searched for using the kivy.resources.resource_find() function.

tex_coords

This property represents the texture coordinates used for drawing the vertex instruction. The value must be a list of 8 values.

A texture coordinate has a position (u, v), and a size (w, h). The size can be negative, and would represent the ‘flipped’ texture. By default, the tex_coords are:

[u, v, u + w, v, u + w, v + h, u, v + h]

You can pass your own texture coordinates if you want to achieve fancy effects.

Warning

The default values just mentioned can be negative. Depending on the image and label providers, the coordinates are flipped vertically because of the order in which the image is internally stored. Instead of flipping the image data, we are just flipping the texture coordinates to be faster.

texture

Property that represents the texture used for drawing this Instruction. You can set a new texture like this:

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from kivy.core.image import Image

texture = Image('logo.png').texture
with self.canvas:
    Rectangle(texture=texture, pos=self.pos, size=self.size)

Usually, you will use the source attribute instead of the texture.

class kivy.graphics.instructions.Canvas

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.CanvasBase

The important Canvas class. Use this class to add graphics or context instructions that you want to be used for drawing.

Note

The Canvas supports Python’s with statement and its enter & exit semantics.

Usage of a canvas without the with statement:

self.canvas.add(Color(1., 1., 0))
self.canvas.add(Rectangle(size=(50, 50)))

Usage of a canvas with Python’s with statement:

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with self.canvas:
    Color(1., 1., 0)
    Rectangle(size=(50, 50))
add()

Add a new Instruction to our list.

after

Property for getting the ‘after’ group.

ask_update()

Inform the canvas that we’d like it to update on the next frame. This is useful when you need to trigger a redraw due to some value having changed for example.

before

Property for getting the ‘before’ group.

clear()

Clears every Instruction in the canvas, leaving it clean.

draw()

Apply the instruction to our window.

has_after

Property to see if the after group has already been created.

New in version 1.7.0.

has_before

Property to see if the before group has already been created.

New in version 1.7.0.

opacity

Property to get/set the opacity value of the canvas.

New in version 1.4.1.

The opacity attribute controls the opacity of the canvas and its children. Be careful, it’s a cumulative attribute: the value is multiplied to the current global opacity and the result is applied to the current context color.

For example: if your parent has an opacity of 0.5 and a child has an opacity of 0.2, the real opacity of the child will be 0.5 * 0.2 = 0.1.

Then, the opacity is applied on the shader as:

frag_color = color * vec4(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, opacity);
remove()

Remove an existing Instruction from our list.

class kivy.graphics.instructions.CanvasBase

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.InstructionGroup

CanvasBase provides the context manager methods for the Canvas.

class kivy.graphics.instructions.RenderContext

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Canvas

The render context stores all the necessary information for drawing, i.e.:

  • The vertex shader
  • The fragment shader
  • The default texture
  • The state stack (color, texture, matrix…)
shader

Return the shader attached to the render context.

use_parent_frag_modelview

If True, the parent fragment modelview matrix will be used.

New in version 1.10.1: rc = RenderContext(use_parent_frag_modelview=True)

use_parent_modelview

If True, the parent modelview matrix will be used.

New in version 1.7.0.

Before:

rc['modelview_mat'] = Window.render_context['modelview_mat']

Now:

rc = RenderContext(use_parent_modelview=True)
use_parent_projection

If True, the parent projection matrix will be used.

New in version 1.7.0.

Before:

rc['projection_mat'] = Window.render_context['projection_mat']

Now:

rc = RenderContext(use_parent_projection=True)
class kivy.graphics.instructions.Callback

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

New in version 1.0.4.

A Callback is an instruction that will be called when the drawing operation is performed. When adding instructions to a canvas, you can do this:

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with self.canvas:
    Color(1, 1, 1)
    Rectangle(pos=self.pos, size=self.size)
    Callback(self.my_callback)

The definition of the callback must be:

def my_callback(self, instr):
    print('I have been called!')

Warning

Note that if you perform many and/or costly calls to callbacks, you might potentially slow down the rendering performance significantly.

The updating of your canvas does not occur until something new happens. From your callback, you can ask for an update:

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with self.canvas:
    self.cb = Callback(self.my_callback)
# then later in the code
self.cb.ask_update()

If you use the Callback class to call rendering methods of another toolkit, you will have issues with the OpenGL context. The OpenGL state may have been manipulated by the other toolkit, and as soon as program flow returns to Kivy, it will just break. You can have glitches, crashes, black holes might occur, etc. To avoid that, you can activate the reset_context option. It will reset the OpenGL context state to make Kivy’s rendering correct after the call to your callback.

Warning

The reset_context is not a full OpenGL reset. If you have issues regarding that, please contact us.

ask_update()

Inform the parent canvas that we’d like it to update on the next frame. This is useful when you need to trigger a redraw due to some value having changed for example.

New in version 1.0.4.

callback

Property for getting/setting func.

reset_context

Set this to True if you want to reset the OpenGL context for Kivy after the callback has been called.

CGL: standard C interface for OpenGL

Kivy uses OpenGL and therefore requires a backend that provides it. The backend used is controlled through the USE_OPENGL_MOCK and USE_SDL2 compile-time variables and through the KIVY_GL_BACKEND runtime environmental variable.

Currently, OpenGL is used through direct linking (gl/glew), sdl2, or by mocking it. Setting USE_OPENGL_MOCK disables gl/glew. Similarly, setting USE_SDL2 to 0 will disable sdl2. Mocking is always available.

At runtime the following backends are available and can be set using KIVY_GL_BACKEND:

  • gl – Available on unix (the default backend). Unavailable when USE_OPENGL_MOCK=0. Requires gl be installed.
  • glew – Available on Windows (the default backend). Unavailable when USE_OPENGL_MOCK=0. Requires glew be installed.
  • sdl2 – Available on Windows/unix (the default when gl/glew is disabled). Unavailable when USE_SDL2=0. Requires kivy.deps.sdl2 be installed.
  • angle_sdl2 – Available on Windows with Python 3.5+. Unavailable when USE_SDL2=0. Requires kivy.deps.sdl2 and kivy.deps.angle be installed.
  • mock – Always available. Doesn’t actually do anything.

Additionally, the following environmental runtime variables control the graphics system:

  • KIVY_GL_DEBUG – Logs al gl calls when 1.
  • KIVY_GRAPHICS – Forces OpenGL ES2 when it is gles. OpenGL ES2 is always used on the android, ios, rpi, and mali OSs.

Context instructions

The context instructions represent non graphics elements such as:

  • Matrix manipulations (PushMatrix, PopMatrix, Rotate, Translate, Scale, MatrixInstruction)
  • Color manipulations (Color)
  • Texture bindings (BindTexture)

Changed in version 1.0.8: The LineWidth instruction has been removed. It wasn’t working before and we actually have no working implementation. We need to do more experimentation to get it right. Check the bug #207 for more information.

class kivy.graphics.context_instructions.Color

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Instruction to set the color state for any vertices being drawn after it.

This represents a color between 0 and 1, but is applied as a multiplier to the texture of any vertex instructions following it in a canvas. If no texture is set, the vertex instruction takes the precise color of the Color instruction.

For instance, if a Rectangle has a texture with uniform color (0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1.0) and the preceding Color has rgba=(1, 0.5, 2, 1), the actual visible color will be (0.5, 0.25, 1.0, 1.0) since the Color instruction is applied as a multiplier to every rgba component. In this case, a Color component outside the 0-1 range gives a visible result as the intensity of the blue component is doubled.

To declare a Color in Python, you can do:

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from kivy.graphics import Color

# create red v
c = Color(1, 0, 0)
# create blue color
c = Color(0, 1, 0)
# create blue color with 50% alpha
c = Color(0, 1, 0, .5)

# using hsv mode
c = Color(0, 1, 1, mode='hsv')
# using hsv mode + alpha
c = Color(0, 1, 1, .2, mode='hsv')

You can also set color components that are available as properties by passing them as keyword arguments:

c = Color(b=0.5)  # sets the blue component only

In kv lang you can set the color properties directly:

<Rule>:
    canvas:
        # red color
        Color:
            rgb: 1, 0, 0
        # blue color
        Color:
            rgb: 0, 1, 0
        # blue color with 50% alpha
        Color:
            rgba: 0, 1, 0, .5

        # using hsv mode
        Color:
            hsv: 0, 1, 1
        # using hsv mode + alpha
        Color:
            hsv: 0, 1, 1
            a: .5
a

Alpha component, between 0 and 1.

b

Blue component, between 0 and 1.

g

Green component, between 0 and 1.

h

Hue component, between 0 and 1.

hsv

HSV color, list of 3 values in 0-1 range, alpha will be 1.

r

Red component, between 0 and 1.

rgb

RGB color, list of 3 values in 0-1 range. The alpha will be 1.

rgba

RGBA color, list of 4 values in 0-1 range.

s

Saturation component, between 0 and 1.

v

Value component, between 0 and 1.

class kivy.graphics.context_instructions.BindTexture

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

BindTexture Graphic instruction. The BindTexture Instruction will bind a texture and enable GL_TEXTURE_2D for subsequent drawing.

Parameters:
texture: Texture

Specifies the texture to bind to the given index.
source

Set/get the source (filename) to load for the texture.

class kivy.graphics.context_instructions.PushMatrix

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Push the matrix onto the context’s matrix stack.

stack

Name of the matrix stack to use. Can be ‘modelview_mat’, ‘projection_mat’ or ‘frag_modelview_mat’.

New in version 1.6.0.

class kivy.graphics.context_instructions.PopMatrix

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Pop the matrix from the context’s matrix stack onto the model view.

stack

Name of the matrix stack to use. Can be ‘modelview_mat’, ‘projection_mat’ or ‘frag_modelview_mat’.

New in version 1.6.0.

class kivy.graphics.context_instructions.Rotate

Bases: kivy.graphics.context_instructions.Transform

Rotate the coordinate space by applying a rotation transformation on the modelview matrix. You can set the properties of the instructions afterwards with e.g.

rot.angle = 90
rot.axis = (0, 0, 1)
angle

Property for getting/setting the angle of the rotation.

axis

Property for getting/setting the axis of the rotation.

The format of the axis is (x, y, z).

origin

Origin of the rotation.

New in version 1.7.0.

The format of the origin can be either (x, y) or (x, y, z).

set()

Set the angle and axis of rotation.

>>> rotationobject.set(90, 0, 0, 1)

Deprecated since version 1.7.0: The set() method doesn’t use the new origin property.

class kivy.graphics.context_instructions.Scale

Bases: kivy.graphics.context_instructions.Transform

Instruction to create a non uniform scale transformation.

Create using one or three arguments:

Scale(s)         # scale all three axes the same
Scale(x, y, z)   # scale the axes independently

Deprecated since version 1.6.0: Deprecated single scale property in favor of x, y, z, xyz axis independent scaled factors.

origin

Origin of the scale.

New in version 1.9.0.

The format of the origin can be either (x, y) or (x, y, z).

scale

Property for getting/setting the scale.

Deprecated since version 1.6.0: Deprecated in favor of per axis scale properties x,y,z, xyz, etc.

x

Property for getting/setting the scale on the X axis.

Changed in version 1.6.0.

xyz

3 tuple scale vector in 3D in x, y, and z axis.

Changed in version 1.6.0.

y

Property for getting/setting the scale on the Y axis.

Changed in version 1.6.0.

z

Property for getting/setting the scale on Z axis.

Changed in version 1.6.0.

class kivy.graphics.context_instructions.Translate

Bases: kivy.graphics.context_instructions.Transform

Instruction to create a translation of the model view coordinate space.

Construct by either:

Translate(x, y)         # translate in just the two axes
Translate(x, y, z)      # translate in all three axes
x

Property for getting/setting the translation on the X axis.

xy

2 tuple with translation vector in 2D for x and y axis.

xyz

3 tuple translation vector in 3D in x, y, and z axis.

y

Property for getting/setting the translation on the Y axis.

z

Property for getting/setting the translation on the Z axis.

class kivy.graphics.context_instructions.MatrixInstruction

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.ContextInstruction

Base class for Matrix Instruction on the canvas.

matrix

Matrix property. Matrix from the transformation module. Setting the matrix using this property when a change is made is important because it will notify the context about the update.

stack

Name of the matrix stack to use. Can be ‘modelview_mat’, ‘projection_mat’ or ‘frag_modelview_mat’.

New in version 1.6.0.

Context management

New in version 1.2.0.

This class manages a registry of all created graphics instructions. It has the ability to flush and delete them.

You can read more about Kivy graphics contexts in the Graphics module documentation. These are based on OpenGL graphics contexts.

class kivy.graphics.context.Context

Bases: builtins.object

The Context class manages groups of graphics instructions. It can also be used to manage observer callbacks. See add_reload_observer() and remove_reload_observer() for more information.

add_reload_observer()

(internal) Add a callback to be called after the whole graphics context has been reloaded. This is where you can reupload your custom data into the GPU.

Parameters:
callback: func(context) -> return None

The first parameter will be the context itself

before: boolean, defaults to False

If True, the callback will be executed before all the reloading processes. Use it if you want to clear your cache for example.

Changed in version 1.4.0: before parameter added.

remove_reload_observer()

(internal) Remove a callback from the observer list previously added by add_reload_observer().

Framebuffer

The Fbo is like an offscreen window. You can activate the fbo for rendering into a texture and use your fbo as a texture for other drawing.

The Fbo acts as a kivy.graphics.instructions.Canvas.

Here is an example of using an fbo for some colored rectangles:

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from kivy.graphics import Fbo, Color, Rectangle

class FboTest(Widget):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(FboTest, self).__init__(**kwargs)

        # first step is to create the fbo and use the fbo texture on other
        # rectangle

        with self.canvas:
            # create the fbo
            self.fbo = Fbo(size=(256, 256))

            # show our fbo on the widget in different size
            Color(1, 1, 1)
            Rectangle(size=(32, 32), texture=self.fbo.texture)
            Rectangle(pos=(32, 0), size=(64, 64), texture=self.fbo.texture)
            Rectangle(pos=(96, 0), size=(128, 128), texture=self.fbo.texture)

        # in the second step, you can draw whatever you want on the fbo
        with self.fbo:
            Color(1, 0, 0, .8)
            Rectangle(size=(256, 64))
            Color(0, 1, 0, .8)
            Rectangle(size=(64, 256))

If you change anything in the self.fbo object, it will be automatically updated. The canvas where the fbo is put will be automatically updated as well.

Reloading the FBO content

New in version 1.2.0.

If the OpenGL context is lost, then the FBO is lost too. You need to reupload data on it yourself. Use the Fbo.add_reload_observer() to add a reloading function that will be automatically called when needed:

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def __init__(self, **kwargs):
    super(...).__init__(**kwargs)
    self.fbo = Fbo(size=(512, 512))
    self.fbo.add_reload_observer(self.populate_fbo)

    # and load the data now.
    self.populate_fbo(self.fbo)


def populate_fbo(self, fbo):
    with fbo:
        # .. put your Color / Rectangle / ... here

This way, you could use the same method for initialization and for reloading. But it’s up to you.

class kivy.graphics.fbo.Fbo

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.RenderContext

Fbo class for wrapping the OpenGL Framebuffer extension. The Fbo support “with” statement.

Parameters:
clear_color: tuple, defaults to (0, 0, 0, 0)

Define the default color for clearing the framebuffer

size: tuple, defaults to (1024, 1024)

Default size of the framebuffer

push_viewport: bool, defaults to True

If True, the OpenGL viewport will be set to the framebuffer size, and will be automatically restored when the framebuffer released.

with_depthbuffer: bool, defaults to False

If True, the framebuffer will be allocated with a Z buffer.

with_stencilbuffer: bool, defaults to False

New in version 1.9.0.

If True, the framebuffer will be allocated with a stencil buffer.

texture: Texture, defaults to None

If None, a default texture will be created.

Note

Using both of with_stencilbuffer and with_depthbuffer is not supported in kivy 1.9.0

add_reload_observer()

Add a callback to be called after the whole graphics context has been reloaded. This is where you can reupload your custom data in GPU.

New in version 1.2.0.

Parameters:
callback: func(context) -> return None

The first parameter will be the context itself
bind()

Bind the FBO to the current opengl context. Bind mean that you enable the Framebuffer, and all the drawing operations will act inside the Framebuffer, until release() is called.

The bind/release operations are automatically called when you add graphics objects into it. If you want to manipulate a Framebuffer yourself, you can use it like this:

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self.fbo = FBO()
self.fbo.bind()
# do any drawing command
self.fbo.release()

# then, your fbo texture is available at
print(self.fbo.texture)
clear_buffer()

Clear the framebuffer with the clear_color.

You need to bind the framebuffer yourself before calling this method:

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fbo.bind()
fbo.clear_buffer()
fbo.release()
clear_color

Clear color in (red, green, blue, alpha) format.

get_pixel_color()

Get the color of the pixel with specified window coordinates wx, wy. It returns result in RGBA format.

New in version 1.8.0.

pixels

Get the pixels texture, in RGBA format only, unsigned byte. The origin of the image is at bottom left.

New in version 1.7.0.

release()

Release the Framebuffer (unbind).

remove_reload_observer()

Remove a callback from the observer list, previously added by add_reload_observer().

New in version 1.2.0.

size

Size of the framebuffer, in (width, height) format.

If you change the size, the framebuffer content will be lost.

texture

Return the framebuffer texture

GL instructions

New in version 1.3.0.

Clearing an FBO

To clear an FBO, you can use ClearColor and ClearBuffers instructions like this example:

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self.fbo = Fbo(size=self.size)
with self.fbo:
    ClearColor(0, 0, 0, 0)
    ClearBuffers()
class kivy.graphics.gl_instructions.ClearColor

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

ClearColor Graphics Instruction.

New in version 1.3.0.

Sets the clear color used to clear buffers with the glClear function or ClearBuffers graphics instructions.

a

Alpha component, between 0 and 1.

b

Blue component, between 0 and 1.

g

Green component, between 0 and 1.

r

Red component, between 0 and 1.

rgb

RGB color, a list of 3 values in 0-1 range where alpha will be 1.

rgba

RGBA color used for the clear color, a list of 4 values in the 0-1 range.

class kivy.graphics.gl_instructions.ClearBuffers

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Clearbuffer Graphics Instruction.

New in version 1.3.0.

Clear the buffers specified by the instructions buffer mask property. By default, only the coloc buffer is cleared.

clear_color

If True, the color buffer will be cleared.

clear_depth

If True, the depth buffer will be cleared.

clear_stencil

If True, the stencil buffer will be cleared.

Graphics compiler

Before rendering an InstructionGroup, we compile the group in order to reduce the number of instructions executed at rendering time.

Reducing the context instructions

Imagine that you have a scheme like this:

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Color(1, 1, 1)
Rectangle(source='button.png', pos=(0, 0), size=(20, 20))
Color(1, 1, 1)
Rectangle(source='button.png', pos=(10, 10), size=(20, 20))
Color(1, 1, 1)
Rectangle(source='button.png', pos=(10, 20), size=(20, 20))

The real instructions seen by the graphics canvas would be:

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Color: change 'color' context to 1, 1, 1
BindTexture: change 'texture0' to `button.png texture`
Rectangle: push vertices (x1, y1...) to vbo & draw
Color: change 'color' context to 1, 1, 1
BindTexture: change 'texture0' to `button.png texture`
Rectangle: push vertices (x1, y1...) to vbo & draw
Color: change 'color' context to 1, 1, 1
BindTexture: change 'texture0' to `button.png texture`
Rectangle: push vertices (x1, y1...) to vbo & draw

Only the first Color and BindTexture are useful and really change the context. We can reduce them to:

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Color: change 'color' context to 1, 1, 1
BindTexture: change 'texture0' to `button.png texture`
Rectangle: push vertices (x1, y1...) to vbo & draw
Rectangle: push vertices (x1, y1...) to vbo & draw
Rectangle: push vertices (x1, y1...) to vbo & draw

This is what the compiler does in the first place, by flagging all the unused instruction with GI_IGNORE flag. As soon as a Color content changes, the whole InstructionGroup will be recompiled and a previously unused Color might be used for the next compilation.

Note to any Kivy contributor / internal developer:

  • All context instructions are checked to see if they change anything in the cache.
  • We must ensure that a context instruction is needed for our current Canvas.
  • We must ensure that we don’t depend of any other canvas.
  • We must reset our cache if one of our children is another instruction group because we don’t know whether it might do weird things or not.

OpenGL

This module is a Python wrapper for OpenGL commands.

Warning

Not every OpenGL command has been wrapped and because we are using the C binding for higher performance, and you should rather stick to the Kivy Graphics API. By using OpenGL commands directly, you might change the OpenGL context and introduce inconsistency between the Kivy state and the OpenGL state.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glActiveTexture()

See: glActiveTexture() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glAttachShader()

See: glAttachShader() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glBindAttribLocation()

See: glBindAttribLocation() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glBindBuffer()

See: glBindBuffer() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glBindFramebuffer()

See: glBindFramebuffer() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glBindRenderbuffer()

See: glBindRenderbuffer() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glBindTexture()

See: glBindTexture() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glBlendColor()

See: glBlendColor() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glBlendEquation()

See: glBlendEquation() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glBlendEquationSeparate()

See: glBlendEquationSeparate() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glBlendFunc()

See: glBlendFunc() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glBlendFuncSeparate()

See: glBlendFuncSeparate() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glBufferData()

See: glBufferData() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glBufferSubData()

See: glBufferSubData() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glCheckFramebufferStatus()

See: glCheckFramebufferStatus() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glClear()

See: glClear() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glClearColor()

See: glClearColor() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glClearStencil()

See: glClearStencil() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glColorMask()

See: glColorMask() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glCompileShader()

See: glCompileShader() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glCompressedTexImage2D()

See: glCompressedTexImage2D() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glCompressedTexSubImage2D()

See: glCompressedTexSubImage2D() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glCopyTexImage2D()

See: glCopyTexImage2D() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glCopyTexSubImage2D()

See: glCopyTexSubImage2D() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glCreateProgram()

See: glCreateProgram() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glCreateShader()

See: glCreateShader() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glCullFace()

See: glCullFace() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDeleteBuffers()

See: glDeleteBuffers() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDeleteFramebuffers()

See: glDeleteFramebuffers() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDeleteProgram()

See: glDeleteProgram() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDeleteRenderbuffers()

See: glDeleteRenderbuffers() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDeleteShader()

See: glDeleteShader() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDeleteTextures()

See: glDeleteTextures() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDepthFunc()

See: glDepthFunc() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDepthMask()

See: glDepthMask() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDetachShader()

See: glDetachShader() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDisable()

See: glDisable() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDisableVertexAttribArray()

See: glDisableVertexAttribArray() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDrawArrays()

See: glDrawArrays() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glDrawElements()

See: glDrawElements() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glEnable()

See: glEnable() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glEnableVertexAttribArray()

See: glEnableVertexAttribArray() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glFinish()

See: glFinish() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glFlush()

See: glFlush() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glFramebufferRenderbuffer()

See: glFramebufferRenderbuffer() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glFramebufferTexture2D()

See: glFramebufferTexture2D() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glFrontFace()

See: glFrontFace() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGenBuffers()

See: glGenBuffers() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGenFramebuffers()

See: glGenFramebuffers() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGenRenderbuffers()

See: glGenRenderbuffers() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGenTextures()

See: glGenTextures() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGenerateMipmap()

See: glGenerateMipmap() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetActiveAttrib()

See: glGetActiveAttrib() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetActiveUniform()

See: glGetActiveUniform() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetAttachedShaders()

See: glGetAttachedShaders() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetAttribLocation()

See: glGetAttribLocation() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetBooleanv()

See: glGetBooleanv() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetBufferParameteriv()

See: glGetBufferParameteriv() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetError()

See: glGetError() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetFloatv()

See: glGetFloatv() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetFramebufferAttachmentParameteriv()

See: glGetFramebufferAttachmentParameteriv() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetIntegerv()

See: glGetIntegerv() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value(s) will be the result of the call

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetProgramInfoLog()

See: glGetProgramInfoLog() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the source code will be returned as a string.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetProgramiv()

See: glGetProgramiv() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value(s) will be the result of the call

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetRenderbufferParameteriv()

See: glGetRenderbufferParameteriv() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetShaderInfoLog()

See: glGetShaderInfoLog() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the source code will be returned as a string.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetShaderPrecisionFormat()

See: glGetShaderPrecisionFormat() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetShaderSource()

See: glGetShaderSource() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the source code will be returned as a string.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetShaderiv()

See: glGetShaderiv() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be the result of call.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetString()

See: glGetString() on Kronos website

Unlike the C specification, the value will be returned as a string.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetTexParameterfv()

See: glGetTexParameterfv() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetTexParameteriv()

See: glGetTexParameteriv() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetUniformLocation()

See: glGetUniformLocation() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetUniformfv()

See: glGetUniformfv() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetUniformiv()

See: glGetUniformiv() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetVertexAttribPointerv()

See: glGetVertexAttribPointerv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetVertexAttribfv()

See: glGetVertexAttribfv() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glGetVertexAttribiv()

See: glGetVertexAttribiv() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glHint()

See: glHint() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glIsBuffer()

See: glIsBuffer() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glIsEnabled()

See: glIsEnabled() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glIsFramebuffer()

See: glIsFramebuffer() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glIsProgram()

See: glIsProgram() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glIsRenderbuffer()

See: glIsRenderbuffer() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glIsShader()

See: glIsShader() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glIsTexture()

See: glIsTexture() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glLineWidth()

See: glLineWidth() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glLinkProgram()

See: glLinkProgram() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glPixelStorei()

See: glPixelStorei() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glPolygonOffset()

See: glPolygonOffset() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glReadPixels()

See: glReadPixels() on Kronos website

We support only GL_RGB/GL_RGBA as a format and GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE as a type.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glReleaseShaderCompiler()

See: glReleaseShaderCompiler() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glRenderbufferStorage()

See: glRenderbufferStorage() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glSampleCoverage()

See: glSampleCoverage() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glScissor()

See: glScissor() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glShaderBinary()

See: glShaderBinary() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glShaderSource()

See: glShaderSource() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glStencilFunc()

See: glStencilFunc() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glStencilFuncSeparate()

See: glStencilFuncSeparate() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glStencilMask()

See: glStencilMask() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glStencilMaskSeparate()

See: glStencilMaskSeparate() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glStencilOp()

See: glStencilOp() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glStencilOpSeparate()

See: glStencilOpSeparate() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glTexImage2D()

See: glTexImage2D() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glTexParameterf()

See: glTexParameterf() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glTexParameterfv()

See: glTexParameterfv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glTexParameteri()

See: glTexParameteri() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glTexParameteriv()

See: glTexParameteriv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glTexSubImage2D()

See: glTexSubImage2D() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform1f()

See: glUniform1f() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform1fv()

See: glUniform1fv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform1i()

See: glUniform1i() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform1iv()

See: glUniform1iv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform2f()

See: glUniform2f() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform2fv()

See: glUniform2fv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform2i()

See: glUniform2i() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform2iv()

See: glUniform2iv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform3f()

See: glUniform3f() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform3fv()

See: glUniform3fv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform3i()

See: glUniform3i() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform3iv()

See: glUniform3iv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform4f()

See: glUniform4f() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform4fv()

See: glUniform4fv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform4i()

See: glUniform4i() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniform4iv()

See: glUniform4iv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniformMatrix2fv()

See: glUniformMatrix2fv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniformMatrix3fv()

See: glUniformMatrix3fv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUniformMatrix4fv()

See: glUniformMatrix4fv() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glUseProgram()

See: glUseProgram() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glValidateProgram()

See: glValidateProgram() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glVertexAttrib1f()

See: glVertexAttrib1f() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glVertexAttrib1fv()

See: glVertexAttrib1fv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glVertexAttrib2f()

See: glVertexAttrib2f() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glVertexAttrib2fv()

See: glVertexAttrib2fv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glVertexAttrib3f()

See: glVertexAttrib3f() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glVertexAttrib3fv()

See: glVertexAttrib3fv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glVertexAttrib4f()

See: glVertexAttrib4f() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glVertexAttrib4fv()

See: glVertexAttrib4fv() on Kronos website

Warning

Not implemented yet.

kivy.graphics.opengl.glVertexAttribPointer()

See: glVertexAttribPointer() on Kronos website

kivy.graphics.opengl.glViewport()

See: glViewport() on Kronos website

OpenGL utilities

New in version 1.0.7.

kivy.graphics.opengl_utils.gl_get_extensions()

Return a list of OpenGL extensions available. All the names in the list have the GL_ stripped at the start (if it exists) and are in lowercase.

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>>> print(gl_get_extensions())
['arb_blend_func_extended', 'arb_color_buffer_float', 'arb_compatibility',
 'arb_copy_buffer'... ]
kivy.graphics.opengl_utils.gl_has_extension()

Check if an OpenGL extension is available. If the name starts with GL_, it will be stripped for the test and converted to lowercase.

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>>> gl_has_extension('NV_get_tex_image')
False
>>> gl_has_extension('OES_texture_npot')
True
kivy.graphics.opengl_utils.gl_has_capability()

Return the status of a OpenGL Capability. This is a wrapper that auto-discovers all the capabilities that Kivy might need. The current capabilities tested are:

  • GLCAP_BGRA: Test the support of BGRA texture format
  • GLCAP_NPOT: Test the support of Non Power of Two texture
  • GLCAP_S3TC: Test the support of S3TC texture (DXT1, DXT3, DXT5)
  • GLCAP_DXT1: Test the support of DXT texture (subset of S3TC)
  • GLCAP_ETC1: Test the support of ETC1 texture
kivy.graphics.opengl_utils.gl_register_get_size()

Register an association between an OpenGL Const used in glGet* to a number of elements.

By example, the GPU_MEMORY_INFO_DEDICATED_VIDMEM_NVX is a special pname that will return the integer 1 (nvidia only).

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>>> GPU_MEMORY_INFO_DEDICATED_VIDMEM_NVX = 0x9047
>>> gl_register_get_size(GPU_MEMORY_INFO_DEDICATED_VIDMEM_NVX, 1)
>>> glGetIntegerv(GPU_MEMORY_INFO_DEDICATED_VIDMEM_NVX)[0]
524288
kivy.graphics.opengl_utils.gl_has_texture_format()

Return whether a texture format is supported by your system, natively or by conversion. For example, if your card doesn’t support ‘bgra’, we are able to convert to ‘rgba’ but only in software mode.

kivy.graphics.opengl_utils.gl_has_texture_conversion()

Return 1 if the texture can be converted to a native format.

kivy.graphics.opengl_utils.gl_has_texture_native_format()

Return 1 if the texture format is handled natively.

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>>> gl_has_texture_format('azdmok')
0
>>> gl_has_texture_format('rgba')
1
>>> gl_has_texture_format('s3tc_dxt1')
[INFO   ] [GL          ] S3TC texture support is available
[INFO   ] [GL          ] DXT1 texture support is available
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kivy.graphics.opengl_utils.gl_get_texture_formats()

Return a list of texture formats recognized by kivy. The texture list is informative but might not been supported by your hardware. If you want a list of supported textures, you must filter that list as follows:

supported_fmts = [gl_has_texture_format(x) for x in gl_get_texture_formats()]
kivy.graphics.opengl_utils.gl_get_version()

Return the (major, minor) OpenGL version, parsed from the GL_VERSION.

New in version 1.2.0.

kivy.graphics.opengl_utils.gl_get_version_minor()

Return the minor component of the OpenGL version.

New in version 1.2.0.

kivy.graphics.opengl_utils.gl_get_version_major()

Return the major component of the OpenGL version.

New in version 1.2.0.

Scissor Instructions

New in version 1.9.1.

Scissor instructions clip your drawing area into a rectangular region.

The area provided to clip is in screenspace pixels and must be provided as integer values not floats.

The following code will draw a circle ontop of our widget while clipping the circle so it does not expand beyond the widget borders.

with self.canvas.after:
    #If our widget is inside another widget that modified the coordinates
    #spacing (such as ScrollView) we will want to convert to Window coords
    x,y = self.to_window(*self.pos)
    width, height = self.size
    #We must convert from the possible float values provided by kivy
    #widgets to an integer screenspace, in python3 round returns an int so
    #the int cast will be unnecessary.
    ScissorPush(x=int(round(x)), y=int(round(y)),
        width=int(round(width)), height=int(round(height)))
    Color(rgba=(1., 0., 0., .5))
    Ellipse(size=(width*2., height*2.),
        pos=self.center)
    ScissorPop()
class kivy.graphics.scissor_instructions.Rect

Bases: builtins.object

Rect class used internally by ScissorStack and ScissorPush to determine correct clipping area.

class kivy.graphics.scissor_instructions.ScissorPop

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Pop the scissor stack. Call after ScissorPush, once you have completed the drawing you wish to be clipped.

class kivy.graphics.scissor_instructions.ScissorPush

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Push the scissor stack. Provide kwargs of ‘x’, ‘y’, ‘width’, ‘height’ to control the area and position of the scissoring region. Defaults to 0, 0, 100, 100

Scissor works by clipping all drawing outside of a rectangle starting at int x, int y position and having sides of int width by int height in Window space coordinates

class kivy.graphics.scissor_instructions.ScissorStack

Bases: builtins.object

Class used internally to keep track of the current state of glScissors regions. Do not instantiate, prefer to inspect the module’s scissor_stack.

Shader

The Shader class handles the compilation of the vertex and fragment shader as well as the creation of the program in OpenGL.

Todo

Include more complete documentation about the shader.

Header inclusion

New in version 1.0.7.

When you are creating a Shader, Kivy will always include default parameters. If you don’t want to rewrite this each time you want to customize / write a new shader, you can add the “$HEADER$” token and it will be replaced by the corresponding shader header.

Here is the header for the fragment Shader:

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#ifdef GL_ES
    precision highp float;
#endif

/* Outputs from the vertex shader */
varying vec4 frag_color;
varying vec2 tex_coord0;

/* uniform texture samplers */
uniform sampler2D texture0;

uniform mat4 frag_modelview_mat;

And the header for vertex Shader:

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#ifdef GL_ES
    precision highp float;
#endif

/* Outputs to the fragment shader */
varying vec4 frag_color;
varying vec2 tex_coord0;

/* vertex attributes */
attribute vec2     vPosition;
attribute vec2     vTexCoords0;

/* uniform variables */
uniform mat4       modelview_mat;
uniform mat4       projection_mat;
uniform vec4       color;
uniform float      opacity;
Single file glsl shader programs

New in version 1.6.0.

To simplify shader management, the vertex and fragment shaders can be loaded automatically from a single glsl source file (plain text). The file should contain sections identified by a line starting with ‘—vertex’ and ‘—fragment’ respectively (case insensitive), e.g.

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// anything before a meaningful section such as this comment are ignored

---VERTEX SHADER--- // vertex shader starts here
void main(){
    ...
}

---FRAGMENT SHADER--- // fragment shader starts here
void main(){
    ...
}

The source property of the Shader should be set to the filename of a glsl shader file (of the above format), e.g. phong.glsl

class kivy.graphics.shader.Shader

Bases: builtins.object

Create a vertex or fragment shader.

Parameters:
vs: string, defaults to None

Source code for vertex shader

fs: string, defaults to None

Source code for fragment shader
fs

Fragment shader source code.

If you set a new fragment shader code source, it will be automatically compiled and will replace the current fragment shader.

source

glsl source code.

source should be the filename of a glsl shader that contains both the vertex and fragment shader sourcecode, each designated by a section header consisting of one line starting with either “–VERTEX” or “–FRAGMENT” (case insensitive).

New in version 1.6.0.

success

Indicate whether the shader loaded successfully and is ready for usage or not.

vs

Vertex shader source code.

If you set a new vertex shader code source, it will be automatically compiled and will replace the current vertex shader.

Stencil instructions

New in version 1.0.4.

Changed in version 1.3.0: The stencil operation has been updated to resolve some issues that appeared when nested. You must now have a StencilUnUse and repeat the same operation as you did after StencilPush.

Stencil instructions permit you to draw and use the current drawing as a mask. They don’t give as much control as pure OpenGL, but you can still do fancy things!

The stencil buffer can be controlled using these 3 instructions:

  • StencilPush: push a new stencil layer. Any drawing that happens after this will be used as a mask.
  • StencilUse : now draw the next instructions and use the stencil for masking them.
  • StencilUnUse : stop using the stencil i.e. remove the mask and draw normally.
  • StencilPop : pop the current stencil layer.

You should always respect this scheme:

StencilPush

# PHASE 1: put any drawing instructions to use as a mask here.

StencilUse

# PHASE 2: all the drawing here will be automatically clipped by the
# mask created in PHASE 1.

StencilUnUse

# PHASE 3: put the same drawing instruction here as you did in PHASE 1

StencilPop

# PHASE 4: the stencil is now removed from the stack and unloaded.
Limitations
  • Drawing in PHASE 1 and PHASE 3 must not collide or you will get unexpected results
  • The stencil is activated as soon as you perform a StencilPush
  • The stencil is deactivated as soon as you’ve correctly popped all the stencil layers
  • You must not play with stencils yourself between a StencilPush / StencilPop
  • You can push another stencil after a StencilUse / before the StencilPop
  • You can push up to 128 layers of stencils (8 for kivy < 1.3.0)
Example of stencil usage

Here is an example, in kv style:

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StencilPush

# create a rectangular mask with a pos of (100, 100) and a (100, 100) size.
Rectangle:
    pos: 100, 100
    size: 100, 100

StencilUse

# we want to show a big green rectangle, however, the previous stencil
# mask will crop us :)
Color:
    rgb: 0, 1, 0
Rectangle:
    size: 900, 900

StencilUnUse

# you must redraw the stencil mask to remove it
Rectangle:
    pos: 100, 100
    size: 100, 100

StencilPop
class kivy.graphics.stencil_instructions.StencilPush

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Push the stencil stack. See the module documentation for more information.

class kivy.graphics.stencil_instructions.StencilPop

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Pop the stencil stack. See the module documentation for more information.

class kivy.graphics.stencil_instructions.StencilUse

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Use current stencil buffer as a mask. Check the module documentation for more information.

func_op

Determine the stencil operation to use for glStencilFunc(). Can be one of ‘never’, ‘less’, ‘equal’, ‘lequal’, ‘greater’, ‘notequal’, ‘gequal’ or ‘always’.

By default, the operator is set to ‘equal’.

New in version 1.5.0.

class kivy.graphics.stencil_instructions.StencilUnUse

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.Instruction

Use current stencil buffer to unset the mask.

SVG

New in version 1.9.0.

Warning

This is highly experimental and subject to change. Don’t use it in production.

Load an SVG as a graphics instruction:

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from kivy.graphics.svg import Svg
with widget.canvas:
    svg = Svg("image.svg")

There is no widget that can display Svg directly, you have to make your own for now. Check the examples/svg for more informations.

class kivy.graphics.svg.Svg

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.RenderContext

Svg class. See module for more informations about the usage.

anchor_x

Horizontal anchor position for scaling and rotations. Defaults to 0. The symbolic values ‘left’, ‘center’ and ‘right’ are also accepted.

anchor_y

Vertical anchor position for scaling and rotations. Defaults to 0. The symbolic values ‘bottom’, ‘center’ and ‘top’ are also accepted.

filename

Filename to load.

The parsing and rendering is done as soon as you set the filename.

Tesselator

New in version 1.9.0.

_images/tesselator-filled.png _images/tesselator-debug.png

Warning

This is experimental and subject to change as long as this warning notice is present. Only TYPE_POLYGONS is currently supported.

Tesselator is a library for tesselating polygons, based on libtess2. It renders concave filled polygons by first tesselating them into convex polygons. It also supports holes.

Usage

First, you need to create a Tesselator object and add contours. The first one is the external contour of your shape and all of the following ones should be holes:

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from kivy.graphics.tesselator import Tesselator

tess = Tesselator()
tess.add_contour([0, 0, 200, 0, 200, 200, 0, 200])
tess.add_contour([50, 50, 150, 50, 150, 150, 50, 150])

Second, call the Tesselator.tesselate() method to compute the points. It is possible that the tesselator won’t work. In that case, it can return False:

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if not tess.tesselate():
    print "Tesselator didn't work :("
    return

After the tessellation, you have multiple ways to iterate over the result. The best approach is using Tesselator.meshes to get a format directly usable for a Mesh:

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for vertices, indices in tess.meshes:
    self.canvas.add(Mesh(
        vertices=vertices,
        indices=indices,
        mode="triangle_fan"
    ))

Or, you can get the “raw” result, with just polygons and x/y coordinates with Tesselator.vertices():

for vertices in tess.vertices:
    print "got polygon", vertices
class kivy.graphics.tesselator.Tesselator

Bases: builtins.object

Tesselator class. See module for more informations about the usage.

add_contour()

Add a contour to the tesselator. It can be:

  • a list of [x, y, x2, y2, …] coordinates
  • a float array: array(“f”, [x, y, x2, y2, …])
  • any buffer with floats in it.
element_count

Returns the number of convex polygon.

meshes

Iterate through the result of the tesselate() to give a result that can be easily pushed into Kivy`s Mesh object.

It’s a list of: [[vertices, indices], [vertices, indices], …]. The vertices in the format [x, y, u, v, x2, y2, u2, v2].

Careful, u/v coordinates are the same as x/y. You are responsible to change them for texture mapping if you need to.

You can create Mesh objects like that:

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tess = Tesselator()
# add contours here
tess.tesselate()
for vertices, indices in self.meshes:
    self.canvas.add(Mesh(
        vertices=vertices,
        indices=indices,
        mode="triangle_fan"))
tesselate()

Compute all the contours added with add_contour(), and generate polygons.

Parameters:
winding_rule: enum

The winding rule classifies a region as inside if its winding number belongs to the chosen category. Can be one of WINDING_ODD, WINDING_NONZERO, WINDING_POSITIVE, WINDING_NEGATIVE, WINDING_ABS_GEQ_TWO. Defaults to WINDING_ODD.

element_type: enum

The result type, you can generate the polygons with TYPE_POLYGONS, or the contours with TYPE_BOUNDARY_CONTOURS. Defaults to TYPE_POLYGONS.
Returns:

1 if the tessellation happened, 0 otherwise.
Return type:

int
vertex_count

Returns the number of vertex generated.

This is the raw result, however, because the Tesselator format the result for you with meshes or vertices per polygon, you’ll have more vertices in the result

vertices

Iterate through the result of the tesselate() in order to give only a list of [x, y, x2, y2, …] polygons.

Texture

Changed in version 1.6.0: Added support for paletted texture on OES: ‘palette4_rgb8’, ‘palette4_rgba8’, ‘palette4_r5_g6_b5’, ‘palette4_rgba4’, ‘palette4_rgb5_a1’, ‘palette8_rgb8’, ‘palette8_rgba8’, ‘palette8_r5_g6_b5’, ‘palette8_rgba4’ and ‘palette8_rgb5_a1’.

Texture is a class that handles OpenGL textures. Depending on the hardware, some OpenGL capabilities might not be available (BGRA support, NPOT support, etc.)

You cannot instantiate this class yourself. You must use the function Texture.create() to create a new texture:

texture = Texture.create(size=(640, 480))

When you create a texture, you should be aware of the default color and buffer format:

  • the color/pixel format (Texture.colorfmt) that can be one of ‘rgb’, ‘rgba’, ‘luminance’, ‘luminance_alpha’, ‘bgr’ or ‘bgra’. The default value is ‘rgb’
  • the buffer format determines how a color component is stored into memory. This can be one of ‘ubyte’, ‘ushort’, ‘uint’, ‘byte’, ‘short’, ‘int’ or ‘float’. The default value and the most commonly used is ‘ubyte’.

So, if you want to create an RGBA texture:

texture = Texture.create(size=(640, 480), colorfmt='rgba')

You can use your texture in almost all vertex instructions with the kivy.graphics.VertexIntruction.texture parameter. If you want to use your texture in kv lang, you can save it in an ObjectProperty inside your widget.

Warning

Using Texture before OpenGL has been initialized will lead to a crash. If you need to create textures before the application has started, import Window first: from kivy.core.window import Window

Blitting custom data

You can create your own data and blit it to the texture using Texture.blit_buffer().

For example, to blit immutable bytes data:

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# create a 64x64 texture, defaults to rgba / ubyte
texture = Texture.create(size=(64, 64))

# create 64x64 rgb tab, and fill with values from 0 to 255
# we'll have a gradient from black to white
size = 64 * 64 * 3
buf = [int(x * 255 / size) for x in range(size)]

# then, convert the array to a ubyte string
buf = b''.join(map(chr, buf))

# then blit the buffer
texture.blit_buffer(buf, colorfmt='rgb', bufferfmt='ubyte')

# that's all ! you can use it in your graphics now :)
# if self is a widget, you can do this
with self.canvas:
    Rectangle(texture=texture, pos=self.pos, size=(64, 64))

Since 1.9.0, you can blit data stored in a instance that implements the python buffer interface, or a memoryview thereof, such as numpy arrays, python array.array, a bytearray, or a cython array. This is beneficial if you expect to blit similar data, with perhaps a few changes in the data.

When using a bytes representation of the data, for every change you have to regenerate the bytes instance, from perhaps a list, which is very inefficient. When using a buffer object, you can simply edit parts of the original data. Similarly, unless starting with a bytes object, converting to bytes requires a full copy, however, when using a buffer instance, no memory is copied, except to upload it to the GPU.

Continuing with the example above:

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from array import array

size = 64 * 64 * 3
buf = [int(x * 255 / size) for x in range(size)]
# initialize the array with the buffer values
arr = array('B', buf)
# now blit the array
texture.blit_buffer(arr, colorfmt='rgb', bufferfmt='ubyte')

# now change some elements in the original array
arr[24] = arr[50] = 99
# blit again the buffer
texture.blit_buffer(arr, colorfmt='rgb', bufferfmt='ubyte')
BGR/BGRA support

The first time you try to create a BGR or BGRA texture, we check whether your hardware supports BGR / BGRA textures by checking the extension ‘GL_EXT_bgra’.

If the extension is not found, the conversion to RGB / RGBA will be done in software.

NPOT texture

Changed in version 1.0.7: If your hardware supports NPOT, no POT is created.

As the OpenGL documentation says, a texture must be power-of-two sized. That means your width and height can be one of 64, 32, 256… but not 3, 68, 42. NPOT means non-power-of-two. OpenGL ES 2 supports NPOT textures natively but with some drawbacks. Another type of NPOT texture is called a rectangle texture. POT, NPOT and textures all have their own pro/cons.

Features POT NPOT Rectangle
OpenGL Target GL_TEXTURE_2D GL_TEXTURE_2D GL_TEXTURE_RECTANGLE_(NV|ARB|EXT)
Texture coords 0-1 range 0-1 range width-height range
Mipmapping Supported Partially No
Wrap mode Supported Supported No

If you create a NPOT texture, we first check whether your hardware supports it by checking the extensions GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two or OES_texture_npot. If none of these are available, we create the nearest POT texture that can contain your NPOT texture. The Texture.create() will return a TextureRegion instead.

Texture atlas

A texture atlas is a single texture that contains many images. If you want to separate the original texture into many single ones, you don’t need to. You can get a region of the original texture. That will return the original texture with custom texture coordinates:

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# for example, load a 128x128 image that contain 4 64x64 images
from kivy.core.image import Image
texture = Image('mycombinedimage.png').texture

bottomleft = texture.get_region(0, 0, 64, 64)
bottomright = texture.get_region(0, 64, 64, 64)
topleft = texture.get_region(0, 64, 64, 64)
topright = texture.get_region(64, 64, 64, 64)
Mipmapping

New in version 1.0.7.

Mipmapping is an OpenGL technique for enhancing the rendering of large textures to small surfaces. Without mipmapping, you might see pixelation when you render to small surfaces. The idea is to precalculate the subtexture and apply some image filter as a linear filter. Then, when you render a small surface, instead of using the biggest texture, it will use a lower filtered texture. The result can look better this way.

To make that happen, you need to specify mipmap=True when you create a texture. Some widgets already give you the ability to create mipmapped textures, such as the Label and Image.

From the OpenGL Wiki : “So a 64x16 2D texture can have 5 mip-maps: 32x8, 16x4, 8x2, 4x1, 2x1, and 1x1”. Check http://www.opengl.org/wiki/Texture for more information.

Note

As the table in previous section said, if your texture is NPOT, we create the nearest POT texture and generate a mipmap from it. This might change in the future.

Reloading the Texture

New in version 1.2.0.

If the OpenGL context is lost, the Texture must be reloaded. Textures that have a source are automatically reloaded but generated textures must be reloaded by the user.

Use the Texture.add_reload_observer() to add a reloading function that will be automatically called when needed:

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def __init__(self, **kwargs):
    super(...).__init__(**kwargs)
    self.texture = Texture.create(size=(512, 512), colorfmt='RGB',
        bufferfmt='ubyte')
    self.texture.add_reload_observer(self.populate_texture)

    # and load the data now.
    self.cbuffer = '\x00\xf0\xff' * 512 * 512
    self.populate_texture(self.texture)

def populate_texture(self, texture):
    texture.blit_buffer(self.cbuffer)

This way, you can use the same method for initialization and reloading.

Note

For all text rendering with our core text renderer, the texture is generated but we already bind a method to redo the text rendering and reupload the text to the texture. You don’t have to do anything.

class kivy.graphics.texture.Texture

Bases: builtins.object

Handle an OpenGL texture. This class can be used to create simple textures or complex textures based on ImageData.

add_reload_observer()

Add a callback to be called after the whole graphics context has been reloaded. This is where you can reupload your custom data into the GPU.

New in version 1.2.0.

Parameters:
callback: func(context) -> return None

The first parameter will be the context itself.
ask_update()

Indicate that the content of the texture should be updated and the callback function needs to be called when the texture will be used.

bind()

Bind the texture to the current opengl state.

blit_buffer()

Blit a buffer into the texture.

Note

Unless the canvas will be updated due to other changes, ask_update() should be called in order to update the texture.

Parameters:
pbuffer: bytes, or a class that implements the buffer interface (including memoryview).

A buffer containing the image data. It can be either a bytes object or a instance of a class that implements the python buffer interface, e.g. array.array, bytearray, numpy arrays etc. If it’s not a bytes object, the underlying buffer must be contiguous, have only one dimension and must not be readonly, even though the data is not modified, due to a cython limitation. See module description for usage details.

size: tuple, defaults to texture size

Size of the image (width, height)

colorfmt: str, defaults to ‘rgb’

Image format, can be one of ‘rgb’, ‘rgba’, ‘bgr’, ‘bgra’, ‘luminance’ or ‘luminance_alpha’.

pos: tuple, defaults to (0, 0)

Position to blit in the texture.

bufferfmt: str, defaults to ‘ubyte’

Type of the data buffer, can be one of ‘ubyte’, ‘ushort’, ‘uint’, ‘byte’, ‘short’, ‘int’ or ‘float’.

mipmap_level: int, defaults to 0

Indicate which mipmap level we are going to update.

mipmap_generation: bool, defaults to True

Indicate if we need to regenerate the mipmap from level 0.

Changed in version 1.0.7: added mipmap_level and mipmap_generation

Changed in version 1.9.0: pbuffer can now be any class instance that implements the python buffer interface and / or memoryviews thereof.

blit_data()

Replace a whole texture with image data.

bufferfmt

Return the buffer format used in this texture (readonly).

New in version 1.2.0.

colorfmt

Return the color format used in this texture (readonly).

New in version 1.0.7.

static create()

Create a texture based on size.

Parameters:
size: tuple, defaults to (128, 128)

Size of the texture.

colorfmt: str, defaults to ‘rgba’

Color format of the texture. Can be ‘rgba’ or ‘rgb’, ‘luminance’ or ‘luminance_alpha’. On desktop, additional values are available: ‘red’, ‘rg’.

icolorfmt: str, defaults to the value of colorfmt

Internal format storage of the texture. Can be ‘rgba’ or ‘rgb’, ‘luminance’ or ‘luminance_alpha’. On desktop, additional values are available: ‘r8’, ‘rg8’, ‘rgba8’.

bufferfmt: str, defaults to ‘ubyte’

Internal buffer format of the texture. Can be ‘ubyte’, ‘ushort’, ‘uint’, ‘bute’, ‘short’, ‘int’ or ‘float’.

mipmap: bool, defaults to False

If True, it will automatically generate the mipmap texture.

callback: callable(), defaults to False

If a function is provided, it will be called when data is needed in the texture.

Changed in version 1.7.0: callback has been added

static create_from_data()

Create a texture from an ImageData class.

flip_horizontal()

Flip tex_coords for horizontal display.

New in version 1.9.0.

flip_vertical()

Flip tex_coords for vertical display.

get_region()

Return a part of the texture defined by the rectangular arguments (x, y, width, height). Returns a TextureRegion instance.

height

Return the height of the texture (readonly).

id

Return the OpenGL ID of the texture (readonly).

mag_filter

Get/set the mag filter texture. Available values:

  • linear
  • nearest

Check the opengl documentation for more information about the behavior of these values : http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/docs/man/xhtml/glTexParameter.xml.

min_filter

Get/set the min filter texture. Available values:

  • linear
  • nearest
  • linear_mipmap_linear
  • linear_mipmap_nearest
  • nearest_mipmap_nearest
  • nearest_mipmap_linear

Check the opengl documentation for more information about the behavior of these values : http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/docs/man/xhtml/glTexParameter.xml.

mipmap

Return True if the texture has mipmap enabled (readonly).

pixels

Get the pixels texture, in RGBA format only, unsigned byte. The origin of the image is at bottom left.

New in version 1.7.0.

remove_reload_observer()

Remove a callback from the observer list, previously added by add_reload_observer().

New in version 1.2.0.

save()

Save the texture content to a file. Check kivy.core.image.Image.save() for more information.

The flipped parameter flips the saved image vertically, and defaults to True.

New in version 1.7.0.

Changed in version 1.8.0: Parameter flipped added, defaults to True. All the OpenGL Texture are readed from bottom / left, it need to be flipped before saving. If you don’t want to flip the image, set flipped to False.

size

Return the (width, height) of the texture (readonly).

target

Return the OpenGL target of the texture (readonly).

tex_coords

Return the list of tex_coords (opengl).

uvpos

Get/set the UV position inside the texture.

uvsize

Get/set the UV size inside the texture.

Warning

The size can be negative if the texture is flipped.

width

Return the width of the texture (readonly).

wrap

Get/set the wrap texture. Available values:

  • repeat
  • mirrored_repeat
  • clamp_to_edge

Check the opengl documentation for more information about the behavior of these values : http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/docs/man/xhtml/glTexParameter.xml.

class kivy.graphics.texture.TextureRegion

Bases: kivy.graphics.texture.Texture

Handle a region of a Texture class. Useful for non power-of-2 texture handling.

ask_update()

Indicate that the content of the texture should be updated and the callback function needs to be called when the texture will be used.

bind()

Bind the texture to the current opengl state.

pixels

Get the pixels texture, in RGBA format only, unsigned byte. The origin of the image is at bottom left.

New in version 1.7.0.

Transformation

This module contains a Matrix class used for our Graphics calculations. We currently support:

  • rotation, translation and scaling matrices
  • multiplication matrix
  • clip matrix (with or without perspective)
  • transformation matrix for 3d touch

For more information on transformation matrices, please see the OpenGL Matrices Tutorial.

Changed in version 1.6.0: Added Matrix.perspective(), Matrix.look_at() and Matrix.transpose().

class kivy.graphics.transformation.Matrix

Bases: builtins.object

Optimized matrix class for OpenGL:

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>>> from kivy.graphics.transformation import Matrix
>>> m = Matrix()
>>> print(m)
[[ 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 ]
[ 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 ]
[ 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 ]
[ 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 ]]

[ 0   1   2   3]
[ 4   5   6   7]
[ 8   9  10  11]
[ 12  13  14  15]
get()

Retrieve the value of the current as a flat list.

New in version 1.9.1.

identity()

Reset the matrix to the identity matrix (inplace).

inverse()

Return the inverse of the matrix as a new Matrix.

look_at()

Returns a new lookat Matrix (similar to gluLookAt).

Parameters:
eyex: float

Eyes X co-ordinate

eyey: float

Eyes Y co-ordinate

eyez: float

Eyes Z co-ordinate

centerx: float

The X position of the reference point

centery: float

The Y position of the reference point

centerz: float

The Z position of the reference point

upx: float

The X value up vector.

upy: float

The Y value up vector.

upz: float

The Z value up vector.

New in version 1.6.0.

multiply()

Multiply the given matrix with self (from the left) i.e. we premultiply the given matrix by the current matrix and return the result (not inplace):

m.multiply(n) -> n * m
Parameters:
ma: Matrix

The matrix to multiply by
normal_matrix()

Computes the normal matrix, which is the inverse transpose of the top left 3x3 modelview matrix used to transform normals into eye/camera space.

New in version 1.6.0.

perspective()

Creates a perspective matrix (inplace).

Parameters:
fovy: float

“Field Of View” angle

aspect: float

Aspect ratio

zNear: float

Near clipping plane

zFar: float

Far clippin plane

New in version 1.6.0.

project()

Project a point from 3d space into a 2d viewport.

Parameters:
objx: float

Points X co-ordinate

objy: float

Points Y co-ordinate

objz: float

Points Z co-ordinate

model: Matrix

The model matrix

proj: Matrix

The projection matrix

vx: float

Viewports X co-ordinate

vy: float

Viewports y co-ordinate

vw: float

Viewports width

vh: float

Viewports height

New in version 1.7.0.

rotate()

Rotate the matrix through the angle around the axis (x, y, z) (inplace).

Parameters:
angle: float

The angle through which to rotate the matrix

x: float

X position of the point

y: float

Y position of the point

z: float

Z position of the point
scale()

Scale the current matrix by the specified factors over each dimension (inplace).

Parameters:
x: float

The scale factor along the X axis

y: float

The scale factor along the Y axis

z: float

The scale factor along the Z axis
set()

Insert custom values into the matrix in a flat list format or 4x4 array format like below:

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m.set(array=[
    [1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0],
    [0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0],
    [0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0],
    [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0]]
)

New in version 1.9.0.

tolist()

Retrieve the value of the current matrix in numpy format. for example m.tolist() will return:

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[[1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000],
[0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000],
[0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000],
[0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000]]

you can use this format to plug the result straight into numpy in this way numpy.array(m.tolist())

New in version 1.9.0.

translate()

Translate the matrix.

Parameters:
x: float

The translation factor along the X axis

y: float

The translation factor along the Y axis

z: float

The translation factor along the Z axis
transpose()

Return the transposed matrix as a new Matrix.

New in version 1.6.0.

view_clip()

Create a clip matrix (inplace).

Parameters:
left: float

Co-ordinate

right: float

Co-ordinate

bottom: float

Co-ordinate

top: float

Co-ordinate

near: float

Co-ordinate

far: float

Co-ordinate

perpective: int

Co-ordinate

Changed in version 1.6.0: Enable support for perspective parameter.

Vertex Instructions

This module includes all the classes for drawing simple vertex objects.

Updating properties

The list attributes of the graphics instruction classes (e.g. Triangle.points, Mesh.indices etc.) are not Kivy properties but Python properties. As a consequence, the graphics will only be updated when the list object itself is changed and not when list values are modified.

For example in python:

class MyWidget(Button):

    triangle = ObjectProperty(None)
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MyWidget, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        with self.canvas:
            self.triangle = Triangle(points=[0,0, 100,100, 200,0])

and in kv:

<MyWidget>:
    text: 'Update'
    on_press:
        self.triangle.points[3] = 400

Although pressing the button will change the triangle coordinates, the graphics will not be updated because the list itself has not changed. Similarly, no updates will occur using any syntax that changes only elements of the list e.g. self.triangle.points[0:2] = [10,10] or self.triangle.points.insert(10) etc. To force an update after a change, the list variable itself must be changed, which in this case can be achieved with:

<MyWidget>:
    text: 'Update'
    on_press:
        self.triangle.points[3] = 400
        self.triangle.points = self.triangle.points
class kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Triangle

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A 2d triangle.

Parameters:
points: list

List of points in the format (x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3).
points

Property for getting/settings points of the triangle.

class kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Quad

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A 2d quad.

Parameters:
points: list

List of point in the format (x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3, x4, y4).
points

Property for getting/settings points of the quad.

class kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Rectangle

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A 2d rectangle.

Parameters:
pos: list

Position of the rectangle, in the format (x, y).

size: list

Size of the rectangle, in the format (width, height).
pos

Property for getting/settings the position of the rectangle.

size

Property for getting/settings the size of the rectangle.

class kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.RoundedRectangle

Bases: kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Rectangle

A 2D rounded rectangle.

New in version 1.9.1.

Parameters:
segments: int, defaults to 10

Define how many segments are needed for drawing the rounded corner. The drawing will be smoother if you have many segments.

radius: list, defaults to [(10.0, 10.0), (10.0, 10.0), (10.0, 10.0), (10.0, 10.0)]

Specifies the radii used for the rounded corners clockwise: top-left, top-right, bottom-right, bottom-left. Elements of the list can be numbers or tuples of two numbers to specify different x,y dimensions. One value will define all corner radii to be of this value. Four values will define each corner radius separately. Higher numbers of values will be truncated to four. The first value will be used for all corners if there are fewer than four values.
radius

Corner radii of the rounded rectangle, defaults to [10,].

segments

Property for getting/setting the number of segments for each corner.

class kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.BorderImage

Bases: kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Rectangle

A 2d border image. The behavior of the border image is similar to the concept of a CSS3 border-image.

Parameters:
border: list

Border information in the format (bottom, right, top, left). Each value is in pixels.

auto_scale: string

New in version 1.9.1.

Changed in version 1.9.2: This used to be a bool and has been changed to be a string state.

Can be one of ‘off’, ‘both’, ‘x_only’, ‘y_only’, ‘y_full_x_lower’, ‘x_full_y_lower’, ‘both_lower’.

Autoscale controls the behavior of the 9-slice.

By default the border values are preserved exactly, meaning that if the total size of the object is smaller than the border values you will have some ‘rendering errors’ where your texture appears inside out. This also makes it impossible to achieve a rounded button that scales larger than the size of its source texture. The various options for auto_scale will let you achieve some mixes of the 2 types of rendering.

‘off’: is the default and behaves as BorderImage did when auto_scale was False before.

‘both’: Scales both x and y dimension borders according to the size of the BorderImage, this disables the BorderImage making it render the same as a regular Image.

‘x_only’: The Y dimension functions as the default, and the X scales to the size of the BorderImage’s width.

‘y_only’: The X dimension functions as the default, and the Y scales to the size of the BorderImage’s height.

‘y_full_x_lower’: Y scales as in ‘y_only’, Y scales if the size of the scaled version would be smaller than the provided border only.

‘x_full_y_lower’: X scales as in ‘x_only’, Y scales if the size of the scaled version would be smaller than the provided border only.

‘both_lower’: This is what auto_scale did when it was True in 1.9.1 Both X and Y dimensions will be scaled if the BorderImage is smaller than the source.

If the BorderImage’s size is less than the sum of it’s borders, horizontally or vertically, and this property is set to True, the borders will be rescaled to accommodate for the smaller size.
auto_scale

Property for setting if the corners are automatically scaled when the BorderImage is too small.

border

Property for getting/setting the border of the class.

display_border

Property for getting/setting the border display size.

class kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Ellipse

Bases: kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Rectangle

A 2D ellipse.

Changed in version 1.0.7: Added angle_start and angle_end.

Parameters:
segments: int, defaults to 180

Define how many segments are needed for drawing the ellipse. The drawing will be smoother if you have many segments.

angle_start: int, defaults to 0

Specifies the starting angle, in degrees, of the disk portion.

angle_end: int, defaults to 360

Specifies the ending angle, in degrees, of the disk portion.
angle_end

End angle of the ellipse in degrees, defaults to 360.

angle_start

Start angle of the ellipse in degrees, defaults to 0.

segments

Property for getting/setting the number of segments of the ellipse.

class kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Line

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A 2d line.

Drawing a line can be done easily:

with self.canvas:
    Line(points=[100, 100, 200, 100, 100, 200], width=10)

The line has 3 internal drawing modes that you should be aware of for optimal results:

  1. If the width is 1.0, then the standard GL_LINE drawing from OpenGL will be used. dash_length and dash_offset will work, while properties for cap and joint have no meaning here.
  2. If the width is greater than 1.0, then a custom drawing method, based on triangulation, will be used. dash_length and dash_offset do not work in this mode. Additionally, if the current color has an alpha less than 1.0, a stencil will be used internally to draw the line.
_images/line-instruction.png
Parameters:
points: list

List of points in the format (x1, y1, x2, y2…)

dash_length: int

Length of a segment (if dashed), defaults to 1.

dash_offset: int

Offset between the end of a segment and the beginning of the next one, defaults to 0. Changing this makes it dashed.

width: float

Width of the line, defaults to 1.0.

cap: str, defaults to ‘round’

See cap for more information.

joint: str, defaults to ‘round’

See joint for more information.

cap_precision: int, defaults to 10

See cap_precision for more information

joint_precision: int, defaults to 10

See joint_precision for more information See cap_precision for more information.

joint_precision: int, defaults to 10

See joint_precision for more information.

close: bool, defaults to False

If True, the line will be closed.

circle: list

If set, the points will be set to build a circle. See circle for more information.

ellipse: list

If set, the points will be set to build an ellipse. See ellipse for more information.

rectangle: list

If set, the points will be set to build a rectangle. See rectangle for more information.

bezier: list

If set, the points will be set to build a bezier line. See bezier for more information.

bezier_precision: int, defaults to 180

Precision of the Bezier drawing.

Changed in version 1.0.8: dash_offset and dash_length have been added.

Changed in version 1.4.1: width, cap, joint, cap_precision, joint_precision, close, ellipse, rectangle have been added.

Changed in version 1.4.1: bezier, bezier_precision have been added.

bezier

Use this property to build a bezier line, without calculating the points. You can only set this property, not get it.

The argument must be a tuple of 2n elements, n being the number of points.

Usage:

Line(bezier=(x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3)

New in version 1.4.2.

Note

Bezier lines calculations are inexpensive for a low number of points, but complexity is quadratic, so lines with a lot of points can be very expensive to build, use with care!

bezier_precision

Number of iteration for drawing the bezier between 2 segments, defaults to 180. The bezier_precision must be at least 1.

New in version 1.4.2.

cap

Determine the cap of the line, defaults to ‘round’. Can be one of ‘none’, ‘square’ or ‘round’

New in version 1.4.1.

cap_precision

Number of iteration for drawing the “round” cap, defaults to 10. The cap_precision must be at least 1.

New in version 1.4.1.

circle

Use this property to build a circle, without calculating the points. You can only set this property, not get it.

The argument must be a tuple of (center_x, center_y, radius, angle_start, angle_end, segments):

  • center_x and center_y represent the center of the circle
  • radius represent the radius of the circle
  • (optional) angle_start and angle_end are in degree. The default value is 0 and 360.
  • (optional) segments is the precision of the ellipse. The default value is calculated from the range between angle.

Note that it’s up to you to close the circle or not.

For example, for building a simple ellipse, in python:

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# simple circle
Line(circle=(150, 150, 50))

# only from 90 to 180 degrees
Line(circle=(150, 150, 50, 90, 180))

# only from 90 to 180 degrees, with few segments
Line(circle=(150, 150, 50, 90, 180, 20))

New in version 1.4.1.

close

If True, the line will be closed.

New in version 1.4.1.

dash_length

Property for getting/setting the length of the dashes in the curve

New in version 1.0.8.

dash_offset

Property for getting/setting the offset between the dashes in the curve

New in version 1.0.8.

ellipse

Use this property to build an ellipse, without calculating the points. You can only set this property, not get it.

The argument must be a tuple of (x, y, width, height, angle_start, angle_end, segments):

  • x and y represent the bottom left of the ellipse
  • width and height represent the size of the ellipse
  • (optional) angle_start and angle_end are in degree. The default value is 0 and 360.
  • (optional) segments is the precision of the ellipse. The default value is calculated from the range between angle.

Note that it’s up to you to close the ellipse or not.

For example, for building a simple ellipse, in python:

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# simple ellipse
Line(ellipse=(0, 0, 150, 150))

# only from 90 to 180 degrees
Line(ellipse=(0, 0, 150, 150, 90, 180))

# only from 90 to 180 degrees, with few segments
Line(ellipse=(0, 0, 150, 150, 90, 180, 20))

New in version 1.4.1.

joint

Determine the join of the line, defaults to ‘round’. Can be one of ‘none’, ‘round’, ‘bevel’, ‘miter’.

New in version 1.4.1.

joint_precision

Number of iteration for drawing the “round” joint, defaults to 10. The joint_precision must be at least 1.

New in version 1.4.1.

points

Property for getting/settings points of the line

Warning

This will always reconstruct the whole graphics from the new points list. It can be very CPU expensive.

rectangle

Use this property to build a rectangle, without calculating the points. You can only set this property, not get it.

The argument must be a tuple of (x, y, width, height):

  • x and y represent the bottom-left position of the rectangle
  • width and height represent the size

The line is automatically closed.

Usage:

Line(rectangle=(0, 0, 200, 200))

New in version 1.4.1.

rounded_rectangle

Use this property to build a rectangle, without calculating the points. You can only set this property, not get it.

The argument must be a tuple of one of the following forms:

  • (x, y, width, height, corner_radius)
  • (x, y, width, height, corner_radius, resolution)
  • (x, y, width, height, corner_radius1, corner_radius2, corner_radius3, corner_radius4)
  • (x, y, width, height, corner_radius1, corner_radius2, corner_radius3, corner_radius4, resolution)
  • x and y represent the bottom-left position of the rectangle
  • width and height represent the size
  • corner_radius is the number of pixels between two borders and the center of the circle arc joining them
  • resolution is the number of line segment that will be used to draw the circle arc at each corner (defaults to 30)

The line is automatically closed.

Usage:

Line(rounded_rectangle=(0, 0, 200, 200, 10, 20, 30, 40, 100))

New in version 1.9.0.

width

Determine the width of the line, defaults to 1.0.

New in version 1.4.1.

class kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Point

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A list of 2d points. Each point is represented as a square with a width/height of 2 times the pointsize.

Parameters:
points: list

List of points in the format (x1, y1, x2, y2…), where each pair of coordinates specifies the center of a new point.

pointsize: float, defaults to 1.

The size of the point, measured from the center to the edge. A value of 1.0 therefore means the real size will be 2.0 x 2.0.

Warning

Starting from version 1.0.7, vertex instruction have a limit of 65535 vertices (indices of vertex to be accurate). 2 entries in the list (x, y) will be converted to 4 vertices. So the limit inside Point() class is 2^15-2.

add_point()

Add a point to the current points list.

If you intend to add multiple points, prefer to use this method instead of reassigning a new points list. Assigning a new points list will recalculate and reupload the whole buffer into the GPU. If you use add_point, it will only upload the changes.

points

Property for getting/settings the center points in the points list. Each pair of coordinates specifies the center of a new point.

pointsize

Property for getting/setting point size. The size is measured from the center to the edge, so a value of 1.0 means the real size will be 2.0 x 2.0.

class kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Mesh

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A 2d mesh.

In OpenGL ES 2.0 and in our graphics implementation, you cannot have more than 65535 indices.

A list of vertices is described as:

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vertices = [x1, y1, u1, v1, x2, y2, u2, v2, ...]
            |            |  |            |
            +---- i1 ----+  +---- i2 ----+

If you want to draw a triangle, add 3 vertices. You can then make an indices list as follows:

indices = [0, 1, 2]

New in version 1.1.0.

Parameters:
vertices: iterable

List of vertices in the format (x1, y1, u1, v1, x2, y2, u2, v2…).

indices: iterable

List of indices in the format (i1, i2, i3…).

mode: str

Mode of the vbo. Check mode for more information. Defaults to ‘points’.

fmt: list

The format for vertices, by default, each vertex is described by 2D coordinates (x, y) and 2D texture coordinate (u, v). Each element of the list should be a tuple or list, of the form

(variable_name, size, type)

which will allow mapping vertex data to the glsl instructions.

[(b’v_pos’, 2, ‘float’), (b’v_tc’, 2, ‘float’),]

will allow using

attribute vec2 v_pos; attribute vec2 v_tc;

in glsl’s vertex shader.

Changed in version 1.8.1: Before, vertices and indices would always be converted to a list, now, they are only converted to a list if they do not implement the buffer interface. So e.g. numpy arrays, python arrays etc. are used in place, without creating any additional copies. However, the buffers cannot be readonly (even though they are not changed, due to a cython limitation) and must be contiguous in memory.

Note

When passing a memoryview or a instance that implements the buffer interface, vertices should be a buffer of floats (‘f’ code in python array) and indices should be a buffer of unsigned short (‘H’ code in python array). Arrays in other formats will still have to be converted internally, negating any potential gain.

indices

Vertex indices used to specify the order when drawing the mesh.

mode

VBO Mode used for drawing vertices/indices. Can be one of ‘points’, ‘line_strip’, ‘line_loop’, ‘lines’, ‘triangles’, ‘triangle_strip’ or ‘triangle_fan’.

vertices

List of x, y, u, v coordinates used to construct the Mesh. Right now, the Mesh instruction doesn’t allow you to change the format of the vertices, which means it’s only x, y + one texture coordinate.

exception kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.GraphicException

Bases: Exception

Exception raised when a graphics error is fired.

class kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Bezier

Bases: kivy.graphics.instructions.VertexInstruction

A 2d Bezier curve.

New in version 1.0.8.

Parameters:
points: list

List of points in the format (x1, y1, x2, y2…)

segments: int, defaults to 180

Define how many segments are needed for drawing the curve. The drawing will be smoother if you have many segments.

loop: bool, defaults to False

Set the bezier curve to join the last point to the first.

dash_length: int

Length of a segment (if dashed), defaults to 1.

dash_offset: int

Distance between the end of a segment and the start of the next one, defaults to 0. Changing this makes it dashed.
dash_length

Property for getting/setting the length of the dashes in the curve.

dash_offset

Property for getting/setting the offset between the dashes in the curve.

points

Property for getting/settings the points of the triangle.

Warning

This will always reconstruct the whole graphic from the new points list. It can be very CPU intensive.

segments

Property for getting/setting the number of segments of the curve.

class kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.SmoothLine

Bases: kivy.graphics.vertex_instructions.Line

Experimental line using over-draw methods to get better anti-aliasing results. It has few drawbacks:

  • drawing a line with alpha will probably not have the intended result if the line crosses itself.
  • cap, joint and dash properties are not supported.
  • it uses a custom texture with a premultiplied alpha.
  • lines under 1px in width are not supported: they will look the same.

Warning

This is an unfinished work, experimental, and subject to crashes.

New in version 1.9.0.

overdraw_width

Determine the overdraw width of the line, defaults to 1.2.

Input management

Our input system is wide and simple at the same time. We are currently able to natively support :

  • Windows multitouch events (pencil and finger)
  • OS X touchpads
  • Linux multitouch events (kernel and mtdev)
  • Linux wacom drivers (pencil and finger)
  • TUIO

All the input management is configurable in the Kivy config. You can easily use many multitouch devices in one Kivy application.

When the events have been read from the devices, they are dispatched through a post processing module before being sent to your application. We also have several default modules for :

  • Double tap detection
  • Decreasing jittering
  • Decreasing the inaccuracy of touch on “bad” DIY hardware
  • Ignoring regions
class kivy.input.MotionEvent(device, id, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.motionevent.MotionEvent

Abstract class that represents an input event (touch or non-touch).

Parameters:
id: str

unique ID of the MotionEvent

args: list

list of parameters, passed to the depack() function
apply_transform_2d(transform)[source]

Apply a transformation on x, y, z, px, py, pz, ox, oy, oz, dx, dy, dz

copy_to(to)[source]

Copy some attribute to another touch object.

depack(args)[source]

Depack args into attributes of the class

device = None

Device used for creating this touch

distance(other_touch)[source]

Return the distance between the current touch and another touch.

double_tap_time = None

If the touch is a is_double_tap, this is the time between the previous tap and the current touch.

dpos

Return delta between last position and current position, in the screen coordinate system (self.dx, self.dy)

dsx = None

Delta between self.sx and self.psx, in 0-1 range.

dsy = None

Delta between self.sy and self.psy, in 0-1 range.

dsz = None

Delta between self.sz and self.psz, in 0-1 range.

dx = None

Delta between self.x and self.px, in window range

dy = None

Delta between self.y and self.py, in window range

dz = None

Delta between self.z and self.pz, in window range

grab(class_instance, exclusive=False)[source]

Grab this motion event. You can grab a touch if you want to receive subsequent on_touch_move() and on_touch_up() events, even if the touch is not dispatched by the parent:

def on_touch_down(self, touch):
    touch.grab(self)

def on_touch_move(self, touch):
    if touch.grab_current is self:
        # I received my grabbed touch
    else:
        # it's a normal touch

def on_touch_up(self, touch):
    if touch.grab_current is self:
        # I receive my grabbed touch, I must ungrab it!
        touch.ungrab(self)
    else:
        # it's a normal touch
        pass
grab_current = None

Used to determine which widget the touch is being dispatched to. Check the grab() function for more information.

id = None

Id of the touch, not uniq. This is generally the Id set by the input provider, like ID in TUIO. If you have multiple TUIO source, the same id can be used. Prefer to use uid attribute instead.

is_double_tap = None

Indicate if the touch is a double tap or not

is_mouse_scrolling

Returns True if the touch is a mousewheel scrolling

New in version 1.6.0.

is_touch = None

True if the Motion Event is a Touch. Can be also verified is pos is profile.

is_triple_tap = None

Indicate if the touch is a triple tap or not

New in version 1.7.0.

move(args)[source]

Move the touch to another position

opos

Return the initial position of the touch in the screen coordinate system (self.ox, self.oy)

osx = None

Origin X position, in 0-1 range.

osy = None

Origin Y position, in 0-1 range.

osz = None

Origin Z position, in 0-1 range.

ox = None

Origin X position, in window range

oy = None

Origin Y position, in window range

oz = None

Origin Z position, in window range

pop()[source]

Pop attributes values from the stack

pos = None

Position (X, Y), in window range

ppos

Return the previous position of the touch in the screen coordinate system (self.px, self.py)

profile = None

Profiles currently used in the touch

psx = None

Previous X position, in 0-1 range.

psy = None

Previous Y position, in 0-1 range.

psz = None

Previous Z position, in 0-1 range.

push(attrs=None)[source]

Push attribute values in attrs onto the stack

push_attrs_stack = None

Attributes to push by default, when we use push() : x, y, z, dx, dy, dz, ox, oy, oz, px, py, pz.

px = None

Previous X position, in window range

py = None

Previous Y position, in window range

pz = None

Previous Z position, in window range

scale_for_screen(w, h, p=None, rotation=0, smode='None', kheight=0)[source]

Scale position for the screen

shape = None

Shape of the touch, subclass of Shape. By default, the property is set to None

spos

Return the position in the 0-1 coordinate system (self.sx, self.sy)

sx = None

X position, in 0-1 range

sy = None

Y position, in 0-1 range

sz = None

Z position, in 0-1 range

time_end = None

Time of the end event (last touch usage)

time_start = None

Initial time of the touch creation

time_update = None

Time of the last update

triple_tap_time = None

If the touch is a is_triple_tap, this is the time between the first tap and the current touch.

New in version 1.7.0.

ud = None

User data dictionary. Use this dictionary to save your own data on the touch.

uid = None

Uniq ID of the touch. You can safely use this property, it will be never the same accross all existing touches.

ungrab(class_instance)[source]

Ungrab a previously grabbed touch

x = None

X position, in window range

y = None

Y position, in window range

z = None

Z position, in window range

class kivy.input.MotionEventProvider(device, args)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Base class for a provider.

start()[source]

Start the provider. This method is automatically called when the application is started and if the configuration uses the current provider.

stop()[source]

Stop the provider.

update(dispatch_fn)[source]

Update the provider and dispatch all the new touch events though the dispatch_fn argument.

class kivy.input.MotionEventFactory[source]

Bases: builtins.object

MotionEvent factory is a class that registers all availables input factories. If you create a new input factory, you need to register it here:

MotionEventFactory.register('myproviderid', MyInputProvider)
static get(name)[source]

Get a provider class from the provider id

static list()[source]

Get a list of all available providers

static register(name, classname)[source]

Register a input provider in the database

Input Postprocessing

Calibration

New in version 1.9.0.

Recalibrate input device to a specific range / offset.

Let’s say you have 3 1080p displays, the 2 firsts are multitouch. By default, both will have mixed touch, the range will conflict with each others: the 0-1 range will goes to 0-5760 px (remember, 3 * 1920 = 5760.)

To fix it, you need to manually reference them. For example:

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[input]
left = mtdev,/dev/input/event17
middle = mtdev,/dev/input/event15
# the right screen is just a display.

Then, you can use the calibration postproc module:

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[postproc:calibration]
left = xratio=0.3333
middle = xratio=0.3333,xoffset=0.3333

Now, the touches from the left screen will be within 0-0.3333 range, and the touches from the middle screen will be within 0.3333-0.6666 range.

class kivy.input.postproc.calibration.InputPostprocCalibration[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Recalibrate the inputs.

The configuration must go within a section named postproc:calibration. Within the section, you must have line like:

devicename = param=value,param=value
Parameters:
xratio: float

Value to multiply X

yratio: float

Value to multiply Y

xoffset: float

Value to add to X

yoffset: float

Value to add to Y
Dejitter

Prevent blob jittering.

A problem that is often faced (esp. in optical MT setups) is that of jitterish BLOBs caused by bad camera characteristics. With this module you can get rid of that jitter. You just define a threshold jitter_distance in your config, and all touch movements that move the touch by less than the jitter distance are considered ‘bad’ movements caused by jitter and will be discarded.

class kivy.input.postproc.dejitter.InputPostprocDejitter[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Get rid of jitterish BLOBs. Example:

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[postproc]
jitter_distance = 0.004
jitter_ignore_devices = mouse,mactouch
Configuration:
jitter_distance: float

A float in range 0-1.

jitter_ignore_devices: string

A comma-separated list of device identifiers that should not be processed by dejitter (because they’re very precise already).
Double Tap

Search touch for a double tap

class kivy.input.postproc.doubletap.InputPostprocDoubleTap[source]

Bases: builtins.object

InputPostProcDoubleTap is a post-processor to check if a touch is a double tap or not. Double tap can be configured in the Kivy config file:

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[postproc]
double_tap_time = 250
double_tap_distance = 20

Distance parameter is in the range 0-1000 and time is in milliseconds.

find_double_tap(ref)[source]

Find a double tap touch within self.touches. The touch must be not a previous double tap and the distance must be within the specified threshold. Additionally, the touch profiles must be the same kind of touch.

Ignore list

Ignore touch on some areas of the screen

class kivy.input.postproc.ignorelist.InputPostprocIgnoreList[source]

Bases: builtins.object

InputPostprocIgnoreList is a post-processor which removes touches in the Ignore list. The Ignore list can be configured in the Kivy config file:

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[postproc]
# Format: [(xmin, ymin, xmax, ymax), ...]
ignore = [(0.1, 0.1, 0.15, 0.15)]

The Ignore list coordinates are in the range 0-1, not in screen pixels.

Retain Touch

Reuse touch to counter lost finger behavior

class kivy.input.postproc.retaintouch.InputPostprocRetainTouch[source]

Bases: builtins.object

InputPostprocRetainTouch is a post-processor to delay the ‘up’ event of a touch, to reuse it under certains conditions. This module is designed to prevent lost finger touches on some hardware/setups.

Retain touch can be configured in the Kivy config file:

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[postproc]
    retain_time = 100
    retain_distance = 50

The distance parameter is in the range 0-1000 and time is in milliseconds.

Triple Tap

New in version 1.7.0.

Search touch for a triple tap

class kivy.input.postproc.tripletap.InputPostprocTripleTap[source]

Bases: builtins.object

InputPostProcTripleTap is a post-processor to check if a touch is a triple tap or not. Triple tap can be configured in the Kivy config file:

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[postproc]
triple_tap_time = 250
triple_tap_distance = 20

The distance parameter is in the range 0-1000 and time is in milliseconds.

find_triple_tap(ref)[source]

Find a triple tap touch within self.touches. The touch must be not be a previous triple tap and the distance must be be within the bounds specified. Additionally, the touch profile must be the same kind of touch.

Providers

Android Joystick Input Provider

This module is based on the PyGame JoyStick Input Provider. For more information, please refer to http://www.pygame.org/docs/ref/joystick.html

class kivy.input.providers.androidjoystick.AndroidMotionEventProvider(device, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.provider.MotionEventProvider

start()[source]

Start the provider. This method is automatically called when the application is started and if the configuration uses the current provider.

stop()[source]

Stop the provider.

update(dispatch_fn)[source]

Update the provider and dispatch all the new touch events though the dispatch_fn argument.

Auto Create Input Provider Config Entry for Available MT Hardware (linux only).

Thanks to Marc Tardif for the probing code, taken from scan-for-mt-device.

The device discovery is done by this provider. However, the reading of input can be performed by other providers like: hidinput, mtdev and linuxwacom. mtdev is used prior to other providers. For more information about mtdev, check mtdev.

Here is an example of auto creation:

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[input]
# using mtdev
device_%(name)s = probesysfs,provider=mtdev
# using hidinput
device_%(name)s = probesysfs,provider=hidinput
# using mtdev with a match on name
device_%(name)s = probesysfs,provider=mtdev,match=acer

# using hidinput with custom parameters to hidinput (all on one line)
%(name)s = probesysfs,
    provider=hidinput,param=min_pressure=1,param=max_pressure=99

# you can also match your wacom touchscreen
touch = probesysfs,match=E3 Finger,provider=linuxwacom,
    select_all=1,param=mode=touch
# and your wacom pen
pen = probesysfs,match=E3 Pen,provider=linuxwacom,
    select_all=1,param=mode=pen

By default, ProbeSysfs module will enumerate hardware from the /sys/class/input device, and configure hardware with ABS_MT_POSITION_X capability. But for example, the wacom screen doesn’t support this capability. You can prevent this behavior by putting select_all=1 in your config line. Add use_mouse=1 to also include touchscreen hardware that offers core pointer functionality.

Common definitions for a Windows provider

This file provides common definitions for constants used by WM_Touch / WM_Pen.

Leap Motion - finger only
class kivy.input.providers.leapfinger.LeapFingerEventProvider(device, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.provider.MotionEventProvider

start()[source]

Start the provider. This method is automatically called when the application is started and if the configuration uses the current provider.

update(dispatch_fn)[source]

Update the provider and dispatch all the new touch events though the dispatch_fn argument.

class kivy.input.providers.leapfinger.LeapFingerEvent(device, id, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.motionevent.MotionEvent

depack(args)[source]

Depack args into attributes of the class

Mouse provider implementation

On linux systems, the mouse provider can be annoying when used with another multitouch provider (hidinput or mtdev). The Mouse can conflict with them: a single touch can generate one event from the mouse provider and another from the multitouch provider.

To avoid this behavior, you can activate the “disable_on_activity” token in the mouse configuration. Then, if any touches are created by another provider, the mouse event will be discarded. Add this to your configuration:

[input]
mouse = mouse,disable_on_activity
Using multitouch interaction with the mouse

New in version 1.3.0.

By default, the middle and right mouse buttons, as well as a combination of ctrl + left mouse button are used for multitouch emulation. If you want to use them for other purposes, you can disable this behavior by activating the “disable_multitouch” token:

[input]
mouse = mouse,disable_multitouch

Changed in version 1.9.0.

You can now selectively control whether a click initiated as described above will emulate multi-touch. If the touch has been initiated in the above manner (e.g. right mouse button), a multitouch_sim value will be added to the touch’s profile, and a multitouch_sim property will be added to the touch. By default, multitouch_sim is True and multitouch will be emulated for that touch. If, however, multitouch_on_demand is added to the config:

[input]
mouse = mouse,multitouch_on_demand

then multitouch_sim defaults to False. In that case, if multitouch_sim is set to True before the mouse is released (e.g. in on_touch_down/move), the touch will simulate a multi-touch event. For example:

if 'multitouch_sim' in touch.profile:
    touch.multitouch_sim = True

Following is a list of the supported values for the profile property list.

Profile value Description
button Mouse button (one of left, right, middle, scrollup or scrolldown). Accessed via the ‘button’ property.
pos 2D position. Also reflected in the x, y and pos properties.
multitouch_sim Specifies whether multitouch is simulated or not. Accessed via the ‘multitouch_sim’ property.
class kivy.input.providers.mouse.MouseMotionEventProvider(device, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.provider.MotionEventProvider

start()[source]

Start the mouse provider

stop()[source]

Stop the mouse provider

update(dispatch_fn)[source]

Update the mouse provider (pop event from the queue)

Native support for HID input from the linux kernel

Support starts from 2.6.32-ubuntu, or 2.6.34.

To configure HIDInput, add this to your configuration:

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[input]
# devicename = hidinput,/dev/input/eventXX
# example with Stantum MTP4.3" screen
stantum = hidinput,/dev/input/event2

Note

You must have read access to the input event.

You can use a custom range for the X, Y and pressure values. For some drivers, the range reported is invalid. To fix that, you can add these options to the argument line:

  • invert_x : 1 to invert X axis
  • invert_y : 1 to invert Y axis
  • min_position_x : X minimum
  • max_position_x : X maximum
  • min_position_y : Y minimum
  • max_position_y : Y maximum
  • min_pressure : pressure minimum
  • max_pressure : pressure maximum
  • rotation : rotate the input coordinate (0, 90, 180, 270)

For example, on the Asus T101M, the touchscreen reports a range from 0-4095 for the X and Y values, but the real values are in a range from 0-32768. To correct this, you can add the following to the configuration:

[input]
t101m = hidinput,/dev/input/event7,max_position_x=32768,max_position_y=32768

New in version 1.9.1: rotation configuration token added.

class kivy.input.providers.hidinput.HIDMotionEvent(device, id, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.motionevent.MotionEvent

depack(args)[source]

Depack args into attributes of the class

Native support for Multitouch devices on Linux, using libmtdev.

The Mtdev project is a part of the Ubuntu Maverick multitouch architecture. You can read more on http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Multitouch

To configure MTDev, it’s preferable to use probesysfs providers. Check probesysfs for more information.

Otherwise, add this to your configuration:

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[input]
# devicename = hidinput,/dev/input/eventXX
acert230h = mtdev,/dev/input/event2

Note

You must have read access to the input event.

You can use a custom range for the X, Y and pressure values. On some drivers, the range reported is invalid. To fix that, you can add these options to the argument line:

  • invert_x : 1 to invert X axis
  • invert_y : 1 to invert Y axis
  • min_position_x : X minimum
  • max_position_x : X maximum
  • min_position_y : Y minimum
  • max_position_y : Y maximum
  • min_pressure : pressure minimum
  • max_pressure : pressure maximum
  • min_touch_major : width shape minimum
  • max_touch_major : width shape maximum
  • min_touch_minor : width shape minimum
  • max_touch_minor : height shape maximum
  • rotation : 0,90,180 or 270 to rotate
class kivy.input.providers.mtdev.MTDMotionEvent(device, id, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.motionevent.MotionEvent

depack(args)[source]

Depack args into attributes of the class

Native support of MultitouchSupport framework for MacBook (MaxOSX platform)
class kivy.input.providers.mactouch.MacMotionEventProvider(*largs, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.provider.MotionEventProvider

start()[source]

Start the provider. This method is automatically called when the application is started and if the configuration uses the current provider.

stop()[source]

Stop the provider.

update(dispatch_fn)[source]

Update the provider and dispatch all the new touch events though the dispatch_fn argument.

Native support of Wacom tablet from linuxwacom driver

To configure LinuxWacom, add this to your configuration:

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[input]
pen = linuxwacom,/dev/input/event2,mode=pen
finger = linuxwacom,/dev/input/event3,mode=touch

Note

You must have read access to the input event.

You can use a custom range for the X, Y and pressure values. On some drivers, the range reported is invalid. To fix that, you can add these options to the argument line:

  • invert_x : 1 to invert X axis
  • invert_y : 1 to invert Y axis
  • min_position_x : X minimum
  • max_position_x : X maximum
  • min_position_y : Y minimum
  • max_position_y : Y maximum
  • min_pressure : pressure minimum
  • max_pressure : pressure maximum
class kivy.input.providers.linuxwacom.LinuxWacomMotionEvent(device, id, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.motionevent.MotionEvent

depack(args)[source]

Depack args into attributes of the class

Support for WM_PEN messages (Windows platform)
class kivy.input.providers.wm_pen.WM_Pen(device, id, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.motionevent.MotionEvent

MotionEvent representing the WM_Pen event. Supports the pos profile.

depack(args)[source]

Depack args into attributes of the class

Support for WM_TOUCH messages (Windows platform)
class kivy.input.providers.wm_touch.WM_MotionEvent(device, id, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.motionevent.MotionEvent

MotionEvent representing the WM_MotionEvent event. Supports pos, shape and size profiles.

depack(args)[source]

Depack args into attributes of the class

TUIO Input Provider

TUIO is the de facto standard network protocol for the transmission of touch and fiducial information between a server and a client. To learn more about TUIO (which is itself based on the OSC protocol), please refer to http://tuio.org – The specification should be of special interest.

Configure a TUIO provider in the config.ini

The TUIO provider can be configured in the configuration file in the [input] section:

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[input]
# name = tuio,<ip>:<port>
multitouchtable = tuio,192.168.0.1:3333
Configure a TUIO provider in the App

You must add the provider before your application is run, like this:

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from kivy.app import App
from kivy.config import Config

class TestApp(App):
    def build(self):
        Config.set('input', 'multitouchscreen1', 'tuio,0.0.0.0:3333')
        # You can also add a second TUIO listener
        # Config.set('input', 'source2', 'tuio,0.0.0.0:3334')
        # Then do the usual things
        # ...
        return
class kivy.input.providers.tuio.TuioMotionEventProvider(device, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.provider.MotionEventProvider

The TUIO provider listens to a socket and handles some of the incoming OSC messages:

  • /tuio/2Dcur
  • /tuio/2Dobj

You can easily extend the provider to handle new TUIO paths like so:

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# Create a class to handle the new TUIO type/path
# Replace NEWPATH with the pathname you want to handle
class TuioNEWPATHMotionEvent(MotionEvent):
    def __init__(self, id, args):
        super(TuioNEWPATHMotionEvent, self).__init__(id, args)

    def depack(self, args):
        # In this method, implement 'unpacking' for the received
        # arguments. you basically translate from TUIO args to Kivy
        # MotionEvent variables. If all you receive are x and y
        # values, you can do it like this:
        if len(args) == 2:
            self.sx, self.sy = args
            self.profile = ('pos', )
        self.sy = 1 - self.sy
        super(TuioNEWPATHMotionEvent, self).depack(args)

# Register it with the TUIO MotionEvent provider.
# You obviously need to replace the PATH placeholders appropriately.
TuioMotionEventProvider.register('/tuio/PATH', TuioNEWPATHMotionEvent)

Note

The class name is of no technical importance. Your class will be associated with the path that you pass to the register() function. To keep things simple, you should name your class after the path that it handles, though.

static create(oscpath, **kwargs)[source]

Create a touch event from a TUIO path

static register(oscpath, classname)[source]

Register a new path to handle in TUIO provider

start()[source]

Start the TUIO provider

stop()[source]

Stop the TUIO provider

static unregister(oscpath, classname)[source]

Unregister a path to stop handling it in the TUIO provider

update(dispatch_fn)[source]

Update the TUIO provider (pop events from the queue)

class kivy.input.providers.tuio.Tuio2dCurMotionEvent(device, id, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.providers.tuio.TuioMotionEvent

A 2dCur TUIO touch.

depack(args)[source]

Depack args into attributes of the class

class kivy.input.providers.tuio.Tuio2dObjMotionEvent(device, id, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.providers.tuio.TuioMotionEvent

A 2dObj TUIO object.

depack(args)[source]

Depack args into attributes of the class

Input recorder

New in version 1.1.0.

Warning

This part of Kivy is still experimental and this API is subject to change in a future version.

This is a class that can record and replay some input events. This can be used for test cases, screen savers etc.

Once activated, the recorder will listen for any input event and save its properties in a file with the delta time. Later, you can play the input file: it will generate fake touch events with the saved properties and dispatch it to the event loop.

By default, only the position is saved (‘pos’ profile and ‘sx’, ‘sy’, attributes). Change it only if you understand how input handling works.

Recording events

The best way is to use the “recorder” module. Check the Modules documentation to see how to activate a module.

Once activated, you can press F8 to start the recording. By default, events will be written to <currentpath>/recorder.kvi. When you want to stop recording, press F8 again.

You can replay the file by pressing F7.

Check the Recorder module module for more information.

Manual play

You can manually open a recorder file, and play it by doing:

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from kivy.input.recorder import Recorder

rec = Recorder(filename='myrecorder.kvi')
rec.play = True

If you want to loop over that file, you can do:

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from kivy.input.recorder import Recorder

def recorder_loop(instance, value):
    if value is False:
        instance.play = True

rec = Recorder(filename='myrecorder.kvi')
rec.bind(play=recorder_loop)
rec.play = True
Recording more attributes

You can extend the attributes to save on one condition: attributes values must be simple values, not instances of complex classes.

Let’s say you want to save the angle and pressure of the touch, if available:

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from kivy.input.recorder import Recorder

rec = Recorder(filename='myrecorder.kvi',
    record_attrs=['is_touch', 'sx', 'sy', 'angle', 'pressure'],
    record_profile_mask=['pos', 'angle', 'pressure'])
rec.record = True

Or with modules variables:

$ python main.py -m recorder,attrs=is_touch:sx:sy:angle:pressure,             profile_mask=pos:angle:pressure
Known limitations
  • Unable to save attributes with instances of complex classes.
  • Values that represent time will not be adjusted.
  • Can replay only complete records. If a begin/update/end event is missing, this could lead to ghost touches.
  • Stopping the replay before the end can lead to ghost touches.
class kivy.input.recorder.Recorder(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Recorder class. Please check module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_stop:

Fired when the playing stops.

Changed in version 1.10.0: Event on_stop added.

counter

Number of events recorded in the last session.

counter is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0, read-only.

filename

Filename to save the output of the recorder.

filename is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘recorder.kvi’.

play

Boolean to start/stop the replay of the current file (if it exists).

play is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

record

Boolean to start/stop the recording of input events.

record is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

record_attrs

Attributes to record from the motion event.

record_attrs is a ListProperty and defaults to [‘is_touch’, ‘sx’, ‘sy’].

record_profile_mask

Profile to save in the fake motion event when replayed.

record_profile_mask is a ListProperty and defaults to [‘pos’].

window

Window instance to attach the recorder. If None, it will use the default instance.

window is a ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

Motion Event

The MotionEvent is the base class used for events provided by pointing devices (touch and non-touch). This class defines all the properties and methods needed to handle 2D and 3D movements but has many more capabilities.

Note

You never create the MotionEvent yourself: this is the role of the providers.

Motion Event and Touch

We differentiate between a Motion Event and Touch event. A Touch event is a MotionEvent with the pos profile. Only these events are dispatched throughout the widget tree.

  1. The MotionEvent ‘s are gathered from input providers.
  2. All the MotionEvent ‘s are dispatched from
    on_motion().
  3. If a MotionEvent has a pos profile, we dispatch it through
    on_touch_down(), on_touch_move() and on_touch_up().
Listening to a Motion Event

If you want to receive all MotionEvents, Touch or not, you can bind the MotionEvent from the Window to your own callback:

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def on_motion(self, etype, motionevent):
    # will receive all motion events.
    pass

Window.bind(on_motion=on_motion)

You can also listen to changes of the mouse position by watching mouse_pos.

Profiles

The MotionEvent stores device specific information in various properties listed in the profile. For example, you can receive a MotionEvent that has an angle, a fiducial ID, or even a shape. You can check the profile attribute to see what is currently supported by the MotionEvent provider.

This is a short list of the profile values supported by default. Please check the MotionEvent.profile property to see what profile values are available.

Profile value Description
angle 2D angle. Accessed via the a property.
button Mouse button (‘left’, ‘right’, ‘middle’, ‘scrollup’ or ‘scrolldown’). Accessed via the button property.
markerid Marker or Fiducial ID. Accessed via the fid property.
pos 2D position. Accessed via the x, y or pos properties.
pos3d 3D position. Accessed via the x, y or z properties.
pressure Pressure of the contact. Accessed via the pressure property.
shape Contact shape. Accessed via the shape property .

If you want to know whether the current MotionEvent has an angle:

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def on_touch_move(self, touch):
    if 'angle' in touch.profile:
        print('The touch angle is', touch.a)

If you want to select only the fiducials:

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def on_touch_move(self, touch):
    if 'markerid' not in touch.profile:
        return
class kivy.input.motionevent.MotionEvent(device, id, args)[source]

Bases: kivy.input.motionevent.MotionEvent

Abstract class that represents an input event (touch or non-touch).

Parameters:
id: str

unique ID of the MotionEvent

args: list

list of parameters, passed to the depack() function
apply_transform_2d(transform)[source]

Apply a transformation on x, y, z, px, py, pz, ox, oy, oz, dx, dy, dz

copy_to(to)[source]

Copy some attribute to another touch object.

depack(args)[source]

Depack args into attributes of the class

device = None

Device used for creating this touch

distance(other_touch)[source]

Return the distance between the current touch and another touch.

double_tap_time = None

If the touch is a is_double_tap, this is the time between the previous tap and the current touch.

dpos

Return delta between last position and current position, in the screen coordinate system (self.dx, self.dy)

dsx = None

Delta between self.sx and self.psx, in 0-1 range.

dsy = None

Delta between self.sy and self.psy, in 0-1 range.

dsz = None

Delta between self.sz and self.psz, in 0-1 range.

dx = None

Delta between self.x and self.px, in window range

dy = None

Delta between self.y and self.py, in window range

dz = None

Delta between self.z and self.pz, in window range

grab(class_instance, exclusive=False)[source]

Grab this motion event. You can grab a touch if you want to receive subsequent on_touch_move() and on_touch_up() events, even if the touch is not dispatched by the parent:

def on_touch_down(self, touch):
    touch.grab(self)

def on_touch_move(self, touch):
    if touch.grab_current is self:
        # I received my grabbed touch
    else:
        # it's a normal touch

def on_touch_up(self, touch):
    if touch.grab_current is self:
        # I receive my grabbed touch, I must ungrab it!
        touch.ungrab(self)
    else:
        # it's a normal touch
        pass
grab_current = None

Used to determine which widget the touch is being dispatched to. Check the grab() function for more information.

id = None

Id of the touch, not uniq. This is generally the Id set by the input provider, like ID in TUIO. If you have multiple TUIO source, the same id can be used. Prefer to use uid attribute instead.

is_double_tap = None

Indicate if the touch is a double tap or not

is_mouse_scrolling

Returns True if the touch is a mousewheel scrolling

New in version 1.6.0.

is_touch = None

True if the Motion Event is a Touch. Can be also verified is pos is profile.

is_triple_tap = None

Indicate if the touch is a triple tap or not

New in version 1.7.0.

move(args)[source]

Move the touch to another position

opos

Return the initial position of the touch in the screen coordinate system (self.ox, self.oy)

osx = None

Origin X position, in 0-1 range.

osy = None

Origin Y position, in 0-1 range.

osz = None

Origin Z position, in 0-1 range.

ox = None

Origin X position, in window range

oy = None

Origin Y position, in window range

oz = None

Origin Z position, in window range

pop()[source]

Pop attributes values from the stack

pos = None

Position (X, Y), in window range

ppos

Return the previous position of the touch in the screen coordinate system (self.px, self.py)

profile = None

Profiles currently used in the touch

psx = None

Previous X position, in 0-1 range.

psy = None

Previous Y position, in 0-1 range.

psz = None

Previous Z position, in 0-1 range.

push(attrs=None)[source]

Push attribute values in attrs onto the stack

push_attrs_stack = None

Attributes to push by default, when we use push() : x, y, z, dx, dy, dz, ox, oy, oz, px, py, pz.

px = None

Previous X position, in window range

py = None

Previous Y position, in window range

pz = None

Previous Z position, in window range

scale_for_screen(w, h, p=None, rotation=0, smode='None', kheight=0)[source]

Scale position for the screen

shape = None

Shape of the touch, subclass of Shape. By default, the property is set to None

spos

Return the position in the 0-1 coordinate system (self.sx, self.sy)

sx = None

X position, in 0-1 range

sy = None

Y position, in 0-1 range

sz = None

Z position, in 0-1 range

time_end = None

Time of the end event (last touch usage)

time_start = None

Initial time of the touch creation

time_update = None

Time of the last update

triple_tap_time = None

If the touch is a is_triple_tap, this is the time between the first tap and the current touch.

New in version 1.7.0.

ud = None

User data dictionary. Use this dictionary to save your own data on the touch.

uid = None

Uniq ID of the touch. You can safely use this property, it will be never the same accross all existing touches.

ungrab(class_instance)[source]

Ungrab a previously grabbed touch

x = None

X position, in window range

y = None

Y position, in window range

z = None

Z position, in window range

Motion Event Factory

Factory of MotionEvent providers.

class kivy.input.factory.MotionEventFactory[source]

Bases: builtins.object

MotionEvent factory is a class that registers all availables input factories. If you create a new input factory, you need to register it here:

MotionEventFactory.register('myproviderid', MyInputProvider)
static get(name)[source]

Get a provider class from the provider id

static list()[source]

Get a list of all available providers

static register(name, classname)[source]

Register a input provider in the database

Motion Event Provider

Abstract class for the implementation of a MotionEvent provider. The implementation must support the start(), stop() and update() methods.

class kivy.input.provider.MotionEventProvider(device, args)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Base class for a provider.

start()[source]

Start the provider. This method is automatically called when the application is started and if the configuration uses the current provider.

stop()[source]

Stop the provider.

update(dispatch_fn)[source]

Update the provider and dispatch all the new touch events though the dispatch_fn argument.

Motion Event Shape

Represent the shape of the MotionEvent

class kivy.input.shape.Shape[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Abstract class for all implementations of a shape

class kivy.input.shape.ShapeRect[source]

Bases: kivy.input.shape.Shape

Class for the representation of a rectangle.

height

Height of the rect

width

Width fo the rect

Kivy Language

The Kivy language is a language dedicated to describing user interface and interactions. You could compare this language to Qt’s QML (http://qt.nokia.com), but we included new concepts such as rule definitions (which are somewhat akin to what you may know from CSS), templating and so on.

Changed in version 1.7.0: The Builder doesn’t execute canvas expressions in realtime anymore. It will pack all the expressions that need to be executed first and execute them after dispatching input, just before drawing the frame. If you want to force the execution of canvas drawing, just call Builder.sync.

An experimental profiling tool for the kv lang is also included. You can activate it by setting the environment variable KIVY_PROFILE_LANG=1. It will then generate an html file named builder_stats.html.

Overview

The language consists of several constructs that you can use:

Rules
A rule is similar to a CSS rule. A rule applies to specific widgets (or classes thereof) in your widget tree and modifies them in a certain way. You can use rules to specify interactive behaviour or use them to add graphical representations of the widgets they apply to. You can target a specific class of widgets (similar to the CSS concept of a class) by using the cls attribute (e.g. cls=MyTestWidget).
A Root Widget
You can use the language to create your entire user interface. A kv file must contain only one root widget at most.
Dynamic Classes
(introduced in version 1.7.0) Dynamic classes let you create new widgets and rules on-the-fly, without any Python declaration.
Templates (deprecated)
(introduced in version 1.0.5, deprecated from version 1.7.0) Templates were used to populate parts of an application, such as styling the content of a list (e.g. icon on the left, text on the right). They are now deprecated by dynamic classes.

Syntax of a kv File

A Kivy language file must have .kv as filename extension.

The content of the file should always start with the Kivy header, where version must be replaced with the Kivy language version you’re using. For now, use 1.0:

#:kivy `1.0`

# content here

The content can contain rule definitions, a root widget, dynamic class definitions and templates:

# Syntax of a rule definition. Note that several Rules can share the same
# definition (as in CSS). Note the braces: they are part of the definition.
<Rule1,Rule2>:
    # .. definitions ..

<Rule3>:
    # .. definitions ..

# Syntax for creating a root widget
RootClassName:
    # .. definitions ..

# Syntax for creating a dynamic class
<NewWidget@BaseClass>:
    # .. definitions ..

# Syntax for create a template
[TemplateName@BaseClass1,BaseClass2]:
    # .. definitions ..

Regardless of whether it’s a rule, root widget, dynamic class or template you’re defining, the definition should look like this:

# With the braces it's a rule. Without them, it's a root widget.
<ClassName>:
    prop1: value1
    prop2: value2

    canvas:
        CanvasInstruction1:
            canvasprop1: value1
        CanvasInstruction2:
            canvasprop2: value2

    AnotherClass:
        prop3: value1

Here prop1 and prop2 are the properties of ClassName and prop3 is the property of AnotherClass. If the widget doesn’t have a property with the given name, an ObjectProperty will be automatically created and added to the widget.

AnotherClass will be created and added as a child of the ClassName instance.

  • The indentation is important and must be consistent. The spacing must be a multiple of the number of spaces used on the first indented line. Spaces are encouraged: mixing tabs and spaces is not recommended.
  • The value of a property must be given on a single line (for now at least).
  • The canvas property is special: you can put graphics instructions in it to create a graphical representation of the current class.

Here is a simple example of a kv file that contains a root widget:

#:kivy 1.0

Button:
    text: 'Hello world'

Changed in version 1.7.0: The indentation is not limited to 4 spaces anymore. The spacing must be a multiple of the number of spaces used on the first indented line.

Both the load_file() and the load_string() methods return the root widget defined in your kv file/string. They will also add any class and template definitions to the Factory for later usage.

Value Expressions, on_property Expressions, ids, and Reserved Keywords

When you specify a property’s value, the value is evaluated as a Python expression. This expression can be static or dynamic, which means that the value can use the values of other properties using reserved keywords.

self

The keyword self references the “current widget instance”:

Button:
    text: 'My state is %s' % self.state
root

This keyword is available only in rule definitions and represents the root widget of the rule (the first instance of the rule):

<MyWidget>:
    custom: 'Hello world'
    Button:
        text: root.custom
app

This keyword always refers to your app instance. It’s equivalent to a call to kivy.app.App.get_running_app() in Python.

Label:
    text: app.name
args

This keyword is available in on_<action> callbacks. It refers to the arguments passed to the callback.

TextInput:
    on_focus: self.insert_text("Focus" if args[1] else "No focus")
ids

Class definitions may contain ids which can be used as a keywords::

<MyWidget>:
    Button:
        id: btn1
    Button:
        text: 'The state of the other button is %s' % btn1.state

Please note that the id will not be available in the widget instance: it is used exclusively for external references. id is a weakref to the widget, and not the widget itself. The widget itself can be accessed with <id>.__self__ (btn1.__self__ in this case).

When the kv file is processed, weakrefs to all the widgets tagged with ids are added to the root widget’s ids dictionary. In other words, following on from the example above, the buttons state could also be accessed as follows:

widget = MyWidget()
state = widget.ids["btn1"].state

# Or, as an alternative syntax,
state = widget.ids.btn1.state

Note that the outermost widget applies the kv rules to all its inner widgets before any other rules are applied. This means if an inner widget contains ids, these ids may not be available during the inner widget’s __init__ function.

Valid expressons

There are two places that accept python statements in a kv file: after a property, which assigns to the property the result of the expression (such as the text of a button as shown above) and after a on_property, which executes the statement when the property is updated (such as on_state).

In the former case, the expression can only span a single line, cannot be extended to multiple lines using newline escaping, and must return a value. An example of a valid expression is text: self.state and ('up' if self.state == 'normal' else 'down').

In the latter case, multiple single line statements are valid, including those that escape their newline, as long as they don’t add an indentation level.

Examples of valid statements are:

on_press: if self.state == 'normal': print('normal')
on_state:
    if self.state == 'normal': print('normal')
    else: print('down')
    if self.state == 'normal': \
    print('multiline normal')
    for i in range(10): print(i)
    print([1,2,3,4,
    5,6,7])

An example of a invalid statement:

on_state:
    if self.state == 'normal':
        print('normal')

Relation Between Values and Properties

When you use the Kivy language, you might notice that we do some work behind the scenes to automatically make things work properly. You should know that Properties implement the Observer Design Pattern. That means that you can bind your own function to be called when the value of a property changes (i.e. you passively observe the property for potential changes).

The Kivy language detects properties in your value expression and will create create callbacks to automatically update the property via your expression when changes occur.

Here’s a simple example that demonstrates this behaviour:

Button:
    text: str(self.state)

In this example, the parser detects that self.state is a dynamic value (a property). The state property of the button can change at any moment (when the user touches it). We now want this button to display its own state as text, even as the state changes. To do this, we use the state property of the Button and use it in the value expression for the button’s text property, which controls what text is displayed on the button (We also convert the state to a string representation). Now, whenever the button state changes, the text property will be updated automatically.

Remember: The value is a python expression! That means that you can do something more interesting like:

Button:
    text: 'Plop world' if self.state == 'normal' else 'Release me!'

The Button text changes with the state of the button. By default, the button text will be ‘Plop world’, but when the button is being pressed, the text will change to ‘Release me!’.

More precisely, the kivy language parser detects all substrings of the form X.a.b where X is self or root or app or a known id, and a and b are properties: it then adds the appropriate dependencies to cause the the constraint to be reevaluated whenever something changes. For example, this works exactly as expected:

<IndexedExample>:
    beta: self.a.b[self.c.d]

However, due to limitations in the parser which hopefully may be lifted in the future, the following doesn’t work:

<BadExample>:
    beta: self.a.b[self.c.d].e.f

indeed the .e.f part is not recognized because it doesn’t follow the expected pattern, and so, does not result in an appropriate dependency being setup. Instead, an intermediate property should be introduced to allow the following constraint:

<GoodExample>:
    alpha: self.a.b[self.c.d]
    beta: self.alpha.e.f

Graphical Instructions

The graphical instructions are a special part of the Kivy language. They are handled by the ‘canvas’ property definition:

Widget:
    canvas:
        Color:
            rgb: (1, 1, 1)
        Rectangle:
            size: self.size
            pos: self.pos

All the classes added inside the canvas property must be derived from the Instruction class. You cannot put any Widget class inside the canvas property (as that would not make sense because a widget is not a graphics instruction).

If you want to do theming, you’ll have the same question as in CSS: which rules have been executed first? In our case, the rules are executed in processing order (i.e. top-down).

If you want to change how Buttons are rendered, you can create your own kv file and add something like this:

<Button>:
    canvas:
        Color:
            rgb: (1, 0, 0)
        Rectangle:
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size
        Rectangle:
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.texture_size
            texture: self.texture

This will result in buttons having a red background with the label in the bottom left, in addition to all the preceding rules. You can clear all the previous instructions by using the Clear command:

<Button>:
    canvas:
        Clear
        Color:
            rgb: (1, 0, 0)
        Rectangle:
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size
        Rectangle:
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.texture_size
            texture: self.texture

Then, only your rules that follow the Clear command will be taken into consideration.

Dynamic classes

Dynamic classes allow you to create new widgets on-the-fly, without any python declaration in the first place. The syntax of the dynamic classes is similar to the Rules, but you need to specify the base classes you want to subclass.

The syntax looks like:

# Simple inheritance
<NewWidget@Button>:
    # kv code here ...

# Multiple inheritance
<NewWidget@ButtonBehavior+Label>:
    # kv code here ...

The @ character is used to separate your class name from the classes you want to subclass. The Python equivalent would have been:

# Simple inheritance
class NewWidget(Button):
    pass

# Multiple inheritance
class NewWidget(ButtonBehavior, Label):
    pass

Any new properties, usually added in python code, should be declared first. If the property doesn’t exist in the dynamic class, it will be automatically created as an ObjectProperty (pre 1.8.0) or as an appropriate typed property (from version 1.8.0).

Changed in version 1.8.0: If the property value is an expression that can be evaluated right away (no external binding), then the value will be used as default value of the property, and the type of the value will be used for the specialization of the Property class. In other terms: if you declare hello: “world”, a new StringProperty will be instantiated, with the default value “world”. Lists, tuples, dictionaries and strings are supported.

Let’s illustrate the usage of these dynamic classes with an implementation of a basic Image button. We could derive our classes from the Button and just add a property for the image filename:

<ImageButton@Button>:
    source: None

    Image:
        source: root.source
        pos: root.pos
        size: root.size

# let's use the new classes in another rule:
<MainUI>:
    BoxLayout:
        ImageButton:
            source: 'hello.png'
            on_press: root.do_something()
        ImageButton:
            source: 'world.png'
            on_press: root.do_something_else()

In Python, you can create an instance of the dynamic class as follows:

from kivy.factory import Factory
button_inst = Factory.ImageButton()

Note

Using dynamic classes, a child class can be declared before it’s parent. This however, leads to the unintuitive situation where the parent properties/methods override those of the child. Be careful if you choose to do this.

Templates

Changed in version 1.7.0: Template usage is now deprecated. Please use Dynamic classes instead.

Syntax of templates

Using a template in Kivy requires 2 things :

  1. a context to pass for the context (will be ctx inside template).
  2. a kv definition of the template.

Syntax of a template:

# With only one base class
[ClassName@BaseClass]:
    # .. definitions ..

# With more than one base class
[ClassName@BaseClass1,BaseClass2]:
    # .. definitions ..

For example, for a list, you’ll need to create a entry with a image on the left, and a label on the right. You can create a template for making that definition easier to use. So, we’ll create a template that uses 2 entries in the context: an image filename and a title:

[IconItem@BoxLayout]:
    Image:
        source: ctx.image
    Label:
        text: ctx.title

Then in Python, you can instantiate the template using:

from kivy.lang import Builder

# create a template with hello world + an image
# the context values should be passed as kwargs to the Builder.template
# function
icon1 = Builder.template('IconItem', title='Hello world',
    image='myimage.png')

# create a second template with other information
ctx = {'title': 'Another hello world',
       'image': 'myimage2.png'}
icon2 = Builder.template('IconItem', **ctx)
# and use icon1 and icon2 as other widget.
Template example

Most of time, when you are creating a screen in the kv lang, you use a lot of redefinitions. In our example, we’ll create a Toolbar, based on a BoxLayout, and put in a few Image widgets that will react to the on_touch_down event.

<MyToolbar>:
    BoxLayout:
        Image:
            source: 'data/text.png'
            size: self.texture_size
            size_hint: None, None
            on_touch_down: self.collide_point(*args[1].pos) and root.create_text()

        Image:
            source: 'data/image.png'
            size: self.texture_size
            size_hint: None, None
            on_touch_down: self.collide_point(*args[1].pos) and root.create_image()

        Image:
            source: 'data/video.png'
            size: self.texture_size
            size_hint: None, None
            on_touch_down: self.collide_point(*args[1].pos) and root.create_video()

We can see that the size and size_hint attribute are exactly the same. More than that, the callback in on_touch_down and the image are changing. These can be the variable part of the template that we can put into a context. Let’s try to create a template for the Image:

[ToolbarButton@Image]:

    # This is the same as before
    size: self.texture_size
    size_hint: None, None

    # Now, we are using the ctx for the variable part of the template
    source: 'data/%s.png' % ctx.image
    on_touch_down: self.collide_point(*args[1].pos) and ctx.callback()

The template can be used directly in the MyToolbar rule:

<MyToolbar>:
    BoxLayout:
        ToolbarButton:
            image: 'text'
            callback: root.create_text
        ToolbarButton:
            image: 'image'
            callback: root.create_image
        ToolbarButton:
            image: 'video'
            callback: root.create_video

That’s all :)

Template limitations

When you are creating a context:

  1. you cannot use references other than “root”:

    <MyRule>:
    Widget:
        id: mywidget
        value: 'bleh'
    Template:
        ctxkey: mywidget.value # << fail, this references the id
        # mywidget

  2. not all of the dynamic parts will be understood:

    <MyRule>:
    Template:
        ctxkey: 'value 1' if root.prop1 else 'value2' # << even if
        # root.prop1 is a property, if it changes value, ctxkey
        # will not be updated

Template definitions also replace any similarly named definitions in their entirety and thus do not support inheritance.

Redefining a widget’s style

Sometimes we would like to inherit from a widget in order to use its Python properties without also using its .kv defined style. For example, we would like to inherit from a Label, but we would also like to define our own canvas instructions instead of automatically using the canvas instructions inherited from the Label. We can achieve this by prepending a dash (-) before the class name in the .kv style definition.

In myapp.py:

class MyWidget(Label):
    pass

and in my.kv:

<-MyWidget>:
    canvas:
        Color:
            rgb: 1, 1, 1
        Rectangle:
            size: (32, 32)

MyWidget will now have a Color and Rectangle instruction in its canvas without any of the instructions inherited from the Label.

Redefining a widget’s property style

Similar to redefining style, sometimes we would like to inherit from a widget, keep all its KV defined styles, except for the style applied to a specific property. For example, we would like to inherit from a Button, but we would also like to set our own state_image, rather then relying on the background_normal and background_down values. We can achieve this by prepending a dash (-) before the state_image property name in the .kv style definition.

In myapp.py:

class MyWidget(Button):
    new_background = StringProperty('my_background.png')

and in my.kv:

<MyWidget>:
    -state_image: self.new_background

MyWidget will now have a state_image background set only by new_background, and not by any previous styles that may have set state_image.

Note

Although the previous rules are cleared, they are still applied during widget construction and are only removed when the new rule with the dash is reached. This means that initially, previous rules could be used to set the property.

Order of kwargs and KV rule application

Properties can be initialized in KV as well as in python. For example, in KV:

<MyRule@Widget>:
    text: 'Hello'
    ramp: 45.
    order: self.x + 10

Then MyRule() would initialize all three kivy properties to the given KV values. Separately in python, if the properties already exist as kivy properties one can do for example MyRule(line=’Bye’, side=55).

However, what will be the final values of the properties when MyRule(text=’Bye’, order=55) is executed? The quick rule is that python initialization is stronger than KV initialization only for constant rules.

Specifically, the kwargs provided to the python initializer are always applied first. So in the above example, text is set to ‘Bye’ and order is set to 55. Then, all the KV rules are applied, except those constant rules that overwrite a python initializer provided value.

That is, the KV rules that do not creates bindings such as text: ‘Hello’ and ramp: 45., if a value for that property has been provided in python, then that rule will not be applied.

So in the MyRule(text=’Bye’, order=55) example, text will be ‘Bye’, ramp will be 45., and order, which creates a binding, will first be set to 55, but then when KV rules are applied will end up being whatever self.x + 10 is.

Changed in version 1.9.1: Before, KV rules always overwrote the python values, now, python values are not overwritten by constant rules.

Lang Directives

You can use directives to add declarative commands, such as imports or constant definitions, to the lang files. Directives are added as comments in the following format:

#:<directivename> <options>
import <package>

New in version 1.0.5.

Syntax:

#:import <alias> <package>

You can import a package by writing:

#:import os os

<Rule>:
    Button:
        text: os.getcwd()

Or more complex:

#:import ut kivy.utils

<Rule>:
    canvas:
        Color:
            rgba: ut.get_random_color()

New in version 1.0.7.

You can directly import classes from a module:

#: import Animation kivy.animation.Animation
<Rule>:
    on_prop: Animation(x=.5).start(self)
set <key> <expr>

New in version 1.0.6.

Syntax:

#:set <key> <expr>

Set a key that will be available anywhere in the kv. For example:

#:set my_color (.4, .3, .4)
#:set my_color_hl (.5, .4, .5)

<Rule>:
    state: 'normal'
    canvas:
        Color:
            rgb: my_color if self.state == 'normal' else my_color_hl
include <file>

New in version 1.9.0.

Syntax:

#:include [force] <file>

Includes an external kivy file. This allows you to split complex widgets into their own files. If the include is forced, the file will first be unloaded and then reloaded again. For example:

# Test.kv
#:include mycomponent.kv
#:include force mybutton.kv

<Rule>:
    state: 'normal'
    MyButton:
    MyComponent:

# mycomponent.kv
#:include mybutton.kv

<MyComponent>:
    MyButton:

# mybutton.kv

<MyButton>:
    canvas:
        Color:
            rgb: (1.0, 0.0, 0.0)
        Rectangle:
            pos: self.pos
            size: (self.size[0]/4, self.size[1]/4)
class kivy.lang.Observable

Bases: kivy.event.ObjectWithUid

Observable is a stub class defining the methods required for binding. EventDispatcher is (the) one example of a class that implements the binding interface. See EventDispatcher for details.

New in version 1.9.0.

fbind()

See EventDispatcher.fbind().

Note

To keep backward compatibility with derived classes which may have inherited from Observable before, the fbind() method was added. The default implementation of fbind() is to create a partial function that it passes to bind while saving the uid and largs/kwargs. However, funbind() (and unbind_uid()) are fairly inefficient since we have to first lookup this partial function using the largs/kwargs or uid and then call unbind() on the returned function. It is recommended to overwrite these methods in derived classes to bind directly for better performance.

Similarly to EventDispatcher.fbind(), this method returns 0 on failure and a positive unique uid on success. This uid can be used with unbind_uid().

funbind()

See fbind() and EventDispatcher.funbind().

unbind_uid()

See fbind() and EventDispatcher.unbind_uid().

class kivy.lang.BuilderBase[source]

Bases: builtins.object

The Builder is responsible for creating a Parser for parsing a kv file, merging the results into its internal rules, templates, etc.

By default, Builder is a global Kivy instance used in widgets that you can use to load other kv files in addition to the default ones.

apply(widget, ignored_consts=set())[source]

Search all the rules that match the widget and apply them.

ignored_consts is a set or list type whose elements are property names for which constant KV rules (i.e. those that don’t create bindings) of that widget will not be applied. This allows e.g. skipping constant rules that overwrite a value initialized in python.

apply_rules(widget, rule_name, ignored_consts=set())[source]

Search all the rules that match rule_name widget and apply them to widget.

New in version 1.10.0.

ignored_consts is a set or list type whose elements are property names for which constant KV rules (i.e. those that don’t create bindings) of that widget will not be applied. This allows e.g. skipping constant rules that overwrite a value initialized in python.

load_file(filename, **kwargs)[source]

Insert a file into the language builder and return the root widget (if defined) of the kv file.

Parameters:
rulesonly: bool, defaults to False

If True, the Builder will raise an exception if you have a root widget inside the definition.
load_string(string, **kwargs)[source]

Insert a string into the Language Builder and return the root widget (if defined) of the kv string.

Parameters:
rulesonly: bool, defaults to False

If True, the Builder will raise an exception if you have a root widget inside the definition.

filename: str, defaults to None

If specified, the filename used to index the kv rules.

The filename parameter can be used to unload kv strings in the same way as you unload kv files. This can be achieved using pseudo file names e.g.:

Build.load_string("""
    <MyRule>:
        Label:
            text="Hello"
""", filename="myrule.kv")

can be unloaded via:

Build.unload_file("myrule.kv")
match(widget)[source]

Return a list of ParserRule objects matching the widget.

match_rule_name(rule_name)[source]

Return a list of ParserRule objects matching the widget.

sync()[source]

Execute all the waiting operations, such as the execution of all the expressions related to the canvas.

New in version 1.7.0.

template(*args, **ctx)[source]

Create a specialized template using a specific context.

New in version 1.0.5.

With templates, you can construct custom widgets from a kv lang definition by giving them a context. Check Template usage.

unbind_property(widget, name)[source]

Unbind the handlers created by all the rules of the widget that set the name.

This effectively clears all the rules of widget that take the form:

name: rule

For example:

>>> w = Builder.load_string('''
... Widget:
...     height: self.width / 2. if self.disabled else self.width
...     x: self.y + 50
... ''')
>>> w.size
[100, 100]
>>> w.pos
[50, 0]
>>> w.width = 500
>>> w.size
[500, 500]
>>> Builder.unbind_property(w, 'height')
>>> w.width = 222
>>> w.size
[222, 500]
>>> w.y = 500
>>> w.pos
[550, 500]

New in version 1.9.1.

unbind_widget(uid)[source]

Unbind all the handlers created by the KV rules of the widget. The kivy.uix.widget.Widget.uid is passed here instead of the widget itself, because Builder is using it in the widget destructor.

This effectively clears all the KV rules associated with this widget. For example:

>>> w = Builder.load_string('''
... Widget:
...     height: self.width / 2. if self.disabled else self.width
...     x: self.y + 50
... ''')
>>> w.size
[100, 100]
>>> w.pos
[50, 0]
>>> w.width = 500
>>> w.size
[500, 500]
>>> Builder.unbind_widget(w.uid)
>>> w.width = 222
>>> w.y = 500
>>> w.size
[222, 500]
>>> w.pos
[50, 500]

New in version 1.7.2.

unload_file(filename)[source]

Unload all rules associated with a previously imported file.

New in version 1.0.8.

Warning

This will not remove rules or templates already applied/used on current widgets. It will only effect the next widgets creation or template invocation.

exception kivy.lang.BuilderException(context, line, message, cause=None)[source]

Bases: kivy.lang.parser.ParserException

Exception raised when the Builder failed to apply a rule on a widget.

class kivy.lang.Parser(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Create a Parser object to parse a Kivy language file or Kivy content.

parse(content)[source]

Parse the contents of a Parser file and return a list of root objects.

parse_level(level, lines, spaces=0)[source]

Parse the current level (level * spaces) indentation.

strip_comments(lines)[source]

Remove all comments from all lines in-place. Comments need to be on a single line and not at the end of a line. i.e. a comment line’s first non-whitespace character must be a #.

exception kivy.lang.ParserException(context, line, message, cause=None)[source]

Bases: Exception

Exception raised when something wrong happened in a kv file.

Kv Compiler

class kivy.lang.compiler.KvContext(reinit_after=False)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Manages kv rules created under the context.

Parameters:reinit_after –

Whether all the rules that are not KvRule.triggered_only should be executed again after the bindings are complete when the KvContext exits. Defaults to False.

This is only useful when bind_on_enter in kv() is False, because then the rules are executed before the bindings occur, and it may be desirable for the rules to be executed again, once all the bindings occurs.

This is particularly useful for circular rules. It is False by default for performance reasons.

Class attributes:

Variables:
  • rules –

    List of KvRule Contains all the kv rules created under the context, ignoring rules created under a second context within this context. E.g.:

    with KvContext() as my_ctx:
    self.x @= self.y
    with KvContext() as my_ctx2:
        self.y @= self.height + 10
    with KvRule(name='my_rule'):
        self.width @= self.height

    then my_ctx will contain 2 rules, and my_ctx2 will contain 1 rule. The rules are ordered and numbered in the order they occur in the function.

  • named_rules – dictionary with all the rules that are named. Similarly to rules, but contains the rules that have been given names. In the example above, my_ctx.named_rules contains one rule with name/key value “my_rule”.
  • bind_store – (internal): Maintains a reference to the list that stores all the bindings created for all the rules in the context.
  • rebind_functions – (internal): Maintains a reference to all the callbacks used in all the context’s rules.
add_rule(rule)[source]

Adds the rule to the context.

It is called automatically by the compiler and should only be called when manually compiling kv.

unbind_all_rules()[source]

Calls KvRule.unbind_rule() for all the rules in the context to unbind all the rules.

class kivy.lang.compiler.KvRule(*binds, delay=None, name=None, triggered_only=False)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Describes a kv rule.

Parameters:
  • *binds –

    captures all positional arguments and add them to the bind list. E.g.:

    with KvRule():
    self.x @= self.y

    does the same things as:

    with KvRule(self.y):
    self.x = self.y

    and you can add as many positional args there as you like, and the rule will bind to all fo them. The args can be actual variable names, e.g. self.y, or as a string, e.g. “self.y” - they will do the same thing.

  • delay –

    the rule type: can be None (default), “canvas”, or a number. Describes the rule type. * If None, it’s a normal kv rule * If “canvas”, it’s meant to be used with a canvas instruction and

    the rule will be scheduled to be executed with other graphics after the frame, rather than every time it is called.
    • If a number, a Clock trigger event will be created with the given delay and when the rule dispatches, the event will be triggered, rather than be executed immediately.
  • name – a optional name for the rule. Defaults to None

Class attributes:

Variables:
  • largs – The largs provided when the rule is dispatched.
  • bind_store – (internal): Maintains a reference to the list that stores all the bindings created for the rule.
  • bind_store_leaf_indices – (internal): The list of all the indices in bind_store that store the leaf bindings created for the rule.
  • callback – (internal): The callback function that is called by the rule whenever it is dispatched.
  • _callback – (internal): If it’s a clock or canvas rule, contains the underlying callback that actually executed the rule. In that case, callback contains the clock trigger or function that schedules the canvas update.
unbind_rule()[source]

Unbinds the rule, so that it will not be triggered by any of the properties that the rule is bound to.

If the rule is already scheduled, e.g. with a canvas instruction or clock trigger, it may still execute (this may change in the future to immediately cancel that as well), but it won’t be scheduled again.

kivy.lang.compiler.kv(kv_syntax='minimal', proxy=False, rebind=True, bind_on_enter=False, captures_are_readonly=True)[source]

Decorator factory function that returns a decorator that compiles a kv containing function. Typical usage:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    @kv()  # notice that it MUST be called
    def apply_kv(self):
        with KvContext():
            self.x @= self.y + 256
Parameters:
  • kv_syntax –

    The binding syntax to support. Default: “minimal” With “minimal”, it’s similar to traditional kv, and binds rules e.g. self.x @= self.widget.y and self.dict[self.name]. When None, it binds to a expanded set of syntax, e.g. (self.widget + self.widget2).width.

    The “minimal” syntax is recommended for most situations and None should only be used in exceptional circumstance.

  • proxy –

    glob pattern(s) describing the widgets that should not hold a direct reference to other widgets for garbage collection purposes. Defaults to False

    It is either False - when all widgets should hold direct references, or True - when no widgets should hold direct references, or a glob string describing the widget(s) that should not hold a reference, e.g. “*widget” will match self.widget and self.my_widget. Or it can be a list of glob strings and any that match will not hold a direct reference.

    This is to be used when binding widgets that have a very long life, and it’s not desirable that the widget prevent other widgets from being garbage collected. This is mostly encountered when binding to the global App, which never dies.

    This is used for widgets that are being bound to, e.g. in the rule self.x @= self.app.my_x, proxy may be set to “*app”, to prevent the self widget from being kept alive by app. But is not needed e.g. when binding to widgets that are not independently kept alive.

    Warning

    If all binding widgets are using proxies, no one will keep the kv rules alive, and the rules will not be executed once garbage collection runs. You can save a reference to the KvContext, and that will keep that context alive as long as the context is held.

  • rebind –

    glob pattern(s) describing the intermediate widgets that should be rebound when they change. Defaults to True.

    It is either True - when all widgets should rebind, or False - when no widgets should rebind, or a glob string describing the widget(s) that should rebind, e.g. “*widget” will match self.widget and self.my_widget and both widget and my_widget will rebind. Or it can be a list of glob strings and any that match will rebind.

    This is used in rule e.g. self.x @= self.widget.x, if self.widget is rebound, then when self.widget changes, the rulee rebind to x belonging to the new widget stored in self.widget.

  • bind_on_enter –

    Where kv binding should occur for the context. Defaults to False.

    For a rule such as:

    with KvContext():
    ...

    binding can occur when the context is entered or exited. When bind_on_enter is True, it occurs upon entrance, when False it occurs upon exit. The default is False. Binding upon entrance is not recommended because it’s unintuitive and doesn’t follow the typical python programmatic flow.

  • captures_are_readonly –

    Whether any variables that participate in a rule may be changed between rule execution and binding. Defaults to True.

    This parameter should not be changed to False except for debugging purposes or if you truly understand the internals of binding.
Returns:

The compiled function associated with the original function, or the original function if there was nothing to compile.

Once a function is decorated, calling kv again on it will not recompile the function, unless the source or the compile options changed. This means calling kv()(f) will not re-compile f (and it shouldn’t need to).

exception kivy.lang.compiler.KvException[source]

Bases: Exception

Raised when something goes wrong with kv compilation or loading.

NO DOCUMENTATION (module kivy.uix.recycleview)
class kivy.lang.compiler.utils.StringPool(prefix='var')[source]

Bases: builtins.object

A pool of strings that we can borrow from. Strings can be reused or borrowed permanently. It just keeps incrementing and adding more items to the pool as needed, but reuses first. E.g.

>>> obj1 = object()
>>> obj2 = object()
>>> pool = StringPool()
>>> pool.borrow(obj1, 3)
'var_0'
>>> pool.borrow(obj2, 1)
'var_1'
>>> pool.borrow_persistent()
'var_2'
>>> pool.borrow_persistent()
'var_3'
>>> pool.return_back(obj1)
2
>>> pool.return_back(obj1)
1
>>> pool.borrow_persistent()
'var_4'
>>> pool.return_back(obj1)
0
>>> pool.borrow_persistent()
'var_0'
>>> pool.return_back(obj2)
0
>>> pool.borrow_persistent()
'var_1'
>>> pool.borrow_persistent()
'var_5'
borrow(token, count=1)[source]

Borrows a item for the token. :param token: The token that is borrowing the item. :param count: The number of times the item will be borrowed. :return: A value from the pool.

borrow_persistent()[source]

Borows a items from the pool permanently (will never be returned). :return: The item from the pool.

get_all_items()[source]
Returns:all the items that has been borrowed or are currently borrowed.
get_available_items()[source]
Returns:The list of items currently available to be borrowed by the pool, that has been borrowed previously (obviously we have an infinite list if we also include items not yet borrowed).
get_num_borrowed()[source]
Returns:The number of items currently borrowed.
return_back(token)[source]

Returns a an item borrowed from the pool by the token. The token must return the items for as many times as it borrowed it. :param token: The token that borrowed an item. :return: The number of times the token still borrowed the item from the

pool, after the current return.
kv Compilation
kivy.lang.compiler.compile.kv(kv_syntax='minimal', proxy=False, rebind=True, bind_on_enter=False, captures_are_readonly=True)[source]

Decorator factory function that returns a decorator that compiles a kv containing function. Typical usage:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    @kv()  # notice that it MUST be called
    def apply_kv(self):
        with KvContext():
            self.x @= self.y + 256
Parameters:
  • kv_syntax –

    The binding syntax to support. Default: “minimal” With “minimal”, it’s similar to traditional kv, and binds rules e.g. self.x @= self.widget.y and self.dict[self.name]. When None, it binds to a expanded set of syntax, e.g. (self.widget + self.widget2).width.

    The “minimal” syntax is recommended for most situations and None should only be used in exceptional circumstance.

  • proxy –

    glob pattern(s) describing the widgets that should not hold a direct reference to other widgets for garbage collection purposes. Defaults to False

    It is either False - when all widgets should hold direct references, or True - when no widgets should hold direct references, or a glob string describing the widget(s) that should not hold a reference, e.g. “*widget” will match self.widget and self.my_widget. Or it can be a list of glob strings and any that match will not hold a direct reference.

    This is to be used when binding widgets that have a very long life, and it’s not desirable that the widget prevent other widgets from being garbage collected. This is mostly encountered when binding to the global App, which never dies.

    This is used for widgets that are being bound to, e.g. in the rule self.x @= self.app.my_x, proxy may be set to “*app”, to prevent the self widget from being kept alive by app. But is not needed e.g. when binding to widgets that are not independently kept alive.

    Warning

    If all binding widgets are using proxies, no one will keep the kv rules alive, and the rules will not be executed once garbage collection runs. You can save a reference to the KvContext, and that will keep that context alive as long as the context is held.

  • rebind –

    glob pattern(s) describing the intermediate widgets that should be rebound when they change. Defaults to True.

    It is either True - when all widgets should rebind, or False - when no widgets should rebind, or a glob string describing the widget(s) that should rebind, e.g. “*widget” will match self.widget and self.my_widget and both widget and my_widget will rebind. Or it can be a list of glob strings and any that match will rebind.

    This is used in rule e.g. self.x @= self.widget.x, if self.widget is rebound, then when self.widget changes, the rulee rebind to x belonging to the new widget stored in self.widget.

  • bind_on_enter –

    Where kv binding should occur for the context. Defaults to False.

    For a rule such as:

    with KvContext():
    ...

    binding can occur when the context is entered or exited. When bind_on_enter is True, it occurs upon entrance, when False it occurs upon exit. The default is False. Binding upon entrance is not recommended because it’s unintuitive and doesn’t follow the typical python programmatic flow.

  • captures_are_readonly –

    Whether any variables that participate in a rule may be changed between rule execution and binding. Defaults to True.

    This parameter should not be changed to False except for debugging purposes or if you truly understand the internals of binding.
Returns:

The compiled function associated with the original function, or the original function if there was nothing to compile.

Once a function is decorated, calling kv again on it will not recompile the function, unless the source or the compile options changed. This means calling kv()(f) will not re-compile f (and it shouldn’t need to).

kivy.lang.compiler.compile.kv_apply_manual(ctx, callback, local_vars, global_vars, kv_syntax='minimal', proxy=False, rebind=True)[source]

Similar to kv(), except that is is called manually to compile bindings. Similalrly to kv(), the bindings are compiled once, and are only recompiled if any of the compile options or source code file containing the callback is modified.

This is meant to be used for debugging purposes, and may change in the future.

Typical usage:

class ManualkvWidget(Widget):

    def apply_kv(self):
        ctx = KvParserContext()

        def manage_val(*largs):
            self.x = self.y + 512
        manage_val()

        # will bind to `self.y`.
        rule = KvParserRule('self.y + 512')
        rule.callback = manage_val
        rule.callback_name = manage_val.__name__
        ctx.add_rule(rule)

        kv_apply_manual(ctx, self.apply_kv, locals(), globals())
Parameters:
  • ctx – a KvParserContext used for parsing the rules.
  • callback – The callback to call when any of the bindings change.
  • local_vars – locals() of the function where the bindings occur.
  • global_vars – globals() of the function where the bindings occur.
  • kv_syntax – See kv().
  • proxy – See kv().
  • rebind – See kv().
Returns:

None - it executes the compiled rule in the provided locals(), globals() environment.
Kv Compiler Contexts and Rules

Describes the classes that captures a kv binding rule as well as the context that stores the rules.

Typical usage:

class MyWidget(Widget):

    kv_ctx = None

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MyWidget, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.apply_kv()

    @kv()
    def apply_rule(self):
        with KvContext() as self.kv_ctx:
            self.width @= self.height + 10

            with KvRule(name='my_rule') as rule:
                print('callback args is:', rule.largs)
                self.x @= self.y + 25

Then:

>>> widget = MyWidget()
>>> widget.height = 43  # sets widget.width to 53
>>> rule = widget.kv_ctx.named_rules['my_rule']
>>> rule.unbind_rule()  # unbinds the rule
>>> widget.kv_ctx.unbind_all_rules()  # unbinds all the rules
class kivy.lang.compiler.kv_context.KvRule(*binds, delay=None, name=None, triggered_only=False)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Describes a kv rule.

Parameters:
  • *binds –

    captures all positional arguments and add them to the bind list. E.g.:

    with KvRule():
    self.x @= self.y

    does the same things as:

    with KvRule(self.y):
    self.x = self.y

    and you can add as many positional args there as you like, and the rule will bind to all fo them. The args can be actual variable names, e.g. self.y, or as a string, e.g. “self.y” - they will do the same thing.

  • delay –

    the rule type: can be None (default), “canvas”, or a number. Describes the rule type. * If None, it’s a normal kv rule * If “canvas”, it’s meant to be used with a canvas instruction and

    the rule will be scheduled to be executed with other graphics after the frame, rather than every time it is called.
    • If a number, a Clock trigger event will be created with the given delay and when the rule dispatches, the event will be triggered, rather than be executed immediately.
  • name – a optional name for the rule. Defaults to None

Class attributes:

Variables:
  • largs – The largs provided when the rule is dispatched.
  • bind_store – (internal): Maintains a reference to the list that stores all the bindings created for the rule.
  • bind_store_leaf_indices – (internal): The list of all the indices in bind_store that store the leaf bindings created for the rule.
  • callback – (internal): The callback function that is called by the rule whenever it is dispatched.
  • _callback – (internal): If it’s a clock or canvas rule, contains the underlying callback that actually executed the rule. In that case, callback contains the clock trigger or function that schedules the canvas update.
unbind_rule()[source]

Unbinds the rule, so that it will not be triggered by any of the properties that the rule is bound to.

If the rule is already scheduled, e.g. with a canvas instruction or clock trigger, it may still execute (this may change in the future to immediately cancel that as well), but it won’t be scheduled again.

class kivy.lang.compiler.kv_context.KvContext(reinit_after=False)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Manages kv rules created under the context.

Parameters:reinit_after –

Whether all the rules that are not KvRule.triggered_only should be executed again after the bindings are complete when the KvContext exits. Defaults to False.

This is only useful when bind_on_enter in kv() is False, because then the rules are executed before the bindings occur, and it may be desirable for the rules to be executed again, once all the bindings occurs.

This is particularly useful for circular rules. It is False by default for performance reasons.

Class attributes:

Variables:
  • rules –

    List of KvRule Contains all the kv rules created under the context, ignoring rules created under a second context within this context. E.g.:

    with KvContext() as my_ctx:
    self.x @= self.y
    with KvContext() as my_ctx2:
        self.y @= self.height + 10
    with KvRule(name='my_rule'):
        self.width @= self.height

    then my_ctx will contain 2 rules, and my_ctx2 will contain 1 rule. The rules are ordered and numbered in the order they occur in the function.

  • named_rules – dictionary with all the rules that are named. Similarly to rules, but contains the rules that have been given names. In the example above, my_ctx.named_rules contains one rule with name/key value “my_rule”.
  • bind_store – (internal): Maintains a reference to the list that stores all the bindings created for all the rules in the context.
  • rebind_functions – (internal): Maintains a reference to all the callbacks used in all the context’s rules.
add_rule(rule)[source]

Adds the rule to the context.

It is called automatically by the compiler and should only be called when manually compiling kv.

unbind_all_rules()[source]

Calls KvRule.unbind_rule() for all the rules in the context to unbind all the rules.

class kivy.lang.compiler.kv_context.KvParserRule(*binds, delay=None, name=None, triggered_only=False)[source]

Bases: kivy.lang.compiler.kv_context.KvRule

Created by the parser when it encounters a KvRule.

It is also used when manually compiling kv.

class kivy.lang.compiler.kv_context.KvParserContext(reinit_after=False)[source]

Bases: kivy.lang.compiler.kv_context.KvContext

Created by the parser when it encounters a KvContext.

It is also used when manually compiling kv.

Kv Compiler Runtime Functions

Exports functions used by the compiled code at runtime.

kivy.lang.compiler.runtime.clear_kvc_cache()[source]

Clears the cache that stores all the compiled functions that has been imported.

kivy.lang.compiler.runtime.get_kvc_filename(func, flags='')[source]

Returns the kvc file associated with the function. Specifically, it’s the filename where the function’s compiled kv code is stored.

The file may not exist, if it has not been compiled yet.

kivy.lang.compiler.runtime.load_kvc_from_file(func, target_func_name=None, flags='', compile_flags=())[source]

Loads the compiled kv function from the kvc file associated with the function.

This is a internal function, with non-public API.

Parameters:
  • func – The original function, whose compiled code should be loaded.
  • target_func_name – The name of the function as stored in the kvc file. Typically, it’s the function’s name.
  • flags – Any arch flags used when saving the kvc file. This is stored in the kvc filename.
  • compile_flags – Any compiler flags used when compiling the kvc file. These are stored within the compiled code, not in the filename.
Returns:

The compiled function object.
kivy.lang.compiler.runtime.save_kvc_to_file(func, src_code, flags='', compile_flags=())[source]

Saves the compiled source code generated from the function to a kvc file.

This is a internal function, with non-public API.

Parameters:
  • func – The function object from which the compiled code was generated.
  • src_code – The compiled source code as string.
  • flags – Any arch flags used when saving the kvc file. This is stored in the kvc filename.
  • compile_flags – Any compiler flags used when compiling the kvc file. These are stored within the compiled code, not in the filename.
kivy.lang.compiler.runtime.add_graphics_callback(item, largs)[source]

Add the item to be added to the linked list of canvas instructions to be executed with all the canvas instructions by process_graphics_callbacks(). If it’s already scheduled, it is not added again.

This is a internal function, with non-public API.

Parameters:
  • item – The item scheduled.
  • largs – The largs of the first time the callback was scheduled. It gets forwarded to the callback when executed.
kivy.lang.compiler.runtime.process_graphics_callbacks()[source]

Process all the canvas callbacks that has been scheduled by add_graphics_callback().

This is a internal function, with non-public API.

Kv Compiler Source Code Generation

Generates the compiled kv source code.

class kivy.lang.compiler.src_gen.KvCompiler(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

The compiler that generates all the source code.

This class is not part of the public API.

gen_base_rebind_node_local_variable(src_code, subgraph, node, temp_pool, nodes_use_count, nodes_original_ref, nodes_temp_var_name, bind_store_name)[source]

generates the source for getting the value from the bind store on which the rebind function was bound, and saves it as a local variable to be used by children nodes later in the rebind function.

Should only be called on the nodes of a subgraph and not its terminal nodes. Also, should only be called on a node of the subgraph, if this this is at the root of the rebind function. That means we need to lookup the node’s root value from the bind store.

gen_non_bind_node_local_variable(src_code, node, temp_pool, nodes_use_count, nodes_original_ref, nodes_temp_var_name, indent)[source]

Create the local temp variable when rebinding from a node, provided the node is neither a leaf nor a rebindable attribute. E.g. a simple addition operation, or even a attribute, but rebind is False for that attribute.

gen_subgraph_and_children_rebind_callback(src_code, subgraph, bind_store_name)[source]

The subgraph is composed of root nodes and leaf nodes and is of course a directed graph because the containing graph is directed.

All the leaf nodes (called terminal nodes here) are attribute nodes. They are either rebind nodes (to which we bind a rebind function, e.g. for self.widget.x, it is the self node with property widget), or are leaf nodes (to which we bind a rule, e.g. self.widget with x property in the example above).

All the root nodes, called simply nodes, are either attribute nodes that are rebind, or are literals or captured global/local/nonlocal variables. This means, that we can compute the value of any of the terminal nodes using just the nodes of the subgraph. We don’t need anything else!

Task: Given a subgraph, find all the nodes in the larger graph that depend (are children) of the terminal nodes in the subgraph. We then bind a single rebind function, that updates all the nodes in the dependency graph of the subgraph, whenever any of the root nodes of the subgraph is changed.

This means we unbind, and then rebind to any new values discovered.

At the end of the rebind callback, we also executed all (once) the rules that contain any of the nodes encountered along the way. This ensures the rule(s) are properly executed when any of the rebind node change.

Algorithm: The overall algorithm is pretty simple, we start with the subgraph added to a queue. Then we (1) remove the first subgraph from the queue (2) add all the subgraphs that depend on (are children of) this subgraph to the queue, (3) use the subgraph if it has not already been used in a previous iteration of the loop.

The exact details of how each subgraph is “used”, is defined in the function.

gen_subgraph_bindings(src_code, subgraph, temp_pool, nodes_use_count, nodes_original_ref, nodes_temp_var_name, init_bindings, bind_store_name, parent_nodes_of_leaves=None, store_indices_count=None)[source]

Generates the code that binds all the callbacks associated with this subgraph.

Kv Parser

Parses source code contains kv rules and contexts.

exception kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.KvException[source]

Bases: Exception

Raised when something goes wrong with kv compilation or loading.

exception kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.KvCompilerParserException[source]

Bases: kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.KvException

Raised when something goes wrong with kv parsing.

kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.parse_expr_ast(expr_str)[source]

Takes a expression string (i.e. can be represented by ast.Expr type), e.g. “self.x”, and returns the AST node that directly corresponds to that expression (i.e. it’s not wrapped in a Module like ast.parse).

E.g.:

>>> ast.dump(parse_expr_ast('self.x'))
"Attribute(value=Name(id='self', ctx=Load()), attr='x', ctx=Load())"
class kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.BindSubGraph(nodes, terminal_nodes)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

A minimal rebind/leaf constrained subgraph from the bind graph.

bind_store_rebind_nodes_indices = {}

The nodes that are in the nodes of the subgraph, and maps to the index in callback_names and bind_store_indices where this subgraph was bound to in the bind store. I.e. the index in bind store, where each node bind a rebind function that is the rebind created for this subgraph.

n_rebind_deps = 0

The number of rebind nodes in nodes.

rebind_callback_name = None

There is one rebind callback for each subtree, provided there are at least one rebind attribute as a node in nodes (i.e. n_rebind_deps is non-zero) in which case there are none.

class kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.ASTBindNodeRef(is_attribute)[source]

Bases: _ast.AST

Created by ParseKvBindTransformer as it walks the AST graph to represent an original ast.AST node that we could bind to (e.g. a attribute access of a rebind, or leaf node) or a dependency of such a node (e.g. a local or global or Name etc.).

E.g. given self.x + self.y, when visiting its ast nodes, we create corresponding ASTBindNodeRef nodes for self, x, and y.

Subsequently, depends and depends_on_me describes a newly constructed ast graph that represents a subgraph of the original ast graph, that contains this node.

E.g. self.x + other.x represents two independent subgraphs, one with ASTBindNodeRef nodes representing self and self.x, and the other with nodes representing other and other.x.

After parsing, the graphs created by these nodes are self contained in the sense they

count = 0

The number of unique leaves (leaf_rule is not None, not counting leaf_rule value duplicates) that this node is an ancestor of or 1 if it’s a leaf_rule. E.g. in self.obj.x + self.obj.y, self.obj has a count of two as does self. y and x both have a count of one.

:atr:`count` is not the same as len(depends_on_me). Although for the the rule self.x + self.y.z, the len and count will be the same for self (2). For rule self.x[self.x.y].z, there’s only one leaf rule so count will be one, yet depends_on_me will contain two items for the node representing self.x.

Similarly, if we have two rules, each saying self.x, then self will have a count of two.

depends = []

List of ASTBindNodeRef instances that represent ast nodes that are parents of this node. The ASTBindNodeRef.depends_on_me of such parents must include this node.

depends_on_me = []

List of ASTBindNodeRef instances that represent ast nodes that are children of this node. The ASTBindNodeRef.depends of such children must include this node.

static group_by_required_deps_ordered(nodes)[source]

Groups the nodes into groups based on their deps. All nodes with the same deps are grouped together. The order of nodes is preserved as given in nodes such that the first occurrence of nodes with unique deps are ordered in the order they occur in nodes.

is_attribute = False

Whether the ASTBindNodeRef represents an ast.Attribute node. These are nodes that we potentially bind to either because it’s a rebind node or because it’s a leaf.

leaf_rule = None

If is_attribute and it’s a leaf node in the ast expression, e.g. x in self.x or (self.y + self.z).x, then leaf_rule is set to the value of rule passed to ParseKvBindTransformer.update_graph(). That indicates that it’s a leaf. Otherwise it is None.

The exact value of leaf_rule is not important, we just use it to check if it’s None.

proxy = False

If the node’s child is an is_attribute, then it indicates whether the object represented by this node must not hold a direct reference to the other objects after binding. When True, it will hold a proxy to the objects.

E.g. if a rule is bound to self.x.y, then we bind to self.x and potentially to self, depending on the rebind value of self.x. Either way, if proxy is True for self and/or self.x, neither will hold a direct ref to any of the binding objects or callbacks. This is to prevent the self and/or self.x objects from keeping the other objects from being garbage collected.

proxy may be set after graph parsing is done and is not used during parsing (ParseKvBindTransformer.update_graph()) in any way.

rebind = False

If the node is an is_attribute, and if it’s not a leaf_rule then it indicates whether this node will be rebound.

E.g. if a rule is bound to self.x.y, then we would need to rebind the rule to the x attribute if rebind is True. In this case, if x changes, all the nodes that are children of x will be re-evaluated and e.g. the rule will be rebound so then when the y value of the new x changes the rule will be dispatched.

rebind may be set after graph parsing is done and is not used during parsing (ParseKvBindTransformer.update_graph()) in any way.

ref_node = None

The AST node that this instance represents.

src = ''

The generate_source() generated source representing the ref_node. E.g. for the graph self.x.y + self.z, if the ref_node represents the x Attribute node, then src will be “self.x”.

In the bind graph, this is the primary method we use currently to identify node duplicates. I.e. ParseKvBindTransformer.src_node_map keeps a mapping from src to the ASTBindNodeRef instance that represents it for non-leaf_rule nodes. Then, if we encounter a source fragment we have seen before, we reuse that node and increment count, unless it’s a leaf_rule, then we don’t re-use but always create a new one (except if we have seen this leaf already in that rule as tracked by ParseKvBindTransformer.nodes_under_leaf).

subgraph_for_terminal_node = None

The subgraph the node appears in as a terminal node. It can only be one. Otherwise, either it has shared deps, in which case it would be one subgraph as each contains all the deps of every terminal node. Otherwise, they don’t share deps, which makes no sense.

Also, nodes that are not rebind, will occur only in one subgraph, so this is also set to the subgraph by populate_bind_stores_and_indices_and_callback_names. Nodes that are not rebind and occur in multiple subgraphs, e.g. a number, such nodes never care what subgraph it’s in, because it has no rebind in its parent graph so the subgraph is the last one it occurred in and.

subgraphs_to_bind_store_idx_and_name = {}

Maps a subgraph to the index in callback_names and bind_store_indices, indicating the index in these lists that corresponds to the bind for that subgraph.

class kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.ASTStrPlaceholder(*largs, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: _ast.AST

An AST node that represents a list of strings that is added to the source code when generated to source. They are implicitly indented to the indentation level of the node they are contained in.

Useful for dumping strings rather than having to create AST nodes for all the source code manually. E.g.:

>>> node = ASTStrPlaceholder()
>>> node.src_lines = ['self.x', 'name = self.y']
>>> generate_source(node)
'self.x
name = self.y’
>>> # then
>>> if_node = ast.parse('if self.z:\n    55')
>>> ast.dump(if_node)
"Module(body=[If(test=Attribute(value=Name(id='self', ctx=Load()), attr='z', ctx=Load()), body=[Expr(value=Num(n=55))], orelse=[])])"
>>> if_node.body[0].body[0].value = node
>>> generate_source(if_node)
'if self.z:\n\n    self.x\n    name = self.y'
class kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.ASTNodeList(*largs, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: _ast.AST

AST node that represents a list of AST nodes.

E.g.:

>>> node1 = ast.parse('self.x')
>>> node2 = ast.parse('self.y')
>>> node_list = ASTNodeList()
>>> node_list.nodes = [node1, node2]
>>> generate_source(node_list)
'self.x\nself.y'

Or:

>>> node1 = ast.parse('if self.x:\n    55')
>>> node2 = ast.parse('name = self.y')
>>> node_list = ASTNodeList()
>>> node_list.nodes = [node1, node2]
>>> generate_source(node_list)
'if self.x:\n    55\nname = self.y'
nodes = []

List of ast nodes represented by this node.

class kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.RefSourceGenerator(indent_with, add_line_information=False, pretty_string=<function pretty_string>, len=<built-in function len>, isinstance=<built-in function isinstance>, callable=<built-in function callable>)[source]

Bases: astor.code_gen.SourceGenerator

Generates the source code from the custom AST nodes.

Used with generate_source() to add custom AST nodes.

kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.generate_source(node)[source]

Generates the source code string represented by the node based on astor.to_source.

As opposed to astor.to_source, it understands how to handle our custom AST classes and removes any trailing newlines.

E.g.:

>>> node = ast.parse('self.x + self.y + len("hello")')
>>> generate_source(node)
"self.x + self.y + len('hello')"
class kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.ParseCheckWhitelisted(whitelist)[source]

Bases: ast.NodeTransformer

Takes a expression node and checks whether any of the expression nodes that are part of the node’s graph are not in the whitelist.

For every node encountered, we map the node in node_has_illegal_parent to whether the node or any of its parents are not whitelisted.

E.g. self.x would map self and self.x to False, while (self.x + self.y).z would map self, self.x, self.y to False and (self.x + self.y) and (self.x + self.y).z to True (assuming only Attribute and Name are whitelisted).

check_node_graph(node)[source]

Gets called with a node describing a single expression. Doesn’t accept non-expression nodes, e.g. an assign, Module etc. It then populates node_has_illegal_parent.

generic_visit(node)[source]

Called if no explicit visitor function exists for a node.

has_illegal_parent = False

Set by node to True if it or any of its parents are not whitelisted.

node_has_illegal_parent = {}

Maps each node in check_node_graph() node’s graph to whether it is or has a non-whitelisted parent.

whitelist = set()

Set of ast class names that are whitelisted. These are strings with the exact class names, e.g. “Attribute”.

class kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.ParseKvBindTransformer(kv_syntax=None)[source]

Bases: ast.NodeTransformer

Transforms and computes all the nodes that should be bound to. It processes all the nodes and create the graphs representing the bind rules.

Algorithm: given ast for e.g. (self.x + self.y).z + 55, the leaves are `z and 55 and the roots are self, 55. For every node we visit, it first processes its parents and then itself. E.g. (self.x + self.y) is processed before (self.x + self.y).z, and self.x, self.y before (self.x + self.y).

The idea is to find the first node starting from leaves and working up the parent graph that are an Attribute, e.g. (self.x + self.y).z. Once we have that, we may need to rebind to all intermediate attribute nodes in its parent graph. E.g. for (self.x + self.y).z, we may need to rebind to self.x and self.y. We create ASTBindNodeRef for each node we encounter once we encounter the first Attribute.

So e.g. for self.x + self.q, we create 3 ASTBindNodeRef nodes - for self, self.x, and self.q. Their summation does not happen “under” a Attribute access, so it is ignored.

ASTBindNodeRef instances describe subgraphs within the larger ast graph. As can be seen, ASTBindNodeRef points to nodes that depend on it (children) and that it depends on (parents)- that defines the subgraph that we may need to rebind to.

Nodes that evaluate to the same string, e.g. in self.x + self.x, self.x occurs twice, but in the graph we create, we only create one node for self and one node for self.x. Similarly, for self.x + self.y, only 3 nodes are created.

Examples so far, all created one subgraph - but we can have more than one. E.g. self.x + other.x creates two independent graphs, one for self.x and one for other.x, each composed of two nodes because they share no common nodes. But e.g. (self.x + other.y).z will create one subgraph with 6 nodes, a node for each operation because they all happen under the same Attribute leaf so it describes one graph.

The key thing to remember is that parent nodes are processed before children. This order determines the linear order of the nodes as they get added to nodes_by_rule. This means that when a node is encountered in the nodes_by_rule lists, all their parents are present in the lists at indices previous to that node. In other words, if we walk the lists linearly, we encounter a node only after all its dependencies. This key property is used by the compiler to help reason about the graph order.

There are two syntax flavors, “minimal” and the the full syntax. The “minimal” version only rebinds to nodes that are attribute access or slice access. E.g. self.x[self.y].z. The full syntax, allows also e.g. (self.x + other.y).z and would also rebind to the z property of (self.x + other.y). The “minimal” syntax in this case would only rebind to self.x and other.y.

This is used by calling update_graph() once for each rule, where we pass the ast nodes for a rule to that function at once. The idea is to create graphs that represent bindings across all the rules, while also tracking which rule a (leaf) node came from. E.g. if we had two rules - self.x + self.y, and self.x.z + 55 + self.y, then we would create one graph: self -> x, self -> y, x -> z that describes the bindings for the rules. Additionally, we would create a leaf from x, y for the first rule, and z, y for the second. You can see more in the visualization module.

Currently, all comprehensions and lambda are treated as opaque so we don’t bind to anything within it.

current_child_node = None

As we walk the bind graph nodes, for each expression node we create a ASTBindNodeRef that references the node and add it to nodes_by_rule. The node is stored here while we explore its parent tree. Then, all the direct parent’s of this node will point to this node using their ASTBindNodeRef.depend_on_me and this node’s ASTBindNodeRef.depends will point to the parents.

current_rule = None

During the processing of a rule in update_graph(), we store here the rule parameter passed to update_graph(). Its value is used to set ASTBindNodeRef.leaf_rule for leaf nodes.

generic_visit(node, is_attribute=False, is_final_attribute=False)[source]

Called if no explicit visitor function exists for a node.

illegal_parent_check = None

Stores the ParseCheckWhitelisted we use to check for whitelisted nodes when not all classes are whitelisted. Otherwise, it’s None.

leaf_nodes_in_rule = set()

For each rule, while the rule is processed it keeps track of the leaf nodes in this rule we encountered already. This prevent creating duplicate copies of e.g. self.x + self.x for the same rule. So if we already saw this exact leaf in the rule, we don’t add a node for it again.

nodes_by_rule = []

For each rule (each time we call update_graph()), we add a new list here that contains all the ASTBindNodeRef that were created for this rule. Existing nodes that are re-used from previous rules are not added.

The order is such that if we were to linearly walk across all the lists in order in nodes_by_rule, when we a encounter a node, all the parents of the node, up to the roots would have been encountered by the time we reach the node. This means that the node deps are always encountered first. But, unrelated nodes may also be present before reaching the node, even if they are not parents.

nodes_under_leaf = set()

For every rule and for every leaf, this stores all the nodes that we encountered while processing the parents of the leaf.

src_node_map = {}

For each non leaf ASTBindNodeRef node we create (i.e. ASTBindNodeRef.leaf_rule is None), we map the source code representation of the node (ASTBindNodeRef.src) to the node. E.g. for self.x.y we create three reference nodes with the corresponding representation, “self”, “self.x”, and “self.x.y”.

This helps find duplicates across all rules, e.g. for self.x + self.x, we only create two nodes for “self” and “self.x” the first time we encounter them. The second time, we just re-use the existing node for self and increment its ASTBindNodeRef.count. The second time we encounter self.x in this rule, we don’t create a new leaf because leaf_nodes_in_rule tracks the already seen leaf nodes per rule.

src_nodes = []

During each rule, it creates the list of ASTBindNodeRef instances that were created due to this rule. Re-used nodes from previous rules are not added.

update_graph(nodes, rule)[source]

Adds the nodes of the the rule to the existing bind graph.

It creates a new rule list in nodes_by_rule and all nodes newly created due to this rule are added to it.

whitelist_opts = {'minimal': {'NameConstant', 'Subscript', 'Name', 'Num', 'Bytes', 'Str', 'Attribute'}}

For each syntax flavor, the values is a set of the names of AST node classes that is allowed to be “under” a Attribute. If we encounter a non-whitelisted class and illegal_parent_check is not None, the nodes between the Attribute and illegal node would be dropped from the bind graph.

class kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.ParseKvFunctionTransformer(kv_syntax=None, context_classes={}, rule_classes={})[source]

Bases: ast.NodeTransformer

Transforms and parses the kv decorated function and creates all the graphs required for the generation of compiled source code.

Notes:

The most important things is that we cannot allow a kv rule to be conditionally executed because we’d be lying to the user.

E.g. a return statement is forbidden within a kv context.

There’s another problem to avoid, having callbacks use variables that are not available anymore or has changed. Therefore, we capture all the variables, local, nonlocal, and global defined before the rule and provide it to the callback (side note, that improves speed). Therefore, some statements, e.g. a function def contains local variables which is too hard to trace, so we don’t allow it within a rule at all as we cannot figure out which variables need to be captured (yet).

This transformer is not allowed to change nodes (except trivially), except for changing kv rule and ctx from with to plain assignment, and similarly from x @= y or x ^= y to x = y.

generic_visit(node)[source]

Called if no explicit visitor function exists for a node.

visit(node)[source]

Visit a node.

class kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.DoNothingAST[source]

Bases: _ast.AST

An AST node indicating that nothing should generated in the source code.

class kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.ParseExpressionNameLoadTransformer[source]

Bases: ast.NodeTransformer

AST transformer that finds all the Name nodes in the graph.

class kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.VerifyKvCaptureOnExitTransformer(first_pass_rules, first_pass_contexts, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.ParseKvFunctionTransformer

AST transformer that verifies that captured variables are not modified and are read only, for the case where the bindings occur upon KvContext exit.

class kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.VerifyKvCaptureOnEnterTransformer(first_pass_rules, first_pass_contexts, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.VerifyKvCaptureOnExitTransformer

AST transformer that verifies that captured variables are not modified and are read only, for the case where the bindings occur upon KvContext enter.

kivy.lang.compiler.ast_parse.verify_readonly_nodes(graph, transformer, bind_on_enter)[source]

Runs the appropriate transformer that verifies that captured and read only variables are not modified.

Builder

Class used for the registering and application of rules for specific widgets.

class kivy.lang.builder.Observable

Bases: kivy.event.ObjectWithUid

Observable is a stub class defining the methods required for binding. EventDispatcher is (the) one example of a class that implements the binding interface. See EventDispatcher for details.

New in version 1.9.0.

fbind()

See EventDispatcher.fbind().

Note

To keep backward compatibility with derived classes which may have inherited from Observable before, the fbind() method was added. The default implementation of fbind() is to create a partial function that it passes to bind while saving the uid and largs/kwargs. However, funbind() (and unbind_uid()) are fairly inefficient since we have to first lookup this partial function using the largs/kwargs or uid and then call unbind() on the returned function. It is recommended to overwrite these methods in derived classes to bind directly for better performance.

Similarly to EventDispatcher.fbind(), this method returns 0 on failure and a positive unique uid on success. This uid can be used with unbind_uid().

funbind()

See fbind() and EventDispatcher.funbind().

unbind_uid()

See fbind() and EventDispatcher.unbind_uid().

kivy.lang.builder.Builder = <kivy.lang.builder.BuilderBase object>

Main instance of a BuilderBase.

class kivy.lang.builder.BuilderBase[source]

Bases: builtins.object

The Builder is responsible for creating a Parser for parsing a kv file, merging the results into its internal rules, templates, etc.

By default, Builder is a global Kivy instance used in widgets that you can use to load other kv files in addition to the default ones.

apply(widget, ignored_consts=set())[source]

Search all the rules that match the widget and apply them.

ignored_consts is a set or list type whose elements are property names for which constant KV rules (i.e. those that don’t create bindings) of that widget will not be applied. This allows e.g. skipping constant rules that overwrite a value initialized in python.

apply_rules(widget, rule_name, ignored_consts=set())[source]

Search all the rules that match rule_name widget and apply them to widget.

New in version 1.10.0.

ignored_consts is a set or list type whose elements are property names for which constant KV rules (i.e. those that don’t create bindings) of that widget will not be applied. This allows e.g. skipping constant rules that overwrite a value initialized in python.

load_file(filename, **kwargs)[source]

Insert a file into the language builder and return the root widget (if defined) of the kv file.

Parameters:
rulesonly: bool, defaults to False

If True, the Builder will raise an exception if you have a root widget inside the definition.
load_string(string, **kwargs)[source]

Insert a string into the Language Builder and return the root widget (if defined) of the kv string.

Parameters:
rulesonly: bool, defaults to False

If True, the Builder will raise an exception if you have a root widget inside the definition.

filename: str, defaults to None

If specified, the filename used to index the kv rules.

The filename parameter can be used to unload kv strings in the same way as you unload kv files. This can be achieved using pseudo file names e.g.:

Build.load_string("""
    <MyRule>:
        Label:
            text="Hello"
""", filename="myrule.kv")

can be unloaded via:

Build.unload_file("myrule.kv")
match(widget)[source]

Return a list of ParserRule objects matching the widget.

match_rule_name(rule_name)[source]

Return a list of ParserRule objects matching the widget.

sync()[source]

Execute all the waiting operations, such as the execution of all the expressions related to the canvas.

New in version 1.7.0.

template(*args, **ctx)[source]

Create a specialized template using a specific context.

New in version 1.0.5.

With templates, you can construct custom widgets from a kv lang definition by giving them a context. Check Template usage.

unbind_property(widget, name)[source]

Unbind the handlers created by all the rules of the widget that set the name.

This effectively clears all the rules of widget that take the form:

name: rule

For example:

>>> w = Builder.load_string('''
... Widget:
...     height: self.width / 2. if self.disabled else self.width
...     x: self.y + 50
... ''')
>>> w.size
[100, 100]
>>> w.pos
[50, 0]
>>> w.width = 500
>>> w.size
[500, 500]
>>> Builder.unbind_property(w, 'height')
>>> w.width = 222
>>> w.size
[222, 500]
>>> w.y = 500
>>> w.pos
[550, 500]

New in version 1.9.1.

unbind_widget(uid)[source]

Unbind all the handlers created by the KV rules of the widget. The kivy.uix.widget.Widget.uid is passed here instead of the widget itself, because Builder is using it in the widget destructor.

This effectively clears all the KV rules associated with this widget. For example:

>>> w = Builder.load_string('''
... Widget:
...     height: self.width / 2. if self.disabled else self.width
...     x: self.y + 50
... ''')
>>> w.size
[100, 100]
>>> w.pos
[50, 0]
>>> w.width = 500
>>> w.size
[500, 500]
>>> Builder.unbind_widget(w.uid)
>>> w.width = 222
>>> w.y = 500
>>> w.size
[222, 500]
>>> w.pos
[50, 500]

New in version 1.7.2.

unload_file(filename)[source]

Unload all rules associated with a previously imported file.

New in version 1.0.8.

Warning

This will not remove rules or templates already applied/used on current widgets. It will only effect the next widgets creation or template invocation.

exception kivy.lang.builder.BuilderException(context, line, message, cause=None)[source]

Bases: kivy.lang.parser.ParserException

Exception raised when the Builder failed to apply a rule on a widget.

Parser

Class used for the parsing of .kv files into rules.

class kivy.lang.parser.Parser(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Create a Parser object to parse a Kivy language file or Kivy content.

parse(content)[source]

Parse the contents of a Parser file and return a list of root objects.

parse_level(level, lines, spaces=0)[source]

Parse the current level (level * spaces) indentation.

strip_comments(lines)[source]

Remove all comments from all lines in-place. Comments need to be on a single line and not at the end of a line. i.e. a comment line’s first non-whitespace character must be a #.

exception kivy.lang.parser.ParserException(context, line, message, cause=None)[source]

Bases: Exception

Exception raised when something wrong happened in a kv file.

External libraries

Kivy comes with other python/C libraries:

Warning

Even though Kivy comes with these external libraries, we do not provide any support for them and they might change in the future. Don’t rely on them in your code.

GstPlayer

New in version 1.8.0.

GstPlayer is a media player implemented specifically for Kivy with Gstreamer 1.0. It doesn’t use Gi at all and is focused on what we want: the ability to read video and stream the image in a callback, or read an audio file. Don’t use it directly but use our Core providers instead.

This player is automatically compiled if you have pkg-config –libs –cflags gstreamer-1.0 working.

Warning

This is an external library and Kivy does not provide any support for it. It might change in the future and we advise you don’t rely on it in your code.

OSC

This is an heavy modified version of PyOSC used to access the Open Sound Control protocol. It is used by Kivy internally for TUIO providers, but can also be used by applications to interect with devices or processes using the OSC API.

Warning

This is an external library and Kivy does not provide any support for it. It might change in the future and we advise you don’t rely on it in your code.

NO DOCUMENTATION (module kivy.uix.recycleview)
class kivy.lib.osc.OSC.CallbackManager[source]

Bases: builtins.object

This utility class maps OSC addresses to callables.

The CallbackManager calls its callbacks with a list of decoded OSC arguments, including the address and the typetags as the first two arguments.

add(callback, name)[source]

Adds a callback to our set of callbacks, or removes the callback with name if callback is None.

dispatch(message, source=None)[source]

Sends decoded OSC data to an appropriate calback

handle(data, source=None)[source]

Given OSC data, tries to call the callback with the right address.

unbundler(messages)[source]

Dispatch the messages in a decoded bundle.

kivy.lib.osc.OSC.OSCArgument(data)[source]

Convert some Python types to their OSC binary representations, returning a (typetag, data) tuple.

kivy.lib.osc.OSC.OSCBlob(next)[source]

Convert a string into an OSC Blob, returning a (typetag, data) tuple.

class kivy.lib.osc.OSC.OSCMessage[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Builds typetagged OSC messages.

append(argument, typehint=None)[source]

Appends data to the message, updating the typetags based on the argument’s type. If the argument is a blob (counted string) pass in ‘b’ as typehint.

getBinary()[source]

Returns the binary message (so far) with typetags.

rawAppend(data)[source]

Appends raw data to the message. Use append().

kivy.lib.osc.OSC.hexDump(data)[source]

Useful utility; prints the string in hexadecimal

kivy.lib.osc.OSC.parseArgs(args)[source]

Given a list of strings, produces a list where those strings have been parsed (where possible) as floats or integers.

kivy.lib.osc.OSC.readDouble(data)[source]

Tries to interpret the next 8 bytes of the data as a 64-bit double float.

kivy.lib.osc.OSC.readLong(data)[source]

Tries to interpret the next 8 bytes of the data as a 64-bit signed integer.

simpleOSC 0.2

ixi software - July, 2006 www.ixi-software.net

simple API for the Open SoundControl for Python (by Daniel Holth, Clinton McChesney –> pyKit.tar.gz file at http://wiretap.stetson.edu) Documentation at http://wiretap.stetson.edu/docs/pyKit/

The main aim of this implementation is to provide with a simple way to deal with the OSC implementation that makes life easier to those who don’t have understanding of sockets or programming. This would not be on your screen without the help of Daniel Holth.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

Thanks for the support to Buchsenhausen, Innsbruck, Austria.

class kivy.lib.osc.oscAPI.OSCServer(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.lib.osc.oscAPI._OSCServer

run()[source]

Method to be run in sub-process; can be overridden in sub-class

kivy.lib.osc.oscAPI.appendToBundle(bundle, oscAddress, dataArray)[source]

create OSC message and append it to a given bundle

kivy.lib.osc.oscAPI.bind(oscid, func, oscaddress)[source]

bind given oscaddresses with given functions in address manager

kivy.lib.osc.oscAPI.createBinaryMsg(oscAddress, dataArray, typehint=None)[source]

create and return general type binary OSC msg

kivy.lib.osc.oscAPI.createBundle()[source]

create bundled type of OSC messages

kivy.lib.osc.oscAPI.dontListen(thread_id=None)[source]

closes the socket and kills the thread

kivy.lib.osc.oscAPI.init()[source]

instantiates address manager and outsocket as globals

kivy.lib.osc.oscAPI.listen(ipAddr='127.0.0.1', port=9001)[source]

Creates a new thread listening to that port defaults to ipAddr=‘127.0.0.1’, port 9001

kivy.lib.osc.oscAPI.readQueue(thread_id=None)[source]

Read queues from all threads, and dispatch message. This must be call in the main thread.

You can pass the thread id to deque message from a specific thread. This id is returned from the listen() function

kivy.lib.osc.oscAPI.sendBundle(bundle, ipAddr='127.0.0.1', port=9000)[source]

convert bundle to a binary and send it

kivy.lib.osc.oscAPI.sendMsg(oscAddress, dataArray=[], ipAddr='127.0.0.1', port=9000, typehint=None)[source]

create and send normal OSC msgs defaults to ‘127.0.0.1’, port 9000

DDS File library

This library can be used to parse and save DDS (DirectDraw Surface <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectDraw_Surface>) files.

The initial version was written by:

Alexey Borzenkov (snaury@gmail.com)

All the initial work credits go to him! Thank you :)

This version uses structs instead of ctypes.

DDS Format
[DDS ][SurfaceDesc][Data]

[SurfaceDesc]:: (everything is uint32)
    Size
    Flags
    Height
    Width
    PitchOrLinearSize
    Depth
    MipmapCount
    Reserved1 * 11
    [PixelFormat]::
        Size
        Flags
        FourCC
        RGBBitCount
        RBitMask
        GBitMask
        BBitMask
        ABitMask
    [Caps]::
        Caps1
        Caps2
        Reserved1 * 2
    Reserverd2

Warning

This is an external library and Kivy does not provide any support for it. It might change in the future and we advise you don’t rely on it in your code.

exception kivy.lib.ddsfile.DDSException[source]

Bases: Exception

class kivy.lib.ddsfile.QueryDict[source]

Bases: builtins.dict

Python mtdev

The mtdev module provides Python bindings to the Kernel multi-touch transformation library, also known as mtdev (MIT license).

The mtdev library transforms all variants of kernel MT events to the slotted type B protocol. The events put into mtdev may be from any MT device, specifically type A without contact tracking, type A with contact tracking, or type B with contact tracking. See the kernel documentation for further details.

Warning

This is an external library and Kivy does not provide any support for it. It might change in the future and we advise you don’t rely on it in your code.

class kivy.lib.mtdev.input_absinfo[source]

Bases: _ctypes.Structure

class kivy.lib.mtdev.input_event[source]

Bases: _ctypes.Structure

class kivy.lib.mtdev.mtdev[source]

Bases: _ctypes.Structure

class kivy.lib.mtdev.mtdev_caps[source]

Bases: _ctypes.Structure

class kivy.lib.mtdev.timeval[source]

Bases: _ctypes.Structure

Modules

Modules are classes that can be loaded when a Kivy application is starting. The loading of modules is managed by the config file. Currently, we include:

  • touchring: Draw a circle around each touch.
  • monitor: Add a red topbar that indicates the FPS and a small graph indicating input activity.
  • keybinding: Bind some keys to actions, such as a screenshot.
  • recorder: Record and playback a sequence of events.
  • screen: Emulate the characteristics (dpi/density/ resolution) of different screens.
  • inspector: Examines your widget hierarchy and widget properties.
  • webdebugger: Realtime examination of your app internals via a web browser.
  • joycursor: Navigate in your app with a joystick.

Modules are automatically loaded from the Kivy path and User path:

  • PATH_TO_KIVY/kivy/modules
  • HOME/.kivy/mods

Activating a module

There are various ways in which you can activate a kivy module.

Activate a module in the config

To activate a module this way, you can edit your configuration file (in your HOME/.kivy/config.ini):

[modules]
# uncomment to activate
touchring =
# monitor =
# keybinding =

Only the name of the module followed by “=” is sufficient to activate the module.

Activate a module in Python

Before starting your application, preferably at the start of your import, you can do something like this:

import kivy
kivy.require('1.0.8')

# Activate the touchring module
from kivy.config import Config
Config.set('modules', 'touchring', '')
Activate a module via the commandline

When starting your application from the commandline, you can add a -m <modulename> to the arguments. For example:

python main.py -m webdebugger

Note

Some modules, such as the screen, may require additional parameters. They will, however, print these parameters to the console when launched without them.

Create your own module

Create a file in your HOME/.kivy/mods, and create 2 functions:

def start(win, ctx):
    pass

def stop(win, ctx):
    pass

Start/stop are functions that will be called for every window opened in Kivy. When you are starting a module, you can use these to store and manage the module state. Use the ctx variable as a dictionary. This context is unique for each instance/start() call of the module, and will be passed to stop() too.

Console

New in version 1.9.1.

Reboot of the old inspector, designed to be modular and keep concerns separated. It also has an addons architecture that allow you to add a button, panel, or more in the Console itself.

Warning

This module works, but might fail in some cases. Please contribute!

Usage

For normal module usage, please see the modules documentation:

python main.py -m console
Mouse navigation

When the “Select” button is activated, you can:

  • tap once on a widget to select it without leaving inspect mode
  • double tap on a widget to select and leave inspect mode (then you can manipulate the widget again)
Keyboard navigation
  • “Ctrl + e”: toggle console
  • “Escape”: cancel widget lookup, then hide inspector view
  • “Up”: select the parent widget
  • “Down”: select the first child of the currently selected widget
  • “Left”: select the previous sibling
  • “Right”: select the next sibling
Additional information

Some properties can be edited live. However, due to the delayed usage of some properties, it might crash if you don’t handle the required cases.

Addons

Addons must be added to Console.addons before the first Clock tick of the application, or before create_console is called. You currently cannot add addons on the fly. Addons are quite cheap until the Console is activated. Panels are even cheaper as nothing is done until the user selects them.

We provide multiple addons activated by default:

  • ConsoleAddonFps: display the FPS at the top-right
  • ConsoleAddonSelect: activate the selection mode
  • ConsoleAddonBreadcrumb: display the hierarchy of the current widget at the bottom
  • ConsoleAddonWidgetTree: panel to display the widget tree of the application
  • ConsoleAddonWidgetPanel: panel to display the properties of the selected widget

If you need to add custom widgets in the Console, please use either ConsoleButton, ConsoleToggleButton or ConsoleLabel.

An addon must inherit from the ConsoleAddon class.

For example, here is a simple addon for displaying the FPS at the top/right of the Console:

from kivy.modules.console import Console, ConsoleAddon

class ConsoleAddonFps(ConsoleAddon):
    def init(self):
        self.lbl = ConsoleLabel(text="0 Fps")
        self.console.add_toolbar_widget(self.lbl, right=True)

    def activate(self):
        self.event = Clock.schedule_interval(self.update_fps, 1 / 2.)

    def deactivated(self):
        self.event.cancel()

    def update_fps(self, *args):
        fps = Clock.get_fps()
        self.lbl.text = "{} Fps".format(int(fps))

Console.register_addon(ConsoleAddonFps)

You can create addons that add panels. Panel activation/deactivation is not tied to the addon activation/deactivation, but in some cases, you can use the same callback for deactivating the addon and the panel. Here is a simple “About” panel addon:

from kivy.modules.console import Console, ConsoleAddon, ConsoleLabel

class ConsoleAddonAbout(ConsoleAddon):
    def init(self):
        self.console.add_panel("About", self.panel_activate,
                               self.panel_deactivate)

    def panel_activate(self):
        self.console.bind(widget=self.update_content)
        self.update_content()

    def panel_deactivate(self):
        self.console.unbind(widget=self.update_content)

    def deactivate(self):
        self.panel_deactivate()

    def update_content(self, *args):
        widget = self.console.widget
        if not widget:
            return
        text = "Selected widget is: {!r}".format(widget)
        lbl = ConsoleLabel(text=text)
        self.console.set_content(lbl)

Console.register_addon(ConsoleAddonAbout)
kivy.modules.console.start(win, ctx)[source]

Create an Console instance attached to the ctx and bound to the Window’s on_keyboard() event for capturing the keyboard shortcut.

Parameters:
win: A Window

The application Window to bind to.

ctx: A Widget or subclass

The Widget to be inspected.
kivy.modules.console.stop(win, ctx)[source]

Stop and unload any active Inspectors for the given ctx.

class kivy.modules.console.Console(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.relativelayout.RelativeLayout

Console interface

This widget is created by create_console(), when the module is loaded. During that time, you can add addons on the console to extend the functionalities, or add your own application stats / debugging module.

activated

True if the Console is activated (showed)

add_panel(name, cb_activate, cb_deactivate, cb_refresh=None)[source]

Add a new panel in the Console.

  • cb_activate is a callable that will be called when the panel is activated by the user.
  • cb_deactivate is a callable that will be called when the panel is deactivated or when the console will hide.
  • cb_refresh is an optional callable that is called if the user click again on the button for display the panel

When activated, it’s up to the panel to display a content in the Console by using set_content().

add_toolbar_widget(widget, right=False)[source]

Add a widget in the top left toolbar of the Console. Use right=True if you wanna add the widget at the right instead.

addons = [<class 'kivy.modules.console.ConsoleAddonSelect'>, <class 'kivy.modules.console.ConsoleAddonFps'>, <class 'kivy.modules.console.ConsoleAddonWidgetPanel'>, <class 'kivy.modules.console.ConsoleAddonWidgetTree'>, <class 'kivy.modules.console.ConsoleAddonBreadcrumb'>]

Array of addons that will be created at Console creation

highlight_at(x, y)[source]

Select a widget from a x/y window coordinate. This is mostly used internally when Select mode is activated

inspect_enabled

Indicate if the inspector inspection is enabled. If yes, the next touch down will select a the widget under the touch

mode

Display mode of the Console, either docked at the bottom, or as a floating window.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

pick(widget, x, y)[source]

Pick a widget at x/y, given a root widget

remove_toolbar_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from the toolbar

set_content(content)[source]

Replace the Console content with a new one.

widget

Current widget being selected

class kivy.modules.console.ConsoleAddon(console)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Base class for implementing addons

activate()[source]

Method called when the addon is activated by the console (when the console is displayed)

console = None

Console instance

deactivate()[source]

Method called when the addon is deactivated by the console (when the console is hidden)

init()[source]

Method called when the addon is instantiated by the Console

class kivy.modules.console.ConsoleButton(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.button.Button

Button specialized for the Console

class kivy.modules.console.ConsoleToggleButton(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.togglebutton.ToggleButton

ToggleButton specialized for the Console

class kivy.modules.console.ConsoleLabel(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.label.Label

LabelButton specialized for the Console

Inspector

New in version 1.0.9.

Warning

This module is highly experimental, use it with care.

The Inspector is a tool for finding a widget in the widget tree by clicking or tapping on it. Some keyboard shortcuts are activated:

  • “Ctrl + e”: activate / deactivate the inspector view
  • “Escape”: cancel widget lookup first, then hide the inspector view

Available inspector interactions:

  • tap once on a widget to select it without leaving inspect mode
  • double tap on a widget to select and leave inspect mode (then you can manipulate the widget again)

Some properties can be edited live. However, due to the delayed usage of some properties, it might crash if you don’t handle all the cases.

Usage

For normal module usage, please see the modules documentation.

The Inspector, however, can also be imported and used just like a normal python module. This has the added advantage of being able to activate and deactivate the module programmatically:

from kivy.core.window import Window
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.button import Button
from kivy.modules import inspector

class Demo(App):
    def build(self):
        button = Button(text="Test")
        inspector.create_inspector(Window, button)
        return button

Demo().run()

To remove the Inspector, you can do the following:

inspector.stop(Window, button)
kivy.modules.inspector.stop(win, ctx)[source]

Stop and unload any active Inspectors for the given ctx.

kivy.modules.inspector.create_inspector(win, ctx, *l)[source]

Create an Inspector instance attached to the ctx and bound to the Window’s on_keyboard() event for capturing the keyboard shortcut.

Parameters:
win: A Window

The application Window to bind to.

ctx: A Widget or subclass

The Widget to be inspected.

JoyCursor

New in version 1.10.0.

The JoyCursor is a tool for navigating with a joystick as if using a mouse or touch. Most of the actions that are possible for a mouse user are available in this module.

For example:

  • left click
  • right click
  • double click (two clicks)
  • moving the cursor
  • holding the button (+ moving at the same time)
  • selecting
  • scrolling

There are some properties that can be edited live, such as intensity of the JoyCursor movement and toggling mouse button holding.

Usage

For normal module usage, please see the modules documentation and these bindings:

Event Joystick
cursor move Axis 3, Axis 4
cursor intensity Button 0, Button 1
left click Button 2
right click Button 3
scroll up Button 4
scroll down Button 5
hold button Button 6
joycursor on/off Button 7

The JoyCursor, like Inspector, can also be imported and used as a normal python module. This has the added advantage of being able to activate and deactivate the module programmatically:

from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.base import runTouchApp
runTouchApp(Builder.load_string("""
#:import jc kivy.modules.joycursor
BoxLayout:
    Button:
        text: 'Press & activate with Ctrl+E or Button 7'
        on_release: jc.create_joycursor(root.parent, root)
    Button:
        text: 'Disable'
        on_release: jc.stop(root.parent, root)
"""))
kivy.modules.joycursor.stop(win, ctx)[source]

Stop and unload any active JoyCursors for the given ctx.

kivy.modules.joycursor.create_joycursor(win, ctx, *args)[source]

Create a JoyCursor instance attached to the ctx and bound to the Window’s on_keyboard() event for capturing the keyboard shortcuts.

Parameters:
win: A Window

The application Window to bind to.

ctx: A Widget or subclass

The Widget for JoyCursor to attach to.

Keybinding

This module forces the mapping of some keys to functions:

  • F11: Rotate the Window through 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees
  • Shift + F11: Switches between portrait and landscape on desktops
  • F12: Take a screenshot

Note: this does’t work if the application requests the keyboard beforehand.

Usage

For normal module usage, please see the modules documentation.

The Keybinding module, however, can also be imported and used just like a normal python module. This has the added advantage of being able to activate and deactivate the module programmatically:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.button import Button
from kivy.modules import keybinding
from kivy.core.window import Window

class Demo(App):

    def build(self):
        button = Button(text="Hello")
        keybinding.start(Window, button)
        return button

Demo().run()

To remove the Keybinding, you can do the following:

Keybinding.stop(Window, button)

Monitor module

The Monitor module is a toolbar that shows the activity of your current application :

  • FPS
  • Graph of input events
Usage

For normal module usage, please see the modules documentation.

Recorder module

New in version 1.1.0.

Create an instance of Recorder, attach to the class, and bind some keys to record / play sequences:

  • F6: play the last record in a loop
  • F7: read the latest recording
  • F8: record input events
Configuration
Parameters:
attrs: str, defaults to record_attrs value.

Attributes to record from the motion event

profile_mask: str, defaults to record_profile_mask value.

Mask for motion event profile. Used to filter which profile will appear in the fake motion event when replayed.

filename: str, defaults to ‘recorder.kvi’

Name of the file to record / play with
Usage

For normal module usage, please see the modules documentation.

Screen

This module changes some environment and configuration variables to match the density / dpi / screensize of a specific device.

To see a list of the available screenid’s, just run:

python main.py -m screen

To simulate a medium-density screen such as the Motorola Droid 2:

python main.py -m screen:droid2

To simulate a high-density screen such as HTC One X, in portrait:

python main.py -m screen:onex,portrait

To simulate the iPad 2 screen:

python main.py -m screen:ipad

If the generated window is too large, you can specify a scale:

python main.py -m screen:note2,portrait,scale=.75

Note that to display your contents correctly on a scaled window you must consistently use units ‘dp’ and ‘sp’ throughout your app. See metrics for more details.

Touchring

Shows rings around every touch on the surface / screen. You can use this module to check that you don’t have any calibration issues with touches.

Configuration
Parameters:
image: str, defaults to ‘<kivy>/data/images/ring.png’

Filename of the image to use.

scale: float, defaults to 1.

Scale of the image.

alpha: float, defaults to 1.

Opacity of the image.
Example

In your configuration (~/.kivy/config.ini), you can add something like this:

[modules]
touchring = image=mypointer.png,scale=.3,alpha=.7

Web Debugger

New in version 1.2.0.

Warning

This module is highly experimental, use it with care.

This module will start a webserver and run in the background. You can see how your application evolves during runtime, examine the internal cache etc.

Run with:

python main.py -m webdebugger

Then open your webbrowser on http://localhost:5000/

Network support

Kivy currently supports basic, asynchronous network requests. Please refer to kivy.network.urlrequest.UrlRequest.

UrlRequest

New in version 1.0.8.

You can use the UrlRequest to make asynchronous requests on the web and get the result when the request is completed. The spirit is the same as the XHR object in Javascript.

The content is also decoded if the Content-Type is application/json and the result automatically passed through json.loads.

The syntax to create a request:

from kivy.network.urlrequest import UrlRequest
req = UrlRequest(url, on_success, on_redirect, on_failure, on_error,
                 on_progress, req_body, req_headers, chunk_size,
                 timeout, method, decode, debug, file_path, ca_file,
                 verify)

Only the first argument is mandatory: the rest are optional. By default, a “GET” request will be sent. If the UrlRequest.req_body is not None, a “POST” request will be sent. It’s up to you to adjust UrlRequest.req_headers to suit your requirements and the response to the request will be accessible as the parameter called “result” on the callback function of the on_success event.

Example of fetching JSON:

def got_json(req, result):
    for key, value in result['headers'].items():
        print('{}: {}'.format(key, value))

req = UrlRequest('https://httpbin.org/headers', got_json)

Example of Posting data (adapted from httplib example):

import urllib

def bug_posted(req, result):
    print('Our bug is posted!')
    print(result)

params = urllib.urlencode({'@number': 12524, '@type': 'issue',
    '@action': 'show'})
headers = {'Content-type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
          'Accept': 'text/plain'}
req = UrlRequest('bugs.python.org', on_success=bug_posted, req_body=params,
        req_headers=headers)

If you want a synchronous request, you can call the wait() method.

class kivy.network.urlrequest.UrlRequest(url, on_success=None, on_redirect=None, on_failure=None, on_error=None, on_progress=None, req_body=None, req_headers=None, chunk_size=8192, timeout=None, method=None, decode=True, debug=False, file_path=None, ca_file=None, verify=True, proxy_host=None, proxy_port=None, proxy_headers=None)[source]

Bases: threading.Thread

A UrlRequest. See module documentation for usage.

Changed in version 1.5.1: Add debug parameter

Changed in version 1.0.10: Add method parameter

Changed in version 1.8.0: Parameter decode added. Parameter file_path added. Parameter on_redirect added. Parameter on_failure added.

Changed in version 1.9.1: Parameter ca_file added. Parameter verify added.

Changed in version 1.10.0: Parameters proxy_host, proxy_port and proxy_headers added.

Parameters:
url: str

Complete url string to call.

on_success: callback(request, result)

Callback function to call when the result has been fetched.

on_redirect: callback(request, result)

Callback function to call if the server returns a Redirect.

on_failure: callback(request, result)

Callback function to call if the server returns a Client or Server Error.

on_error: callback(request, error)

Callback function to call if an error occurs.

on_progress: callback(request, current_size, total_size)

Callback function that will be called to report progression of the download. total_size might be -1 if no Content-Length has been reported in the http response. This callback will be called after each chunk_size is read.

req_body: str, defaults to None

Data to sent in the request. If it’s not None, a POST will be done instead of a GET.

req_headers: dict, defaults to None

Custom headers to add to the request.

chunk_size: int, defaults to 8192

Size of each chunk to read, used only when on_progress callback has been set. If you decrease it too much, a lot of on_progress callbacks will be fired and will slow down your download. If you want to have the maximum download speed, increase the chunk_size or don’t use on_progress.

timeout: int, defaults to None

If set, blocking operations will timeout after this many seconds.

method: str, defaults to ‘GET’ (or ‘POST’ if body is specified)

The HTTP method to use.

decode: bool, defaults to True

If False, skip decoding of the response.

debug: bool, defaults to False

If True, it will use the Logger.debug to print information about url access/progression/errors.

file_path: str, defaults to None

If set, the result of the UrlRequest will be written to this path instead of in memory.

ca_file: str, defaults to None

Indicates a SSL CA certificate file path to validate HTTPS certificates against

verify: bool, defaults to True

If False, disables SSL CA certificate verification

proxy_host: str, defaults to None

If set, the proxy host to use for this connection.

proxy_port: int, defaults to None

If set, and proxy_host is also set, the port to use for connecting to the proxy server.

proxy_headers: dict, defaults to None

If set, and proxy_host is also set, the headers to send to the proxy server in the CONNECT request.
chunk_size

Return the size of a chunk, used only in “progress” mode (when on_progress callback is set.)

decode_result(result, resp)[source]

Decode the result fetched from url according to his Content-Type. Currently supports only application/json.

error

Return the error of the request. This value is not determined until the request is completed.

get_connection_for_scheme(scheme)[source]

Return the Connection class for a particular scheme. This is an internal function that can be expanded to support custom schemes.

Actual supported schemes: http, https.

is_finished

Return True if the request has finished, whether it’s a success or a failure.

req_body = None

Request body passed in __init__

req_headers = None

Request headers passed in __init__

resp_headers

If the request has been completed, return a dictionary containing the headers of the response. Otherwise, it will return None.

resp_status

Return the status code of the response if the request is complete, otherwise return None.

result

Return the result of the request. This value is not determined until the request is finished.

run()[source]

Method representing the thread’s activity.

You may override this method in a subclass. The standard run() method invokes the callable object passed to the object’s constructor as the target argument, if any, with sequential and keyword arguments taken from the args and kwargs arguments, respectively.

url = None

Url of the request

wait(delay=0.5)[source]

Wait for the request to finish (until resp_status is not None)

Note

This method is intended to be used in the main thread, and the callback will be dispatched from the same thread from which you’re calling.

New in version 1.1.0.

Storage

New in version 1.7.0.

Warning

This module is still experimental, and the API is subject to change in a future version.

Usage

The idea behind the Storage module is to be able to load/store any number of key-value pairs via an indexed key. The default model is abstract so you cannot use it directly. We provide some implementations such as:

Examples

For example, let’s use a JsonStore:

from kivy.storage.jsonstore import JsonStore

store = JsonStore('hello.json')

# put some values
store.put('tito', name='Mathieu', org='kivy')
store.put('tshirtman', name='Gabriel', age=27)

# using the same index key erases all previously added key-value pairs
store.put('tito', name='Mathieu', age=30)

# get a value using a index key and key
print('tito is', store.get('tito')['age'])

# or guess the key/entry for a part of the key
for item in store.find(name='Gabriel'):
    print('tshirtmans index key is', item[0])
    print('his key value pairs are', str(item[1]))

Because the data is persistent, you can check later to see if the key exists:

from kivy.storage.jsonstore import JsonStore

store = JsonStore('hello.json')
if store.exists('tito'):
    print('tite exists:', store.get('tito'))
    store.delete('tito')

Synchronous / Asynchronous API

All the standard methods (get(), put() , exists(), delete(), find()) have an asynchronous version.

For example, the get method has a callback parameter. If set, the callback will be used to return the result to the user when available: the request will be asynchronous. If the callback is None, then the request will be synchronous and the result will be returned directly.

Without callback (Synchronous API):

entry = mystore.get('tito')
print('tito =', entry)

With callback (Asynchronous API):

def my_callback(store, key, result):
    print('the key', key, 'has a value of', result)
mystore.get('plop', callback=my_callback)

The callback signature (for almost all methods) is:

def callback(store, key, result):
    """
    store: the `Store` instance currently used.
    key: the key sought for.
    result: the result of the lookup for the key.
    """

Synchronous container type

The storage API emulates the container type for the synchronous API:

store = JsonStore('hello.json')

# original: store.get('tito')
store['tito']

# original: store.put('tito', name='Mathieu')
store['tito'] = {'name': 'Mathieu'}

# original: store.delete('tito')
del store['tito']

# original: store.count()
len(store)

# original: store.exists('tito')
'tito' in store

# original: for key in store.keys()
for key in store:
    pass
class kivy.storage.AbstractStore(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Abstract class used to implement a Store

async_clear(callback)[source]

Asynchronous version of clear().

async_count(callback)[source]

Asynchronously return the number of entries in the storage.

async_delete(callback, key)[source]

Asynchronous version of delete().

Callback arguments:
 
store: AbstractStore instance

Store instance

key: string

Name of the key to search for

result: bool

Indicate True if the storage has been updated, or False if nothing has been done (no changes). None if any error.
async_exists(callback, key)[source]

Asynchronous version of exists().

Callback arguments:
 
store: AbstractStore instance

Store instance

key: string

Name of the key to search for

result: boo

Result of the query, None if any error
async_find(callback, **filters)[source]

Asynchronous version of find().

The callback will be called for each entry in the result.

Callback arguments:
 
store: AbstractStore instance

Store instance

key: string

Name of the key to search for, or None if we reach the end of the results

result: bool

Indicate True if the storage has been updated, or False if nothing has been done (no changes). None if any error.
async_get(callback, key)[source]

Asynchronous version of get().

Callback arguments:
 
store: AbstractStore instance

Store instance

key: string

Name of the key to search for

result: dict

Result of the query, None if any error
async_keys(callback)[source]

Asynchronously return all the keys in the storage.

async_put(callback, key, **values)[source]

Asynchronous version of put().

Callback arguments:
 
store: AbstractStore instance

Store instance

key: string

Name of the key to search for

result: bool

Indicate True if the storage has been updated, or False if nothing has been done (no changes). None if any error.
clear()[source]

Wipe the whole storage.

count()[source]

Return the number of entries in the storage.

delete(key)[source]

Delete a key from the storage. If the key is not found, a KeyError exception will be thrown.

exists(key)[source]

Check if a key exists in the store.

find(**filters)[source]

Return all the entries matching the filters. The entries are returned through a generator as a list of (key, entry) pairs where entry is a dict of key-value pairs

for key, entry in store.find(name='Mathieu'):
    print('key:', key, ', entry:', entry)

Because it’s a generator, you cannot directly use it as a list. You can do:

# get all the (key, entry) availables
entries = list(store.find(name='Mathieu'))
# get only the entry from (key, entry)
entries = list((x[1] for x in store.find(name='Mathieu')))
get(key)[source]

Get the key-value pairs stored at key. If the key is not found, a KeyError exception will be thrown.

keys()[source]

Return a list of all the keys in the storage.

put(key, **values)[source]

Put new key-value pairs (given in values) into the storage. Any existing key-value pairs will be removed.

Dictionary store

Use a Python dictionary as a store.

class kivy.storage.dictstore.DictStore(filename, data=None, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.storage.AbstractStore

Store implementation using a pickled dict. See the kivy.storage module documentation for more information.

JSON store

A Storage module used to save/load key-value pairs from a json file.

class kivy.storage.jsonstore.JsonStore(filename, indent=None, sort_keys=False, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.storage.AbstractStore

Store implementation using a json file for storing the key-value pairs. See the kivy.storage module documentation for more information.

Redis Store

Store implementation using Redis. You must have redis-py installed.

Usage example:

from kivy.storage.redisstore import RedisStore

params = dict(host='localhost', port=6379, db=14)
store = RedisStore(params)

All the key-value pairs will be stored with a prefix ‘store’ by default. You can instantiate the storage with another prefix like this:

from kivy.storage.redisstore import RedisStore

params = dict(host='localhost', port=6379, db=14)
store = RedisStore(params, prefix='mystore2')

The params dictionary will be passed to the redis.StrictRedis class.

See redis-py.

class kivy.storage.redisstore.RedisStore(redis_params, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.storage.AbstractStore

Store implementation using a Redis database. See the kivy.storage module documentation for more informations.

Tools

The tools module provides various utility scripts, modules and examples.

Scripts

Some useful scripts include:

  • kviewer.py: for viewing kv files with automatic updating
  • benchmark.py: provides detailed OpenGL hardware information as well as some benchmarks measuring kivy specific performance
  • reports.py: provides a comprehensive report covering your systems providers, libraries, configuration, environment, input devices and options
  • texturecompress.py: a command line utility for compressing images into PVRTC or ETC1 formats
  • generate-icons.py: generates set of icons suitable for the various store and package formats
  • gles_compat/subset_gles.py: examines compatibility between GLEXT and GLES2 headers for finding compatible subsets

Modules

Tool modules provide various resources for:

Other

Other miscellaneous resources include

  • pep8checker: pep8 checking scripts and git hook
  • theming: demonstrates an alternative theme for kivy
  • travis: travis continuous integration

This help document is a work-in-progress and currently under construction.

Packaging

This module contains PyInstaller hooks in order to assist in the process of building binary packages. PyInstaller allows you to produce stand-alone, self-contained executables of your Kivy app for Windows, Linux and Mac.

For more information, please see the PyInstaller website

Pyinstaller hooks

Module that exports pyinstaller related methods and parameters.

Hooks

PyInstaller comes with a default hook for kivy that lists the indirectly imported modules that pyinstaller would not find on its own using get_deps_all(). hookspath() returns the path to an alternate kivy hook, kivy/tools/packaging/pyinstaller_hooks/kivy-hook.py that does not add these dependencies to its list of hidden imports and they have to be explicitly included instead.

One can overwrite the default hook by providing on the command line the --additional-hooks-dir=HOOKSPATH option. Because although the default hook will still run, the important global variables, e.g. excludedimports and hiddenimports will be overwritten by the new hook, if set there.

Additionally, one can add a hook to be run after the default hook by passing e.g. hookspath=[HOOKSPATH] to the Analysis class. In both cases, HOOKSPATH is the path to a directory containing a file named hook-kivy.py that is the pyinstaller hook for kivy to be processed after the default hook.

hiddenimports

When a module is imported indirectly, e.g. with __import__, pyinstaller won’t know about it and the module has to be added through hiddenimports.

hiddenimports and other hook variables can be specified within a hook as described above. Also, these variable can be passed to Analysis and their values are then appended to the hook’s values for these variables.

Most of kivy’s core modules, e.g. video are imported indirectly and therefore need to be added in hiddenimports. The default PyInstaller hook adds all the providers. To overwrite, a modified kivy-hook similar to the default hook, such as hookspath() that only imports the desired modules can be added. One then uses get_deps_minimal() or get_deps_all() to get the list of modules and adds them manually in a modified hook or passes them to Analysis in the spec file.

Hook generator

pyinstaller_hooks includes a tool to generate a hook which lists all the provider modules in a list so that one can manually comment out the providers not to be included. To use, do:

python -m kivy.tools.packaging.pyinstaller_hooks hook filename

filename is the name and path of the hook file to create. If filename is not provided the hook is printed to the terminal.

kivy.tools.packaging.pyinstaller_hooks.add_dep_paths()[source]

Should be called by the hook. It adds the paths with the binary dependencies to the system path so that pyinstaller can find the binaries during its crawling stage.

kivy.tools.packaging.pyinstaller_hooks.get_deps_all()[source]

Similar to get_deps_minimal(), but this returns all the kivy modules that can indirectly imported. Which includes all the possible kivy providers.

This can be used to get a list of all the possible providers which can then manually be included/excluded by commenting out elements in the list instead of passing on all the items. See module description.

Returns:A dict with two keys, hiddenimports and excludes. Their values are a list of the corresponding modules to include/exclude. This can be passed directly to Analysis` with e.g.
a = Analysis(['..\kivy\examples\demo\touchtracer\main.py'],
            ...
             **get_deps_all())
kivy.tools.packaging.pyinstaller_hooks.get_deps_minimal(exclude_ignored=True, **kwargs)[source]

Returns Kivy hidden modules as well as excluded modules to be used with Analysis.

The function takes core modules as keyword arguments and their value indicates which of the providers to include/exclude from the compiled app.

The possible keyword names are audio, camera, clipboard, image, spelling, text, video, and window. Their values can be:

True: Include current provider
The providers imported when the core module is loaded on this system are added to hidden imports. This is the default if the keyword name is not specified.
None: Exclude
Don’t return this core module at all.
A string or list of strings: Providers to include
Each string is the name of a provider for this module to be included.

For example, get_deps_minimal(video=None, window=True, audio=['gstplayer', 'ffpyplayer'], spelling='enchant') will exclude all the video providers, will include the gstreamer and ffpyplayer providers for audio, will include the enchant provider for spelling, and will use the current default provider for window.

exclude_ignored, if True (the default), if the value for a core library is None, then if exclude_ignored is True, not only will the library not be included in the hiddenimports but it’ll also added to the excluded imports to prevent it being included accidentally by pyinstaller.

Returns:A dict with two keys, hiddenimports and excludes. Their values are a list of the corresponding modules to include/exclude. This can be passed directly to Analysis` with e.g.
a = Analysis(['..\kivy\examples\demo\touchtracer\main.py'],
            ...
             hookspath=hookspath(),
             runtime_hooks=[],
             win_no_prefer_redirects=False,
             win_private_assemblies=False,
             cipher=block_cipher,
             **get_deps_minimal(video=None, audio=None))
kivy.tools.packaging.pyinstaller_hooks.get_factory_modules()[source]

Returns a list of all the modules registered in the kivy factory.

kivy.tools.packaging.pyinstaller_hooks.get_hooks()[source]

Returns the dict for the spec hookspath and runtime_hooks values.

kivy.tools.packaging.pyinstaller_hooks.hookspath()[source]

Returns a list with the directory that contains the alternate (not the default included with pyinstaller) pyinstaller hook for kivy, kivy/tools/packaging/pyinstaller_hooks/kivy-hook.py. It is typically used with hookspath=hookspath() in the spec file.

The default pyinstaller hook returns all the core providers used using get_deps_minimal() to add to its list of hidden imports. This alternate hook only included the essential modules and leaves the core providers to be included additionally with get_deps_minimal() or get_deps_all().

kivy.tools.packaging.pyinstaller_hooks.runtime_hooks()[source]

Returns a list with the runtime hooks for kivy. It can be used with runtime_hooks=runtime_hooks() in the spec file. Pyinstaller comes preinstalled with this hook.

Widgets

Widgets are elements of a graphical user interface that form part of the User Experience. The kivy.uix module contains classes for creating and managing Widgets. Please refer to the Widget class documentation for further information.

Kivy widgets can be categorized as follows:

Behaviors

New in version 1.8.0.

Behavior mixin classes

This module implements behaviors that can be mixed in with existing base widgets. The idea behind these classes is to encapsulate properties and events associated with certain types of widgets.

Isolating these properties and events in a mixin class allows you to define your own implementation for standard kivy widgets that can act as drop-in replacements. This means you can re-style and re-define widgets as desired without breaking compatibility: as long as they implement the behaviors correctly, they can simply replace the standard widgets.

Adding behaviors

Say you want to add Button capabilities to an Image, you could do:

class IconButton(ButtonBehavior, Image):
    pass

This would give you an Image with the events and properties inherited from ButtonBehavior. For example, the on_press and on_release events would be fired when appropriate:

class IconButton(ButtonBehavior, Image):
    def on_press(self):
        print("on_press")

Or in kv:

IconButton:
    on_press: print('on_press')

Naturally, you could also bind to any property changes the behavior class offers:

def state_changed(*args):
    print('state changed')

button = IconButton()
button.bind(state=state_changed)

Note

The behavior class must always be _before_ the widget class. If you don’t specify the inheritance in this order, the behavior will not work because the behavior methods are overwritten by the class method listed first.

Similarly, if you combine a behavior class with a class which requires the use of the methods also defined by the behavior class, the resulting class may not function properly. For example, when combining the ButtonBehavior with a Slider, both of which use the on_touch_up() method, the resulting class may not work properly.

Changed in version 1.9.1: The individual behavior classes, previously in one big behaviors.py file, has been split into a single file for each class under the behaviors module. All the behaviors are still imported in the behaviors module so they are accessible as before (e.g. both from kivy.uix.behaviors import ButtonBehavior and from kivy.uix.behaviors.button import ButtonBehavior work).

class kivy.uix.behaviors.ButtonBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

This mixin class provides Button behavior. Please see the button behaviors module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_press

Fired when the button is pressed.

on_release

Fired when the button is released (i.e. the touch/click that pressed the button goes away).
always_release

This determines whether or not the widget fires an on_release event if the touch_up is outside the widget.

New in version 1.9.0.

Changed in version 1.10.0: The default value is now False.

always_release is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

last_touch

Contains the last relevant touch received by the Button. This can be used in on_press or on_release in order to know which touch dispatched the event.

New in version 1.8.0.

last_touch is a ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

min_state_time

The minimum period of time which the widget must remain in the ‘down’ state.

New in version 1.9.1.

min_state_time is a float and defaults to 0.035. This value is taken from Config.

state

The state of the button, must be one of ‘normal’ or ‘down’. The state is ‘down’ only when the button is currently touched/clicked, otherwise its ‘normal’.

state is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘normal’.

trigger_action(duration=0.1)[source]

Trigger whatever action(s) have been bound to the button by calling both the on_press and on_release callbacks.

This simulates a quick button press without using any touch events.

Duration is the length of the press in seconds. Pass 0 if you want the action to happen instantly.

New in version 1.8.0.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.ToggleButtonBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.behaviors.button.ButtonBehavior

This mixin class provides togglebutton behavior. Please see the togglebutton behaviors module documentation for more information.

New in version 1.8.0.

allow_no_selection

This specifies whether the widgets in a group allow no selection i.e. everything to be deselected.

New in version 1.9.0.

allow_no_selection is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True

static get_widgets(groupname)[source]

Return a list of the widgets contained in a specific group. If the group doesn’t exist, an empty list will be returned.

Note

Always release the result of this method! Holding a reference to any of these widgets can prevent them from being garbage collected. If in doubt, do:

l = ToggleButtonBehavior.get_widgets('mygroup')
# do your job
del l

Warning

It’s possible that some widgets that you have previously deleted are still in the list. The garbage collector might need to release other objects before flushing them.

group

Group of the button. If None, no group will be used (the button will be independent). If specified, group must be a hashable object, like a string. Only one button in a group can be in a ‘down’ state.

group is a ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.DragBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

The DragBehavior mixin provides Drag behavior. When combined with a widget, dragging in the rectangle defined by drag_rectangle will drag the widget. Please see the drag behaviors module documentation for more information.

New in version 1.8.0.

drag_distance

Distance to move before dragging the DragBehavior, in pixels. As soon as the distance has been traveled, the DragBehavior will start to drag, and no touch event will be dispatched to the children. It is advisable that you base this value on the dpi of your target device’s screen.

drag_distance is a NumericProperty and defaults to the scroll_distance as defined in the user Config (20 pixels by default).

drag_rect_height

Height of the axis aligned bounding rectangle where dragging is allowed.

drag_rect_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to 100.

drag_rect_width

Width of the axis aligned bounding rectangle where dragging is allowed.

drag_rect_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 100.

drag_rect_x

X position of the axis aligned bounding rectangle where dragging is allowed (in window coordinates).

drag_rect_x is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

drag_rect_y

Y position of the axis aligned bounding rectangle where dragging is allowed (in window coordinates).

drag_rect_Y is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

drag_rectangle

Position and size of the axis aligned bounding rectangle where dragging is allowed.

drag_rectangle is a ReferenceListProperty of (drag_rect_x, drag_rect_y, drag_rect_width, drag_rect_height) properties.

drag_timeout

Timeout allowed to trigger the drag_distance, in milliseconds. If the user has not moved drag_distance within the timeout, dragging will be disabled, and the touch event will be dispatched to the children.

drag_timeout is a NumericProperty and defaults to the scroll_timeout as defined in the user Config (55 milliseconds by default).

class kivy.uix.behaviors.FocusBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Provides keyboard focus behavior. When combined with other FocusBehavior widgets it allows one to cycle focus among them by pressing tab. Please see the focus behavior module documentation for more information.

New in version 1.9.0.

focus

Whether the instance currently has focus.

Setting it to True will bind to and/or request the keyboard, and input will be forwarded to the instance. Setting it to False will unbind and/or release the keyboard. For a given keyboard, only one widget can have its focus, so focusing one will automatically unfocus the other instance holding its focus.

When using a software keyboard, please refer to the softinput_mode property to determine how the keyboard display is handled.

focus is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

focus_next

The FocusBehavior instance to acquire focus when tab is pressed and this instance has focus, if not None or StopIteration.

When tab is pressed, focus cycles through all the FocusBehavior widgets that are linked through focus_next and are focusable. If focus_next is None, it instead walks the children lists to find the next focusable widget. Finally, if focus_next is the StopIteration class, focus won’t move forward, but end here.

focus_next is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

focus_previous

The FocusBehavior instance to acquire focus when shift+tab is pressed on this instance, if not None or StopIteration.

When shift+tab is pressed, focus cycles through all the FocusBehavior widgets that are linked through focus_previous and are focusable. If focus_previous is None, it instead walks the children tree to find the previous focusable widget. Finally, if focus_previous is the StopIteration class, focus won’t move backward, but end here.

focus_previous is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

focused

An alias of focus.

focused is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

Warning

focused is an alias of focus and will be removed in 2.0.0.

get_focus_next()[source]

Returns the next focusable widget using either focus_next or the children similar to the order when tabbing forwards with the tab key.

get_focus_previous()[source]

Returns the previous focusable widget using either focus_previous or the children similar to the order when tab + shift key are triggered together.

hide_keyboard()[source]

Convenience function to hide the keyboard in managed mode.

ignored_touch = []

A list of touches that should not be used to defocus. After on_touch_up, every touch that is not in ignored_touch will defocus all the focused widgets if the config keyboard mode is not multi. Touches on focusable widgets that were used to focus are automatically added here.

Example usage:

class Unfocusable(Widget):

    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        if self.collide_point(*touch.pos):
            FocusBehavior.ignored_touch.append(touch)

Notice that you need to access this as a class, not an instance variable.

input_type

The kind of input keyboard to request.

New in version 1.8.0.

input_type is an OptionsProperty and defaults to ‘text’. Can be one of ‘text’, ‘number’, ‘url’, ‘mail’, ‘datetime’, ‘tel’ or ‘address’.

is_focusable

Whether the instance can become focused. If focused, it’ll lose focus when set to False.

is_focusable is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True on a desktop (i.e. desktop is True in config), False otherwise.

keyboard

The keyboard to bind to (or bound to the widget) when focused.

When None, a keyboard is requested and released whenever the widget comes into and out of focus. If not None, it must be a keyboard, which gets bound and unbound from the widget whenever it’s in or out of focus. It is useful only when more than one keyboard is available, so it is recommended to be set to None when only one keyboard is available.

If more than one keyboard is available, whenever an instance gets focused a new keyboard will be requested if None. Unless the other instances lose focus (e.g. if tab was used), a new keyboard will appear. When this is undesired, the keyboard property can be used. For example, if there are two users with two keyboards, then each keyboard can be assigned to different groups of instances of FocusBehavior, ensuring that within each group, only one FocusBehavior will have focus, and will receive input from the correct keyboard. See keyboard_mode in config for more information on the keyboard modes.

Keyboard and focus behavior

When using the keyboard, there are some important default behaviors you should keep in mind.

  • When Config’s keyboard_mode is multi, each new touch is considered a touch by a different user and will set the focus (if clicked on a focusable) with a new keyboard. Already focused elements will not lose their focus (even if an unfocusable widget is touched).
  • If the keyboard property is set, that keyboard will be used when the instance gets focused. If widgets with different keyboards are linked through focus_next and focus_previous, then as they are tabbed through, different keyboards will become active. Therefore, typically it’s undesirable to link instances which are assigned different keyboards.
  • When a widget has focus, setting its keyboard to None will remove its keyboard, but the widget will then immediately try to get another keyboard. In order to remove its keyboard, rather set its focus to False.
  • When using a software keyboard, typical on mobile and touch devices, the keyboard display behavior is determined by the softinput_mode property. You can use this property to ensure the focused widget is not covered or obscured.

keyboard is an AliasProperty and defaults to None.

keyboard_mode

Determines how the keyboard visibility should be managed. ‘auto’ will result in the standard behaviour of showing/hiding on focus. ‘managed’ requires setting the keyboard visibility manually, or calling the helper functions show_keyboard() and hide_keyboard().

keyboard_mode is an OptionsProperty and defaults to ‘auto’. Can be one of ‘auto’ or ‘managed’.

keyboard_on_key_down(window, keycode, text, modifiers)[source]

The method bound to the keyboard when the instance has focus.

When the instance becomes focused, this method is bound to the keyboard and will be called for every input press. The parameters are the same as kivy.core.window.WindowBase.on_key_down().

When overwriting the method in the derived widget, super should be called to enable tab cycling. If the derived widget wishes to use tab for its own purposes, it can call super after it has processed the character (if it does not wish to consume the tab).

Similar to other keyboard functions, it should return True if the key was consumed.

keyboard_on_key_up(window, keycode)[source]

The method bound to the keyboard when the instance has focus.

When the instance becomes focused, this method is bound to the keyboard and will be called for every input release. The parameters are the same as kivy.core.window.WindowBase.on_key_up().

When overwriting the method in the derived widget, super should be called to enable de-focusing on escape. If the derived widget wishes to use escape for its own purposes, it can call super after it has processed the character (if it does not wish to consume the escape).

See keyboard_on_key_down()

show_keyboard()[source]

Convenience function to show the keyboard in managed mode.

unfocus_on_touch

Whether a instance should lose focus when clicked outside the instance.

When a user clicks on a widget that is focus aware and shares the same keyboard as this widget (which in the case of only one keyboard, are all focus aware widgets), then as the other widgets gains focus, this widget loses focus. In addition to that, if this property is True, clicking on any widget other than this widget, will remove focus form this widget.

unfocus_on_touch is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False if the keyboard_mode in Config is ‘multi’ or ‘systemandmulti’, otherwise it defaults to True.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.CompoundSelectionBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

The Selection behavior mixin implements the logic behind keyboard and touch selection of selectable widgets managed by the derived widget. Please see the compound selection behaviors module documentation for more information.

New in version 1.9.0.

clear_selection()[source]

Deselects all the currently selected nodes.

deselect_node(node)[source]

Deselects a possibly selected node.

It is called by the controller when it deselects a node and can also be called from the outside to deselect a node directly. The derived widget should overwrite this method and change the node to its unselected state when this is called

Parameters:
node

The node to be deselected.

Warning

This method must be called by the derived widget using super if it is overwritten.

get_index_of_node(node, selectable_nodes)[source]

(internal) Returns the index of the node within the selectable_nodes returned by get_selectable_nodes().

get_selectable_nodes()[source]

(internal) Returns a list of the nodes that can be selected. It can be overwritten by the derived widget to return the correct list.

This list is used to determine which nodes to select with group selection. E.g. the last element in the list will be selected when home is pressed, pagedown will move (or add to, if shift is held) the selection from the current position by negative page_count nodes starting from the position of the currently selected node in this list and so on. Still, nodes can be selected even if they are not in this list.

Note

It is safe to dynamically change this list including removing, adding, or re-arranging its elements. Nodes can be selected even if they are not on this list. And selected nodes removed from the list will remain selected until deselect_node() is called.

Warning

Layouts display their children in the reverse order. That is, the contents of children is displayed form right to left, bottom to top. Therefore, internally, the indices of the elements returned by this function are reversed to make it work by default for most layouts so that the final result is consistent e.g. home, although it will select the last element in this list visually, will select the first element when counting from top to bottom and left to right. If this behavior is not desired, a reversed list should be returned instead.

Defaults to returning children.

goto_node(key, last_node, last_node_idx)[source]

(internal) Used by the controller to get the node at the position indicated by key. The key can be keyboard inputs, e.g. pageup, or scroll inputs from the mouse scroll wheel, e.g. scrollup. ‘last_node’ is the last node selected and is used to find the resulting node. For example, if the key is up, the returned node is one node up from the last node.

It can be overwritten by the derived widget.

Parameters:
key

str, the string used to find the desired node. It can be any of the keyboard keys, as well as the mouse scrollup, scrolldown, scrollright, and scrollleft strings. If letters are typed in quick succession, the letters will be combined before it’s passed in as key and can be used to find nodes that have an associated string that starts with those letters.

last_node

The last node that was selected.

last_node_idx

The cached index of the last node selected in the get_selectable_nodes() list. If the list hasn’t changed it saves having to look up the index of last_node in that list.
Returns:

tuple, the node targeted by key and its index in the get_selectable_nodes() list. Returning (last_node, last_node_idx) indicates a node wasn’t found.
keyboard_select

Determines whether the keyboard can be used for selection. If False, keyboard inputs will be ignored.

keyboard_select is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

multiselect

Determines whether multiple nodes can be selected. If enabled, keyboard shift and ctrl selection, optionally combined with touch, for example, will be able to select multiple widgets in the normally expected manner. This dominates touch_multiselect when False.

multiselect is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

nodes_order_reversed

(Internal) Indicates whether the order of the nodes as displayed top- down is reversed compared to their order in get_selectable_nodes() (e.g. how the children property is reversed compared to how it’s displayed).

page_count

Determines by how much the selected node is moved up or down, relative to the position of the last selected node, when pageup (or pagedown) is pressed.

page_count is a NumericProperty and defaults to 10.

right_count

Determines by how much the selected node is moved up or down, relative to the position of the last selected node, when the right (or left) arrow on the keyboard is pressed.

right_count is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

scroll_count

Determines by how much the selected node is moved up or down, relative to the position of the last selected node, when the mouse scroll wheel is scrolled.

right_count is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

select_node(node)[source]

Selects a node.

It is called by the controller when it selects a node and can be called from the outside to select a node directly. The derived widget should overwrite this method and change the node state to selected when called.

Parameters:
node

The node to be selected.
Returns:

bool, True if the node was selected, False otherwise.

Warning

This method must be called by the derived widget using super if it is overwritten.

select_with_key_down(keyboard, scancode, codepoint, modifiers, **kwargs)[source]

Processes a key press. This is called when a key press is to be used for selection. Depending on the keyboard keys pressed and the configuration, it could select or deselect nodes or node ranges from the selectable nodes list, get_selectable_nodes().

The parameters are such that it could be bound directly to the on_key_down event of a keyboard. Therefore, it is safe to be called repeatedly when the key is held down as is done by the keyboard.

Returns:bool, True if the keypress was used, False otherwise.
select_with_key_up(keyboard, scancode, **kwargs)[source]

(internal) Processes a key release. This must be called by the derived widget when a key that select_with_key_down() returned True is released.

The parameters are such that it could be bound directly to the on_key_up event of a keyboard.

Returns:bool, True if the key release was used, False otherwise.
select_with_touch(node, touch=None)[source]

(internal) Processes a touch on the node. This should be called by the derived widget when a node is touched and is to be used for selection. Depending on the keyboard keys pressed and the configuration, it could select or deslect this and other nodes in the selectable nodes list, get_selectable_nodes().

Parameters:
node

The node that received the touch. Can be None for a scroll type touch.

touch

Optionally, the touch. Defaults to None.
Returns:

bool, True if the touch was used, False otherwise.
selected_nodes

The list of selected nodes.

Note

Multiple nodes can be selected right after one another e.g. using the keyboard. When listening to selected_nodes, one should be aware of this.

selected_nodes is a ListProperty and defaults to the empty list, []. It is read-only and should not be modified.

text_entry_timeout

When typing characters in rapid sucession (i.e. the time difference since the last character is less than text_entry_timeout), the keys get concatenated and the combined text is passed as the key argument of goto_node().

New in version 1.10.0.

touch_deselect_last

Determines whether the last selected node can be deselected when multiselect or touch_multiselect is False.

New in version 1.10.0.

touch_deselect_last is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True on mobile, False on desktop platforms.

touch_multiselect

A special touch mode which determines whether touch events, as processed by select_with_touch(), will add the currently touched node to the selection, or if it will clear the selection before adding the node. This allows the selection of multiple nodes by simply touching them.

This is different from multiselect because when it is True, simply touching an unselected node will select it, even if ctrl is not pressed. If it is False, however, ctrl must be pressed in order to add to the selection when multiselect is True.

Note

multiselect, when False, will disable touch_multiselect.

touch_multiselect is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

up_count

Determines by how much the selected node is moved up or down, relative to the position of the last selected node, when the up (or down) arrow on the keyboard is pressed.

up_count is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.CodeNavigationBehavior[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Code navigation behavior. Modifies the navigation behavior in TextInput to work like an IDE instead of a word processor. Please see the code navigation behaviors module documentation for more information.

New in version 1.9.1.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.EmacsBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

A mixin that enables Emacs-style keyboard shortcuts for the TextInput widget. Please see the Emacs behaviors module documentation for more information.

New in version 1.9.1.

delete_word_left()[source]

Delete text left of the cursor to the beginning of word

delete_word_right()[source]

Delete text right of the cursor to the end of the word

key_bindings

String name which determines the type of key bindings to use with the TextInput. This allows Emacs key bindings to be enabled/disabled programmatically for widgets that inherit from EmacsBehavior. If the value is not 'emacs', Emacs bindings will be disabled. Use 'default' for switching to the default key bindings of TextInput.

key_bindings is a StringProperty and defaults to 'emacs'.

New in version 1.10.0.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.CoverBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

The CoverBehavior mixin provides rendering a texture covering full widget size keeping aspect ratio of the original texture.

New in version 1.10.0.

cover_pos

Position of the aspect ratio aware texture. Gets calculated in CoverBehavior.calculate_cover.

cover_pos is a ListProperty and defaults to [0, 0].

cover_size

Size of the aspect ratio aware texture. Gets calculated in CoverBehavior.calculate_cover.

cover_size is a ListProperty and defaults to [0, 0].

reference_size

Reference size used for aspect ratio approximation calculation.

reference_size is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

class kivy.uix.behaviors.TouchRippleBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Touch ripple behavior.

Supposed to be used as mixin on widget classes.

Ripple behavior does not trigger automatically, concrete implementation needs to call ripple_show() respective ripple_fade() manually.

Here we create a Label which renders the touch ripple animation on interaction:

class RippleLabel(TouchRippleBehavior, Label):

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(RippleLabel, self).__init__(**kwargs)

    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        collide_point = self.collide_point(touch.x, touch.y)
        if collide_point:
            touch.grab(self)
            self.ripple_show(touch)
            return True
        return False

    def on_touch_up(self, touch):
        if touch.grab_current is self:
            touch.ungrab(self)
            self.ripple_fade()
            return True
        return False
ripple_duration_in

Animation duration taken to show the overlay.

ripple_duration_in is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.5.

ripple_duration_out

Animation duration taken to fade the overlay.

ripple_duration_out is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.2.

ripple_fade()[source]

Finish ripple animation on current widget.

ripple_fade_from_alpha

Alpha channel for ripple color the animation starts with.

ripple_fade_from_alpha is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.5.

ripple_fade_to_alpha

Alpha channel for ripple color the animation targets to.

ripple_fade_to_alpha is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.8.

ripple_func_in

Animation callback for showing the overlay.

ripple_func_in is a StringProperty and defaults to in_cubic.

ripple_func_out

Animation callback for hiding the overlay.

ripple_func_out is a StringProperty and defaults to out_quad.

ripple_rad_default

Default radius the animation starts from.

ripple_rad_default is a NumericProperty and defaults to 10.

ripple_scale

Max scale of the animation overlay calculated from max(width/height) of the decorated widget.

ripple_scale is a NumericProperty and defaults to 2.0.

ripple_show(touch)[source]

Begin ripple animation on current widget.

Expects touch event as argument.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.TouchRippleButtonBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.behaviors.touchripple.TouchRippleBehavior

This mixin class provides a similar behavior to ButtonBehavior but provides touch ripple animation instead of button pressed/released as visual effect.

Events:
on_press

Fired when the button is pressed.

on_release

Fired when the button is released (i.e. the touch/click that pressed the button goes away).
always_release

This determines whether or not the widget fires an on_release event if the touch_up is outside the widget.

always_release is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

last_touch

Contains the last relevant touch received by the Button. This can be used in on_press or on_release in order to know which touch dispatched the event.

last_touch is a ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

Button Behavior

The ButtonBehavior mixin class provides Button behavior. You can combine this class with other widgets, such as an Image, to provide alternative buttons that preserve Kivy button behavior.

For an overview of behaviors, please refer to the behaviors documentation.

Example

The following example adds button behavior to an image to make a checkbox that behaves like a button:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.image import Image
from kivy.uix.behaviors import ButtonBehavior


class MyButton(ButtonBehavior, Image):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MyButton, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.source = 'atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_off'

    def on_press(self):
        self.source = 'atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_on'

    def on_release(self):
        self.source = 'atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_off'


class SampleApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return MyButton()


SampleApp().run()

See ButtonBehavior for details.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.button.ButtonBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

This mixin class provides Button behavior. Please see the button behaviors module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_press

Fired when the button is pressed.

on_release

Fired when the button is released (i.e. the touch/click that pressed the button goes away).
always_release

This determines whether or not the widget fires an on_release event if the touch_up is outside the widget.

New in version 1.9.0.

Changed in version 1.10.0: The default value is now False.

always_release is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

last_touch

Contains the last relevant touch received by the Button. This can be used in on_press or on_release in order to know which touch dispatched the event.

New in version 1.8.0.

last_touch is a ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

min_state_time

The minimum period of time which the widget must remain in the ‘down’ state.

New in version 1.9.1.

min_state_time is a float and defaults to 0.035. This value is taken from Config.

state

The state of the button, must be one of ‘normal’ or ‘down’. The state is ‘down’ only when the button is currently touched/clicked, otherwise its ‘normal’.

state is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘normal’.

trigger_action(duration=0.1)[source]

Trigger whatever action(s) have been bound to the button by calling both the on_press and on_release callbacks.

This simulates a quick button press without using any touch events.

Duration is the length of the press in seconds. Pass 0 if you want the action to happen instantly.

New in version 1.8.0.

Code Navigation Behavior

The CodeNavigationBehavior modifies navigation behavior in the TextInput, making it work like an IDE instead of a word processor.

Using this mixin gives the TextInput the ability to recognize whitespace, punctuation and case variations (e.g. CamelCase) when moving over text. It is currently used by the CodeInput widget.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.codenavigation.CodeNavigationBehavior[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Code navigation behavior. Modifies the navigation behavior in TextInput to work like an IDE instead of a word processor. Please see the code navigation behaviors module documentation for more information.

New in version 1.9.1.

Compound Selection Behavior

The CompoundSelectionBehavior mixin class implements the logic behind keyboard and touch selection of selectable widgets managed by the derived widget. For example, it can be combined with a GridLayout to add selection to the layout.

Compound selection concepts

At its core, it keeps a dynamic list of widgets that can be selected. Then, as the touches and keyboard input are passed in, it selects one or more of the widgets based on these inputs. For example, it uses the mouse scroll and keyboard up/down buttons to scroll through the list of widgets. Multiselection can also be achieved using the keyboard shift and ctrl keys.

Finally, in addition to the up/down type keyboard inputs, compound selection can also accept letters from the keyboard to be used to select nodes with associated strings that start with those letters, similar to how files are selected by a file browser.

Selection mechanics

When the controller needs to select a node, it calls select_node() and deselect_node(). Therefore, they must be overwritten in order alter node selection. By default, the class doesn’t listen for keyboard or touch events, so the derived widget must call select_with_touch(), select_with_key_down(), and select_with_key_up() on events that it wants to pass on for selection purposes.

Example

To add selection to a grid layout which will contain Button widgets. For each button added to the layout, you need to bind the on_touch_down of the button to select_with_touch() to pass on the touch events:

from kivy.uix.behaviors.compoundselection import CompoundSelectionBehavior
from kivy.uix.button import Button
from kivy.uix.gridlayout import GridLayout
from kivy.uix.behaviors import FocusBehavior
from kivy.core.window import Window
from kivy.app import App


class SelectableGrid(FocusBehavior, CompoundSelectionBehavior, GridLayout):

    def keyboard_on_key_down(self, window, keycode, text, modifiers):
        """Based on FocusBehavior that provides automatic keyboard
        access, key presses will be used to select children.
        """
        if super(SelectableGrid, self).keyboard_on_key_down(
            window, keycode, text, modifiers):
            return True
        if self.select_with_key_down(window, keycode, text, modifiers):
            return True
        return False

    def keyboard_on_key_up(self, window, keycode):
        """Based on FocusBehavior that provides automatic keyboard
        access, key release will be used to select children.
        """
        if super(SelectableGrid, self).keyboard_on_key_up(window, keycode):
            return True
        if self.select_with_key_up(window, keycode):
            return True
        return False

    def add_widget(self, widget):
        """ Override the adding of widgets so we can bind and catch their
        *on_touch_down* events. """
        widget.bind(on_touch_down=self.button_touch_down,
                    on_touch_up=self.button_touch_up)
        return super(SelectableGrid, self).add_widget(widget)

    def button_touch_down(self, button, touch):
        """ Use collision detection to select buttons when the touch occurs
        within their area. """
        if button.collide_point(*touch.pos):
            self.select_with_touch(button, touch)

    def button_touch_up(self, button, touch):
        """ Use collision detection to de-select buttons when the touch
        occurs outside their area and *touch_multiselect* is not True. """
        if not (button.collide_point(*touch.pos) or
                self.touch_multiselect):
            self.deselect_node(button)

    def select_node(self, node):
        node.background_color = (1, 0, 0, 1)
        return super(SelectableGrid, self).select_node(node)

    def deselect_node(self, node):
        node.background_color = (1, 1, 1, 1)
        super(SelectableGrid, self).deselect_node(node)

    def on_selected_nodes(self, gird, nodes):
        print("Selected nodes = {0}".format(nodes))


class TestApp(App):
    def build(self):
        grid = SelectableGrid(cols=3, rows=2, touch_multiselect=True,
                              multiselect=True)
        for i in range(0, 6):
            grid.add_widget(Button(text="Button {0}".format(i)))
        return grid


TestApp().run()

Warning

This code is still experimental, and its API is subject to change in a future version.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.compoundselection.CompoundSelectionBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

The Selection behavior mixin implements the logic behind keyboard and touch selection of selectable widgets managed by the derived widget. Please see the compound selection behaviors module documentation for more information.

New in version 1.9.0.

clear_selection()[source]

Deselects all the currently selected nodes.

deselect_node(node)[source]

Deselects a possibly selected node.

It is called by the controller when it deselects a node and can also be called from the outside to deselect a node directly. The derived widget should overwrite this method and change the node to its unselected state when this is called

Parameters:
node

The node to be deselected.

Warning

This method must be called by the derived widget using super if it is overwritten.

get_index_of_node(node, selectable_nodes)[source]

(internal) Returns the index of the node within the selectable_nodes returned by get_selectable_nodes().

get_selectable_nodes()[source]

(internal) Returns a list of the nodes that can be selected. It can be overwritten by the derived widget to return the correct list.

This list is used to determine which nodes to select with group selection. E.g. the last element in the list will be selected when home is pressed, pagedown will move (or add to, if shift is held) the selection from the current position by negative page_count nodes starting from the position of the currently selected node in this list and so on. Still, nodes can be selected even if they are not in this list.

Note

It is safe to dynamically change this list including removing, adding, or re-arranging its elements. Nodes can be selected even if they are not on this list. And selected nodes removed from the list will remain selected until deselect_node() is called.

Warning

Layouts display their children in the reverse order. That is, the contents of children is displayed form right to left, bottom to top. Therefore, internally, the indices of the elements returned by this function are reversed to make it work by default for most layouts so that the final result is consistent e.g. home, although it will select the last element in this list visually, will select the first element when counting from top to bottom and left to right. If this behavior is not desired, a reversed list should be returned instead.

Defaults to returning children.

goto_node(key, last_node, last_node_idx)[source]

(internal) Used by the controller to get the node at the position indicated by key. The key can be keyboard inputs, e.g. pageup, or scroll inputs from the mouse scroll wheel, e.g. scrollup. ‘last_node’ is the last node selected and is used to find the resulting node. For example, if the key is up, the returned node is one node up from the last node.

It can be overwritten by the derived widget.

Parameters:
key

str, the string used to find the desired node. It can be any of the keyboard keys, as well as the mouse scrollup, scrolldown, scrollright, and scrollleft strings. If letters are typed in quick succession, the letters will be combined before it’s passed in as key and can be used to find nodes that have an associated string that starts with those letters.

last_node

The last node that was selected.

last_node_idx

The cached index of the last node selected in the get_selectable_nodes() list. If the list hasn’t changed it saves having to look up the index of last_node in that list.
Returns:

tuple, the node targeted by key and its index in the get_selectable_nodes() list. Returning (last_node, last_node_idx) indicates a node wasn’t found.
keyboard_select

Determines whether the keyboard can be used for selection. If False, keyboard inputs will be ignored.

keyboard_select is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

multiselect

Determines whether multiple nodes can be selected. If enabled, keyboard shift and ctrl selection, optionally combined with touch, for example, will be able to select multiple widgets in the normally expected manner. This dominates touch_multiselect when False.

multiselect is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

nodes_order_reversed

(Internal) Indicates whether the order of the nodes as displayed top- down is reversed compared to their order in get_selectable_nodes() (e.g. how the children property is reversed compared to how it’s displayed).

page_count

Determines by how much the selected node is moved up or down, relative to the position of the last selected node, when pageup (or pagedown) is pressed.

page_count is a NumericProperty and defaults to 10.

right_count

Determines by how much the selected node is moved up or down, relative to the position of the last selected node, when the right (or left) arrow on the keyboard is pressed.

right_count is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

scroll_count

Determines by how much the selected node is moved up or down, relative to the position of the last selected node, when the mouse scroll wheel is scrolled.

right_count is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

select_node(node)[source]

Selects a node.

It is called by the controller when it selects a node and can be called from the outside to select a node directly. The derived widget should overwrite this method and change the node state to selected when called.

Parameters:
node

The node to be selected.
Returns:

bool, True if the node was selected, False otherwise.

Warning

This method must be called by the derived widget using super if it is overwritten.

select_with_key_down(keyboard, scancode, codepoint, modifiers, **kwargs)[source]

Processes a key press. This is called when a key press is to be used for selection. Depending on the keyboard keys pressed and the configuration, it could select or deselect nodes or node ranges from the selectable nodes list, get_selectable_nodes().

The parameters are such that it could be bound directly to the on_key_down event of a keyboard. Therefore, it is safe to be called repeatedly when the key is held down as is done by the keyboard.

Returns:bool, True if the keypress was used, False otherwise.
select_with_key_up(keyboard, scancode, **kwargs)[source]

(internal) Processes a key release. This must be called by the derived widget when a key that select_with_key_down() returned True is released.

The parameters are such that it could be bound directly to the on_key_up event of a keyboard.

Returns:bool, True if the key release was used, False otherwise.
select_with_touch(node, touch=None)[source]

(internal) Processes a touch on the node. This should be called by the derived widget when a node is touched and is to be used for selection. Depending on the keyboard keys pressed and the configuration, it could select or deslect this and other nodes in the selectable nodes list, get_selectable_nodes().

Parameters:
node

The node that received the touch. Can be None for a scroll type touch.

touch

Optionally, the touch. Defaults to None.
Returns:

bool, True if the touch was used, False otherwise.
selected_nodes

The list of selected nodes.

Note

Multiple nodes can be selected right after one another e.g. using the keyboard. When listening to selected_nodes, one should be aware of this.

selected_nodes is a ListProperty and defaults to the empty list, []. It is read-only and should not be modified.

text_entry_timeout

When typing characters in rapid sucession (i.e. the time difference since the last character is less than text_entry_timeout), the keys get concatenated and the combined text is passed as the key argument of goto_node().

New in version 1.10.0.

touch_deselect_last

Determines whether the last selected node can be deselected when multiselect or touch_multiselect is False.

New in version 1.10.0.

touch_deselect_last is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True on mobile, False on desktop platforms.

touch_multiselect

A special touch mode which determines whether touch events, as processed by select_with_touch(), will add the currently touched node to the selection, or if it will clear the selection before adding the node. This allows the selection of multiple nodes by simply touching them.

This is different from multiselect because when it is True, simply touching an unselected node will select it, even if ctrl is not pressed. If it is False, however, ctrl must be pressed in order to add to the selection when multiselect is True.

Note

multiselect, when False, will disable touch_multiselect.

touch_multiselect is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

up_count

Determines by how much the selected node is moved up or down, relative to the position of the last selected node, when the up (or down) arrow on the keyboard is pressed.

up_count is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

Cover Behavior

The CoverBehavior mixin is intended for rendering textures to full widget size keeping the aspect ratio of the original texture.

Use cases are i.e. rendering full size background images or video content in a dynamic layout.

For an overview of behaviors, please refer to the behaviors documentation.

Example

The following examples add cover behavior to an image:

In python:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.behaviors import CoverBehavior
from kivy.uix.image import Image


class CoverImage(CoverBehavior, Image):

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(CoverImage, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        texture = self._coreimage.texture
        self.reference_size = texture.size
        self.texture = texture


class MainApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return CoverImage(source='image.jpg')

MainApp().run()

In Kivy Language:

CoverImage:
    source: 'image.png'

<CoverImage@CoverBehavior+Image>:
    reference_size: self.texture_size

See CoverBehavior for details.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.cover.CoverBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

The CoverBehavior mixin provides rendering a texture covering full widget size keeping aspect ratio of the original texture.

New in version 1.10.0.

cover_pos

Position of the aspect ratio aware texture. Gets calculated in CoverBehavior.calculate_cover.

cover_pos is a ListProperty and defaults to [0, 0].

cover_size

Size of the aspect ratio aware texture. Gets calculated in CoverBehavior.calculate_cover.

cover_size is a ListProperty and defaults to [0, 0].

reference_size

Reference size used for aspect ratio approximation calculation.

reference_size is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

Drag Behavior

The DragBehavior mixin class provides Drag behavior. When combined with a widget, dragging in the rectangle defined by the drag_rectangle will drag the widget.

Example

The following example creates a draggable label:

from kivy.uix.label import Label
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.behaviors import DragBehavior
from kivy.lang import Builder

# You could also put the following in your kv file...
kv = '''
<DragLabel>:
    # Define the properties for the DragLabel
    drag_rectangle: self.x, self.y, self.width, self.height
    drag_timeout: 10000000
    drag_distance: 0

FloatLayout:
    # Define the root widget
    DragLabel:
        size_hint: 0.25, 0.2
        text: 'Drag me'
'''


class DragLabel(DragBehavior, Label):
    pass


class TestApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return Builder.load_string(kv)

TestApp().run()
class kivy.uix.behaviors.drag.DragBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

The DragBehavior mixin provides Drag behavior. When combined with a widget, dragging in the rectangle defined by drag_rectangle will drag the widget. Please see the drag behaviors module documentation for more information.

New in version 1.8.0.

drag_distance

Distance to move before dragging the DragBehavior, in pixels. As soon as the distance has been traveled, the DragBehavior will start to drag, and no touch event will be dispatched to the children. It is advisable that you base this value on the dpi of your target device’s screen.

drag_distance is a NumericProperty and defaults to the scroll_distance as defined in the user Config (20 pixels by default).

drag_rect_height

Height of the axis aligned bounding rectangle where dragging is allowed.

drag_rect_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to 100.

drag_rect_width

Width of the axis aligned bounding rectangle where dragging is allowed.

drag_rect_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 100.

drag_rect_x

X position of the axis aligned bounding rectangle where dragging is allowed (in window coordinates).

drag_rect_x is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

drag_rect_y

Y position of the axis aligned bounding rectangle where dragging is allowed (in window coordinates).

drag_rect_Y is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

drag_rectangle

Position and size of the axis aligned bounding rectangle where dragging is allowed.

drag_rectangle is a ReferenceListProperty of (drag_rect_x, drag_rect_y, drag_rect_width, drag_rect_height) properties.

drag_timeout

Timeout allowed to trigger the drag_distance, in milliseconds. If the user has not moved drag_distance within the timeout, dragging will be disabled, and the touch event will be dispatched to the children.

drag_timeout is a NumericProperty and defaults to the scroll_timeout as defined in the user Config (55 milliseconds by default).

Emacs Behavior

The EmacsBehavior mixin allows you to add Emacs keyboard shortcuts for basic movement and editing to the TextInput widget. The shortcuts currently available are listed below:

Emacs shortcuts
Shortcut Description
Control + a Move cursor to the beginning of the line
Control + e Move cursor to the end of the line
Control + f Move cursor one character to the right
Control + b Move cursor one character to the left
Alt + f Move cursor to the end of the word to the right
Alt + b Move cursor to the start of the word to the left
Alt + Backspace Delete text left of the cursor to the beginning of word
Alt + d Delete text right of the cursor to the end of the word
Alt + w Copy selection
Control + w Cut selection
Control + y Paste selection

Warning

If you have the inspector module enabled, the shortcut for opening the inspector (Control + e) conflicts with the Emacs shortcut to move to the end of the line (it will still move the cursor to the end of the line, but the inspector will open as well).

class kivy.uix.behaviors.emacs.EmacsBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

A mixin that enables Emacs-style keyboard shortcuts for the TextInput widget. Please see the Emacs behaviors module documentation for more information.

New in version 1.9.1.

delete_word_left()[source]

Delete text left of the cursor to the beginning of word

delete_word_right()[source]

Delete text right of the cursor to the end of the word

key_bindings

String name which determines the type of key bindings to use with the TextInput. This allows Emacs key bindings to be enabled/disabled programmatically for widgets that inherit from EmacsBehavior. If the value is not 'emacs', Emacs bindings will be disabled. Use 'default' for switching to the default key bindings of TextInput.

key_bindings is a StringProperty and defaults to 'emacs'.

New in version 1.10.0.

Focus Behavior

The FocusBehavior mixin class provides keyboard focus behavior. When combined with other FocusBehavior widgets it allows one to cycle focus among them by pressing tab. In addition, upon gaining focus, the instance will automatically receive keyboard input.

Focus, very different from selection, is intimately tied with the keyboard; each keyboard can focus on zero or one widgets, and each widget can only have the focus of one keyboard. However, multiple keyboards can focus simultaneously on different widgets. When escape is hit, the widget having the focus of that keyboard will de-focus.

Managing focus

In essence, focus is implemented as a doubly linked list, where each node holds a (weak) reference to the instance before it and after it, as visualized when cycling through the nodes using tab (forward) or shift+tab (backward). If a previous or next widget is not specified, focus_next and focus_previous defaults to None. This means that the children list and parents are walked to find the next focusable widget, unless focus_next or focus_previous is set to the StopIteration class, in which case focus stops there.

For example, to cycle focus between Button elements of a GridLayout:

class FocusButton(FocusBehavior, Button):
  pass

grid = GridLayout(cols=4)
for i in range(40):
    grid.add_widget(FocusButton(text=str(i)))
# clicking on a widget will activate focus, and tab can now be used
# to cycle through

When using a software keyboard, typical on mobile and touch devices, the keyboard display behavior is determined by the softinput_mode property. You can use this property to ensure the focused widget is not covered or obscured by the keyboard.

Initializing focus

Widgets needs to be visible before they can receive the focus. This means that setting their focus property to True before they are visible will have no effect. To initialize focus, you can use the ‘on_parent’ event:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.textinput import TextInput

class MyTextInput(TextInput):
    def on_parent(self, widget, parent):
        self.focus = True

class SampleApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return MyTextInput()

SampleApp().run()

If you are using a popup, you can use the ‘on_open’ event.

For an overview of behaviors, please refer to the behaviors documentation.

Warning

This code is still experimental, and its API is subject to change in a future version.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.focus.FocusBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Provides keyboard focus behavior. When combined with other FocusBehavior widgets it allows one to cycle focus among them by pressing tab. Please see the focus behavior module documentation for more information.

New in version 1.9.0.

focus

Whether the instance currently has focus.

Setting it to True will bind to and/or request the keyboard, and input will be forwarded to the instance. Setting it to False will unbind and/or release the keyboard. For a given keyboard, only one widget can have its focus, so focusing one will automatically unfocus the other instance holding its focus.

When using a software keyboard, please refer to the softinput_mode property to determine how the keyboard display is handled.

focus is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

focus_next

The FocusBehavior instance to acquire focus when tab is pressed and this instance has focus, if not None or StopIteration.

When tab is pressed, focus cycles through all the FocusBehavior widgets that are linked through focus_next and are focusable. If focus_next is None, it instead walks the children lists to find the next focusable widget. Finally, if focus_next is the StopIteration class, focus won’t move forward, but end here.

focus_next is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

focus_previous

The FocusBehavior instance to acquire focus when shift+tab is pressed on this instance, if not None or StopIteration.

When shift+tab is pressed, focus cycles through all the FocusBehavior widgets that are linked through focus_previous and are focusable. If focus_previous is None, it instead walks the children tree to find the previous focusable widget. Finally, if focus_previous is the StopIteration class, focus won’t move backward, but end here.

focus_previous is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

focused

An alias of focus.

focused is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

Warning

focused is an alias of focus and will be removed in 2.0.0.

get_focus_next()[source]

Returns the next focusable widget using either focus_next or the children similar to the order when tabbing forwards with the tab key.

get_focus_previous()[source]

Returns the previous focusable widget using either focus_previous or the children similar to the order when tab + shift key are triggered together.

hide_keyboard()[source]

Convenience function to hide the keyboard in managed mode.

ignored_touch = []

A list of touches that should not be used to defocus. After on_touch_up, every touch that is not in ignored_touch will defocus all the focused widgets if the config keyboard mode is not multi. Touches on focusable widgets that were used to focus are automatically added here.

Example usage:

class Unfocusable(Widget):

    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        if self.collide_point(*touch.pos):
            FocusBehavior.ignored_touch.append(touch)

Notice that you need to access this as a class, not an instance variable.

input_type

The kind of input keyboard to request.

New in version 1.8.0.

input_type is an OptionsProperty and defaults to ‘text’. Can be one of ‘text’, ‘number’, ‘url’, ‘mail’, ‘datetime’, ‘tel’ or ‘address’.

is_focusable

Whether the instance can become focused. If focused, it’ll lose focus when set to False.

is_focusable is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True on a desktop (i.e. desktop is True in config), False otherwise.

keyboard

The keyboard to bind to (or bound to the widget) when focused.

When None, a keyboard is requested and released whenever the widget comes into and out of focus. If not None, it must be a keyboard, which gets bound and unbound from the widget whenever it’s in or out of focus. It is useful only when more than one keyboard is available, so it is recommended to be set to None when only one keyboard is available.

If more than one keyboard is available, whenever an instance gets focused a new keyboard will be requested if None. Unless the other instances lose focus (e.g. if tab was used), a new keyboard will appear. When this is undesired, the keyboard property can be used. For example, if there are two users with two keyboards, then each keyboard can be assigned to different groups of instances of FocusBehavior, ensuring that within each group, only one FocusBehavior will have focus, and will receive input from the correct keyboard. See keyboard_mode in config for more information on the keyboard modes.

Keyboard and focus behavior

When using the keyboard, there are some important default behaviors you should keep in mind.

  • When Config’s keyboard_mode is multi, each new touch is considered a touch by a different user and will set the focus (if clicked on a focusable) with a new keyboard. Already focused elements will not lose their focus (even if an unfocusable widget is touched).
  • If the keyboard property is set, that keyboard will be used when the instance gets focused. If widgets with different keyboards are linked through focus_next and focus_previous, then as they are tabbed through, different keyboards will become active. Therefore, typically it’s undesirable to link instances which are assigned different keyboards.
  • When a widget has focus, setting its keyboard to None will remove its keyboard, but the widget will then immediately try to get another keyboard. In order to remove its keyboard, rather set its focus to False.
  • When using a software keyboard, typical on mobile and touch devices, the keyboard display behavior is determined by the softinput_mode property. You can use this property to ensure the focused widget is not covered or obscured.

keyboard is an AliasProperty and defaults to None.

keyboard_mode

Determines how the keyboard visibility should be managed. ‘auto’ will result in the standard behaviour of showing/hiding on focus. ‘managed’ requires setting the keyboard visibility manually, or calling the helper functions show_keyboard() and hide_keyboard().

keyboard_mode is an OptionsProperty and defaults to ‘auto’. Can be one of ‘auto’ or ‘managed’.

keyboard_on_key_down(window, keycode, text, modifiers)[source]

The method bound to the keyboard when the instance has focus.

When the instance becomes focused, this method is bound to the keyboard and will be called for every input press. The parameters are the same as kivy.core.window.WindowBase.on_key_down().

When overwriting the method in the derived widget, super should be called to enable tab cycling. If the derived widget wishes to use tab for its own purposes, it can call super after it has processed the character (if it does not wish to consume the tab).

Similar to other keyboard functions, it should return True if the key was consumed.

keyboard_on_key_up(window, keycode)[source]

The method bound to the keyboard when the instance has focus.

When the instance becomes focused, this method is bound to the keyboard and will be called for every input release. The parameters are the same as kivy.core.window.WindowBase.on_key_up().

When overwriting the method in the derived widget, super should be called to enable de-focusing on escape. If the derived widget wishes to use escape for its own purposes, it can call super after it has processed the character (if it does not wish to consume the escape).

See keyboard_on_key_down()

show_keyboard()[source]

Convenience function to show the keyboard in managed mode.

unfocus_on_touch

Whether a instance should lose focus when clicked outside the instance.

When a user clicks on a widget that is focus aware and shares the same keyboard as this widget (which in the case of only one keyboard, are all focus aware widgets), then as the other widgets gains focus, this widget loses focus. In addition to that, if this property is True, clicking on any widget other than this widget, will remove focus form this widget.

unfocus_on_touch is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False if the keyboard_mode in Config is ‘multi’ or ‘systemandmulti’, otherwise it defaults to True.

Kivy Namespaces

New in version 1.9.1.

Warning

This code is still experimental, and its API is subject to change in a future version.

The KNSpaceBehavior mixin class provides namespace functionality for Kivy objects. It allows kivy objects to be named and then accessed using namespaces.

KNSpace instances are the namespaces that store the named objects in Kivy ObjectProperty instances. In addition, when inheriting from KNSpaceBehavior, if the derived object is named, the name will automatically be added to the associated namespace and will point to a proxy_ref of the derived object.

Basic examples

By default, there’s only a single namespace: the knspace namespace. The simplest example is adding a widget to the namespace:

from kivy.uix.behaviors.knspace import knspace
widget = Widget()
knspace.my_widget = widget

This adds a kivy ObjectProperty with rebind=True and allownone=True to the knspace namespace with a property name my_widget. And the property now also points to this widget.

This can be done automatically with:

class MyWidget(KNSpaceBehavior, Widget):
    pass

widget = MyWidget(knsname='my_widget')

Or in kv:

<MyWidget@KNSpaceBehavior+Widget>

MyWidget:
    knsname: 'my_widget'

Now, knspace.my_widget will point to that widget.

When one creates a second widget with the same name, the namespace will also change to point to the new widget. E.g.:

widget = MyWidget(knsname='my_widget')
# knspace.my_widget now points to widget
widget2 = MyWidget(knsname='my_widget')
# knspace.my_widget now points to widget2
Setting the namespace

One can also create ones own namespace rather than using the default knspace by directly setting KNSpaceBehavior.knspace:

class MyWidget(KNSpaceBehavior, Widget):
    pass

widget = MyWidget(knsname='my_widget')
my_new_namespace = KNSpace()
widget.knspace = my_new_namespace

Initially, my_widget is added to the default namespace, but when the widget’s namespace is changed to my_new_namespace, the reference to my_widget is moved to that namespace. We could have also of course first set the namespace to my_new_namespace and then have named the widget my_widget, thereby avoiding the initial assignment to the default namespace.

Similarly, in kv:

<MyWidget@KNSpaceBehavior+Widget>

MyWidget:
    knspace: KNSpace()
    knsname: 'my_widget'
Inheriting the namespace

In the previous example, we directly set the namespace we wished to use. In the following example, we inherit it from the parent, so we only have to set it once:

<MyWidget@KNSpaceBehavior+Widget>
<MyLabel@KNSpaceBehavior+Label>

<MyComplexWidget@MyWidget>:
    knsname: 'my_complex'
    MyLabel:
        knsname: 'label1'
    MyLabel:
        knsname: 'label2'

Then, we do:

widget = MyComplexWidget()
new_knspace = KNSpace()
widget.knspace = new_knspace

The rule is that if no knspace has been assigned to a widget, it looks for a namespace in its parent and parent’s parent and so on until it find one to use. If none are found, it uses the default knspace.

When MyComplexWidget is created, it still used the default namespace. However, when we assigned the root widget its new namespace, all its children switched to using that new namespace as well. So new_knspace now contains label1 and label2 as well as my_complex.

If we had first done:

widget = MyComplexWidget()
new_knspace = KNSpace()
knspace.label1.knspace = knspace
widget.knspace = new_knspace

Then label1 would remain stored in the default knspace since it was directly set, but label2 and my_complex would still be added to the new namespace.

One can customize the attribute used to search the parent tree by changing KNSpaceBehavior.knspace_key. If the desired knspace is not reachable through a widgets parent tree, e.g. in a popup that is not a widget’s child, KNSpaceBehavior.knspace_key can be used to establish a different search order.

Accessing the namespace

As seen in the previous example, if not directly assigned, the namespace is found by searching the parent tree. Consequently, if a namespace was assigned further up the parent tree, all its children and below could access that namespace through their KNSpaceBehavior.knspace property.

This allows the creation of multiple widgets with identically given names if each root widget instance is assigned a new namespace. For example:

<MyComplexWidget@KNSpaceBehavior+Widget>:
    Label:
        text: root.knspace.pretty.text if root.knspace.pretty else ''

<MyPrettyWidget@KNSpaceBehavior+TextInput>:
    knsname: 'pretty'
    text: 'Hello'

<MyCompositeWidget@KNSpaceBehavior+BoxLayout>:
    MyComplexWidget
    MyPrettyWidget

Now, when we do:

knspace1, knspace2 = KNSpace(), KNSpace()
composite1 = MyCompositeWidget()
composite1.knspace = knspace1

composite2 = MyCompositeWidget()
composite2.knspace = knspace2

knspace1.pretty = "Here's the ladder, now fix the roof!"
knspace2.pretty = "Get that raccoon off me!"

Because each of the MyCompositeWidget instances have a different namespace their children also use different namespaces. Consequently, the pretty and complex widgets of each instance will have different text.

Further, because both the namespace ObjectProperty references, and KNSpaceBehavior.knspace have rebind=True, the text of the MyComplexWidget label is rebound to match the text of MyPrettyWidget when either the root’s namespace changes or when the root.knspace.pretty property changes, as expected.

Forking a namespace

Forking a namespace provides the opportunity to create a new namespace from a parent namespace so that the forked namespace will contain everything in the origin namespace, but the origin namespace will not have access to anything added to the forked namespace.

For example:

child = knspace.fork()
grandchild = child.fork()

child.label = Label()
grandchild.button = Button()

Now label is accessible by both child and grandchild, but not by knspace. And button is only accessible by the grandchild but not by the child or by knspace. Finally, doing grandchild.label = Label() will leave grandchild.label and child.label pointing to different labels.

A motivating example is the example from above:

<MyComplexWidget@KNSpaceBehavior+Widget>:
    Label:
        text: root.knspace.pretty.text if root.knspace.pretty else ''

<MyPrettyWidget@KNSpaceBehavior+TextInput>:
    knsname: 'pretty'
    text: 'Hello'

<MyCompositeWidget@KNSpaceBehavior+BoxLayout>:
    knspace: 'fork'
    MyComplexWidget
    MyPrettyWidget

Notice the addition of knspace: ‘fork’. This is identical to doing knspace: self.knspace.fork(). However, doing that would lead to infinite recursion as that kv rule would be executed recursively because self.knspace will keep on changing. However, allowing knspace: ‘fork’ cirumvents that. See KNSpaceBehavior.knspace.

Now, having forked, we just need to do:

composite1 = MyCompositeWidget()
composite2 = MyCompositeWidget()

composite1.knspace.pretty = "Here's the ladder, now fix the roof!"
composite2.knspace.pretty = "Get that raccoon off me!"

Since by forking we automatically created a unique namespace for each MyCompositeWidget instance.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.knspace.KNSpace(parent=None, keep_ref=False, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Each KNSpace instance is a namespace that stores the named Kivy objects associated with this namespace. Each named object is stored as the value of a Kivy ObjectProperty of this instance whose property name is the object’s given name. Both rebind and allownone are set to True for the property.

See KNSpaceBehavior.knspace for details on how a namespace is associated with a named object.

When storing an object in the namespace, the object’s proxy_ref is stored if the object has such an attribute.

Parameters:
parent: (internal) A KNSpace instance or None.

If specified, it’s a parent namespace, in which case, the current namespace will have in its namespace all its named objects as well as the named objects of its parent and parent’s parent etc. See fork() for more details.
fork()[source]

Returns a new KNSpace instance which will have access to all the named objects in the current namespace but will also have a namespace of its own that is unique to it.

For example:

forked_knspace1 = knspace.fork()
forked_knspace2 = knspace.fork()

Now, any names added to knspace will be accessible by the forked_knspace1 and forked_knspace2 namespaces by the normal means. However, any names added to forked_knspace1 will not be accessible from knspace or forked_knspace2. Similar for forked_knspace2.

keep_ref = False

Whether a direct reference should be kept to the stored objects. If True, we use the direct object, otherwise we use proxy_ref when present.

Defaults to False.

parent = None

(internal) The parent namespace instance, KNSpace, or None. See fork().

property(name, quiet=False)[source]

Get a property instance from the property name. If quiet is True, None is returned instead of raising an exception when name is not a property. Defaults to False.

New in version 1.0.9.

Returns:A Property derived instance corresponding to the name.

Changed in version 1.9.0: quiet was added.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.knspace.KNSpaceBehavior(knspace=None, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Inheriting from this class allows naming of the inherited objects, which are then added to the associated namespace knspace and accessible through it.

Please see the knspace behaviors module documentation for more information.

knsname

The name given to this instance. If named, the name will be added to the associated knspace namespace, which will then point to the proxy_ref of this instance.

When named, one can access this object by e.g. self.knspace.name, where name is the given name of this instance. See knspace and the module description for more details.

knspace

The namespace instance, KNSpace, associated with this widget. The knspace namespace stores this widget when naming this widget with knsname.

If the namespace has been set with a KNSpace instance, e.g. with self.knspace = KNSpace(), then that instance is returned (setting with None doesn’t count). Otherwise, if knspace_key is not None, we look for a namespace to use in the object that is stored in the property named knspace_key, of this instance. I.e. object = getattr(self, self.knspace_key).

If that object has a knspace property, then we return its value. Otherwise, we go further up, e.g. with getattr(object, self.knspace_key) and look for it’s knspace property.

Finally, if we reach a value of None, or knspace_key was None, the default knspace namespace is returned.

If knspace is set to the string ‘fork’, the current namespace in knspace will be forked with KNSpace.fork() and the resulting namespace will be assigned to this instance’s knspace. See the module examples for a motivating example.

Both rebind and allownone are True.

knspace_key

The name of the property of this instance, to use to search upwards for a namespace to use by this instance. Defaults to ‘parent’ so that we’ll search the parent tree. See knspace.

When None, we won’t search the parent tree for the namespace. allownone is True.

kivy.uix.behaviors.knspace.knspace = <kivy.uix.behaviors.knspace.KNSpace object>

The default KNSpace namespace. See KNSpaceBehavior.knspace for more details.

ToggleButton Behavior

The ToggleButtonBehavior mixin class provides ToggleButton behavior. You can combine this class with other widgets, such as an Image, to provide alternative togglebuttons that preserve Kivy togglebutton behavior.

For an overview of behaviors, please refer to the behaviors documentation.

Example

The following example adds togglebutton behavior to an image to make a checkbox that behaves like a togglebutton:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.image import Image
from kivy.uix.behaviors import ToggleButtonBehavior


class MyButton(ToggleButtonBehavior, Image):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MyButton, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.source = 'atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_off'

    def on_state(self, widget, value):
        if value == 'down':
            self.source = 'atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_on'
        else:
            self.source = 'atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_off'


class SampleApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return MyButton()


SampleApp().run()
class kivy.uix.behaviors.togglebutton.ToggleButtonBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.behaviors.button.ButtonBehavior

This mixin class provides togglebutton behavior. Please see the togglebutton behaviors module documentation for more information.

New in version 1.8.0.

allow_no_selection

This specifies whether the widgets in a group allow no selection i.e. everything to be deselected.

New in version 1.9.0.

allow_no_selection is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True

static get_widgets(groupname)[source]

Return a list of the widgets contained in a specific group. If the group doesn’t exist, an empty list will be returned.

Note

Always release the result of this method! Holding a reference to any of these widgets can prevent them from being garbage collected. If in doubt, do:

l = ToggleButtonBehavior.get_widgets('mygroup')
# do your job
del l

Warning

It’s possible that some widgets that you have previously deleted are still in the list. The garbage collector might need to release other objects before flushing them.

group

Group of the button. If None, no group will be used (the button will be independent). If specified, group must be a hashable object, like a string. Only one button in a group can be in a ‘down’ state.

group is a ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

Touch Ripple

New in version 1.10.1.

Warning

This code is still experimental, and its API is subject to change in a future version.

This module contains mixin classes to add a touch ripple visual effect known from Google Material Design <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_Design>_ to widgets.

For an overview of behaviors, please refer to the behaviors documentation.

The class TouchRippleBehavior provides rendering the ripple animation.

The class TouchRippleButtonBehavior basically provides the same functionality as ButtonBehavior but rendering the ripple animation instead of default press/release visualization.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.touchripple.TouchRippleBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Touch ripple behavior.

Supposed to be used as mixin on widget classes.

Ripple behavior does not trigger automatically, concrete implementation needs to call ripple_show() respective ripple_fade() manually.

Here we create a Label which renders the touch ripple animation on interaction:

class RippleLabel(TouchRippleBehavior, Label):

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(RippleLabel, self).__init__(**kwargs)

    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        collide_point = self.collide_point(touch.x, touch.y)
        if collide_point:
            touch.grab(self)
            self.ripple_show(touch)
            return True
        return False

    def on_touch_up(self, touch):
        if touch.grab_current is self:
            touch.ungrab(self)
            self.ripple_fade()
            return True
        return False
ripple_duration_in

Animation duration taken to show the overlay.

ripple_duration_in is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.5.

ripple_duration_out

Animation duration taken to fade the overlay.

ripple_duration_out is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.2.

ripple_fade()[source]

Finish ripple animation on current widget.

ripple_fade_from_alpha

Alpha channel for ripple color the animation starts with.

ripple_fade_from_alpha is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.5.

ripple_fade_to_alpha

Alpha channel for ripple color the animation targets to.

ripple_fade_to_alpha is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.8.

ripple_func_in

Animation callback for showing the overlay.

ripple_func_in is a StringProperty and defaults to in_cubic.

ripple_func_out

Animation callback for hiding the overlay.

ripple_func_out is a StringProperty and defaults to out_quad.

ripple_rad_default

Default radius the animation starts from.

ripple_rad_default is a NumericProperty and defaults to 10.

ripple_scale

Max scale of the animation overlay calculated from max(width/height) of the decorated widget.

ripple_scale is a NumericProperty and defaults to 2.0.

ripple_show(touch)[source]

Begin ripple animation on current widget.

Expects touch event as argument.

class kivy.uix.behaviors.touchripple.TouchRippleButtonBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.behaviors.touchripple.TouchRippleBehavior

This mixin class provides a similar behavior to ButtonBehavior but provides touch ripple animation instead of button pressed/released as visual effect.

Events:
on_press

Fired when the button is pressed.

on_release

Fired when the button is released (i.e. the touch/click that pressed the button goes away).
always_release

This determines whether or not the widget fires an on_release event if the touch_up is outside the widget.

always_release is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

last_touch

Contains the last relevant touch received by the Button. This can be used in on_press or on_release in order to know which touch dispatched the event.

last_touch is a ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

RecycleView

New in version 1.10.0.

The RecycleView provides a flexible model for viewing selected sections of large data sets. It aims to prevent the performance degradation that can occur when generating large numbers of widgets in order to display many data items.

The view is generatad by processing the data, essentially a list of dicts, and uses these dicts to generate instances of the viewclass as required. Its design is based on the MVC (Model-view-controller) pattern.

  • Model: The model is formed by data you pass in via a list of dicts.
  • View: The View is split across layout and views and implemented using adaters.
  • Controller: The controller determines the logical interaction and is implemented by RecycleViewBehavior.

These are abstract classes and cannot be used directly. The default concrete implementations are the RecycleDataModel for the model, the RecycleLayout for the view, and the RecycleView for the controller.

When a RecycleView is instantiated, it automatically creates the views and data classes. However, one must manually create the layout classes and add them to the RecycleView.

A layout manager is automatically created as a layout_manager when added as the child of the RecycleView. Similarly when removed. A requirement is that the layout manager must be contained as a child somewhere within the RecycleView’s widget tree so the view port can be found.

A minimal example might look something like this:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.uix.recycleview import RecycleView


Builder.load_string('''
<RV>:
    viewclass: 'Label'
    RecycleBoxLayout:
        default_size: None, dp(56)
        default_size_hint: 1, None
        size_hint_y: None
        height: self.minimum_height
        orientation: 'vertical'
''')

class RV(RecycleView):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(RV, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.data = [{'text': str(x)} for x in range(100)]


class TestApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return RV()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    TestApp().run()

In order to support selection in the view, you can add the required behaviours as follows:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.uix.recycleview import RecycleView
from kivy.uix.recycleview.views import RecycleDataViewBehavior
from kivy.uix.label import Label
from kivy.properties import BooleanProperty
from kivy.uix.recycleboxlayout import RecycleBoxLayout
from kivy.uix.behaviors import FocusBehavior
from kivy.uix.recycleview.layout import LayoutSelectionBehavior

Builder.load_string('''
<SelectableLabel>:
    # Draw a background to indicate selection
    canvas.before:
        Color:
            rgba: (.0, 0.9, .1, .3) if self.selected else (0, 0, 0, 1)
        Rectangle:
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size
<RV>:
    viewclass: 'SelectableLabel'
    SelectableRecycleBoxLayout:
        default_size: None, dp(56)
        default_size_hint: 1, None
        size_hint_y: None
        height: self.minimum_height
        orientation: 'vertical'
        multiselect: True
        touch_multiselect: True
''')


class SelectableRecycleBoxLayout(FocusBehavior, LayoutSelectionBehavior,
                                 RecycleBoxLayout):
    ''' Adds selection and focus behaviour to the view. '''


class SelectableLabel(RecycleDataViewBehavior, Label):
    ''' Add selection support to the Label '''
    index = None
    selected = BooleanProperty(False)
    selectable = BooleanProperty(True)

    def refresh_view_attrs(self, rv, index, data):
        ''' Catch and handle the view changes '''
        self.index = index
        return super(SelectableLabel, self).refresh_view_attrs(
            rv, index, data)

    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        ''' Add selection on touch down '''
        if super(SelectableLabel, self).on_touch_down(touch):
            return True
        if self.collide_point(*touch.pos) and self.selectable:
            return self.parent.select_with_touch(self.index, touch)

    def apply_selection(self, rv, index, is_selected):
        ''' Respond to the selection of items in the view. '''
        self.selected = is_selected
        if is_selected:
            print("selection changed to {0}".format(rv.data[index]))
        else:
            print("selection removed for {0}".format(rv.data[index]))


class RV(RecycleView):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(RV, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.data = [{'text': str(x)} for x in range(100)]


class TestApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return RV()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    TestApp().run()

Please see the examples/widgets/recycleview/basic_data.py file for a more complete example.

TODO:
  • Method to clear cached class instances.
  • Test when views cannot be found (e.g. viewclass is None).
  • Fix selection goto.

Warning

When views are re-used they may not trigger if the data remains the same.

class kivy.uix.recycleview.RecycleViewBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

RecycleViewBehavior provides a behavioral model upon which the RecycleView is built. Together, they offer an extensible and flexible way to produce views with limited windows over large data sets.

See the module documentation for more information.

data_model

The Data model responsible for maintaining the data set.

data_model is an AliasProperty that gets and sets the current data model.

layout_manager

The Layout manager responsible for positioning views within the RecycleView.

layout_manager is an AliasProperty that gets and sets the layout_manger.

refresh_from_data(*largs, **kwargs)[source]

This should be called when data changes. Data changes typically indicate that everything should be recomputed since the source data changed.

This method is automatically bound to the on_data_changed method of the RecycleDataModelBehavior class and therefore responds to and accepts the keyword arguments of that event.

It can be called manually to trigger an update.

refresh_from_layout(*largs, **kwargs)[source]

This should be called when the layout changes or needs to change. It is typically called when a layout parameter has changed and therefore the layout needs to be recomputed.

refresh_from_viewport(*largs)[source]

This should be called when the viewport changes and the displayed data must be updated. Neither the data nor the layout will be recomputed.

view_adapter

The adapter responsible for providing views that represent items in a data set.

view_adapter is an AliasProperty that gets and sets the current view adapter.

class kivy.uix.recycleview.RecycleView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.recycleview.RecycleViewBehavior, kivy.uix.scrollview.ScrollView

RecycleView is a flexible view for providing a limited window into a large data set.

See the module documentation for more information.

add_widget(widget, *largs)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
data

The data used by the current view adapter. This is a list of dicts whose keys map to the corresponding property names of the viewclass.

data is an AliasProperty that gets and sets the data used to generate the views.

key_viewclass

key_viewclass is an AliasProperty that gets and sets the key viewclass for the current layout_manager.

remove_widget(widget, *largs)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
viewclass

The viewclass used by the current layout_manager.

viewclass is an AliasProperty that gets and sets the class used to generate the individual items presented in the view.

RecycleView Data Model

New in version 1.10.0.

The data model part of the RecycleView model-view-controller pattern.

It defines the models (classes) that store the data associated with a RecycleViewBehavior. Each model (class) determines how the data is stored and emits requests to the controller (RecycleViewBehavior) when the data is modified.

class kivy.uix.recycleview.datamodel.RecycleDataModelBehavior[source]

Bases: builtins.object

RecycleDataModelBehavior is the base class for the models that describes and provides the data for the RecycleViewBehavior.

Events:
on_data_changed:

Fired when the data changes. The event may dispatch keyword arguments specific to each implementation of the data model. When dispatched, the event and keyword arguments are forwarded to refresh_from_data().
attach_recycleview(rv)[source]

Associates a RecycleViewBehavior with this data model.

detach_recycleview()[source]

Removes the RecycleViewBehavior associated with this data model.

recycleview

The RecycleViewBehavior instance associated with this data model.

class kivy.uix.recycleview.datamodel.RecycleDataModel(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.recycleview.datamodel.RecycleDataModelBehavior, kivy.event.EventDispatcher

A implementation of RecycleDataModelBehavior that keeps the data in a indexable list. See data.

When data changes this class currently dispatches on_data_changed with one of the following additional keyword arguments.

none: no keyword argument
With no additional argument it means a generic data change.
removed: a slice or integer
The value is a slice or integer indicating the indices removed.
appended: a slice
The slice in data indicating the first and last new items (i.e. the slice pointing to the new items added at the end).
inserted: a integer
The index in data where a new data item was inserted.
modified: a slice
The slice with the indices where the data has been modified. This currently does not allow changing of size etc.
attach_recycleview(rv)[source]

Associates a RecycleViewBehavior with this data model.

data

Stores the model’s data using a list.

The data for a item at index i can also be accessed with RecycleDataModel [i].

detach_recycleview()[source]

Removes the RecycleViewBehavior associated with this data model.

observable_dict

A dictionary instance, which when modified will trigger a data and consequently an on_data_changed dispatch.

RecycleView Layouts

New in version 1.10.0.

The Layouts handle the presentation of views for the RecycleView.

Warning

This module is highly experimental, its API may change in the future and the documentation is not complete at this time.

exception kivy.uix.recycleview.layout.LayoutChangeException[source]

Bases: Exception

class kivy.uix.recycleview.layout.LayoutSelectionBehavior(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.behaviors.compoundselection.CompoundSelectionBehavior

The LayoutSelectionBehavior can be combined with RecycleLayoutManagerBehavior to allow its derived classes selection behaviors similarly to how CompoundSelectionBehavior can be used to add selection behaviors to normal layout.

RecycleLayoutManagerBehavior manages its children differently than normal layouts or widgets so this class adapts CompoundSelectionBehavior based selection to work with RecycleLayoutManagerBehavior as well.

Similarly to CompoundSelectionBehavior, one can select using the keyboard or touch, which calls select_node() or deselect_node(), or one can call these methods directly. When a item is selected or deselected apply_selection() is called. See apply_selection().

apply_selection(index, view, is_selected)[source]

Applies the selection to the view. This is called internally when a view is displayed and it needs to be shown as selected or as not selected.

It is called when select_node() or deselect_node() is called or when a view needs to be refreshed. Its function is purely to update the view to reflect the selection state. So the function may be called multiple times even if the selection state may not have changed.

If the view is a instance of RecycleDataViewBehavior, its apply_selection() method will be called every time the view needs to refresh the selection state. Otherwise, the this method is responsible for applying the selection.

Parameters:
index: int

The index of the data item that is associated with the view.

view: widget

The widget that is the view of this data item.

is_selected: bool

Whether the item is selected.
deselect_node(node)[source]

Deselects a possibly selected node.

It is called by the controller when it deselects a node and can also be called from the outside to deselect a node directly. The derived widget should overwrite this method and change the node to its unselected state when this is called

Parameters:
node

The node to be deselected.

Warning

This method must be called by the derived widget using super if it is overwritten.

get_index_of_node(node, selectable_nodes)[source]

(internal) Returns the index of the node within the selectable_nodes returned by get_selectable_nodes().

get_selectable_nodes()[source]

(internal) Returns a list of the nodes that can be selected. It can be overwritten by the derived widget to return the correct list.

This list is used to determine which nodes to select with group selection. E.g. the last element in the list will be selected when home is pressed, pagedown will move (or add to, if shift is held) the selection from the current position by negative page_count nodes starting from the position of the currently selected node in this list and so on. Still, nodes can be selected even if they are not in this list.

Note

It is safe to dynamically change this list including removing, adding, or re-arranging its elements. Nodes can be selected even if they are not on this list. And selected nodes removed from the list will remain selected until deselect_node() is called.

Warning

Layouts display their children in the reverse order. That is, the contents of children is displayed form right to left, bottom to top. Therefore, internally, the indices of the elements returned by this function are reversed to make it work by default for most layouts so that the final result is consistent e.g. home, although it will select the last element in this list visually, will select the first element when counting from top to bottom and left to right. If this behavior is not desired, a reversed list should be returned instead.

Defaults to returning children.

goto_node(key, last_node, last_node_idx)[source]

(internal) Used by the controller to get the node at the position indicated by key. The key can be keyboard inputs, e.g. pageup, or scroll inputs from the mouse scroll wheel, e.g. scrollup. ‘last_node’ is the last node selected and is used to find the resulting node. For example, if the key is up, the returned node is one node up from the last node.

It can be overwritten by the derived widget.

Parameters:
key

str, the string used to find the desired node. It can be any of the keyboard keys, as well as the mouse scrollup, scrolldown, scrollright, and scrollleft strings. If letters are typed in quick succession, the letters will be combined before it’s passed in as key and can be used to find nodes that have an associated string that starts with those letters.

last_node

The last node that was selected.

last_node_idx

The cached index of the last node selected in the get_selectable_nodes() list. If the list hasn’t changed it saves having to look up the index of last_node in that list.
Returns:

tuple, the node targeted by key and its index in the get_selectable_nodes() list. Returning (last_node, last_node_idx) indicates a node wasn’t found.
key_selection

The key used to check whether a view of a data item can be selected with touch or the keyboard.

key_selection is the key in data, which if present and True will enable selection for this item from the keyboard or with a touch. When None, the default, not item will be selectable.

key_selection is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

Note

All data items can be selected directly using select_node() or deselect_node(), even if key_selection is False.

select_node(node)[source]

Selects a node.

It is called by the controller when it selects a node and can be called from the outside to select a node directly. The derived widget should overwrite this method and change the node state to selected when called.

Parameters:
node

The node to be selected.
Returns:

bool, True if the node was selected, False otherwise.

Warning

This method must be called by the derived widget using super if it is overwritten.

class kivy.uix.recycleview.layout.RecycleLayoutManagerBehavior[source]

Bases: builtins.object

A RecycleLayoutManagerBehavior is responsible for positioning views into the RecycleView.data within a RecycleView. It adds new views into the data when it becomes visible to the user, and removes them when they leave the visible area.

compute_visible_views(data, viewport)[source]

viewport is in coordinates of the layout manager.

get_view_index_at(pos)[source]

Return the view index on which position, pos, falls.

pos is in coordinates of the layout manager.

goto_view(index)[source]

Moves the views so that the view corresponding to index is visible.

key_viewclass

See RecyclerView.key_viewclass.

refresh_view_layout(index, layout, view, viewport)[source]

See :meth:`~kivy.uix.recycleview.views.RecycleDataAdapter.refresh_view_layout.

set_visible_views(indices, data, viewport)[source]

viewport is in coordinates of the layout manager.

viewclass

See RecyclerView.viewclass.

RecycleView Views

New in version 1.10.0.

The adapter part of the RecycleView which together with the layout is the view part of the model-view-controller pattern.

The view module handles converting the data to a view using the adapter class which is then displayed by the layout. A view can be any Widget based class. However, inheriting from RecycleDataViewBehavior adds methods for converting the data to a view.

TODO:
  • Make view caches specific to each view class type.
class kivy.uix.recycleview.views.RecycleDataAdapter[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

The class that converts data to a view.

— Internal details — A view can have 3 states.

  • It can be completely in sync with the data, which occurs when the view is displayed. These are stored in views.
  • It can be dirty, which occurs when the view is in sync with the data, except for the size/pos parameters which is controlled by the layout. This occurs when the view is not currently displayed but the data has not changed. These views are stored in dirty_views.
  • Finally the view can be dead which occurs when the data changes and the view was not updated or when a view is just created. Such views are typically added to the internal cache.

Typically what happens is that the layout manager lays out the data and then asks for views, using set_visible_views,() for some specific data items that it displays.

These views are gotten from the current views, dirty or global cache. Then depending on the view state refresh_view_attrs() is called to bring the view up to date with the data (except for sizing parameters). Finally, the layout manager gets these views, updates their size and displays them.

attach_recycleview(rv)[source]

Associates a RecycleViewBehavior with this instance. It is stored in recycleview.

create_view(index, data_item, viewclass)[source]

(internal) Creates and initializes the view for the data at index.

The returned view is synced with the data, except for the pos/size information.

detach_recycleview()[source]

Removes the RecycleViewBehavior associated with this instance and clears recycleview.

get_view(index, data_item, viewclass)[source]

(internal) Returns a view instance for the data at index

It looks through the various caches and finally creates a view if it doesn’t exist. The returned view is synced with the data, except for the pos/size information.

If found in the cache it’s removed from the source before returning. It doesn’t check the current views.

get_visible_view(index)[source]

Returns the currently visible view associated with index.

If no view is currently displayed for index it returns None.

invalidate()[source]

Moves all the current views into the global cache.

As opposed to making a view dirty where the view is in sync with the data except for sizing information, this will completely disconnect the view from the data, as it is assumed the data has gone out of sync with the view.

This is typically called when the data changes.

make_view_dirty(view, index)[source]

(internal) Used to flag this view as dirty, ready to be used for others. See make_views_dirty().

make_views_dirty()[source]

Makes all the current views dirty.

Dirty views are still in sync with the corresponding data. However, the size information may go out of sync. Therefore a dirty view can be reused by the same index by just updating the sizing information.

Once the underlying data of this index changes, the view should be removed from the dirty views and moved to the global cache with invalidate().

This is typically called when the layout manager needs to re-layout all the data.

recycleview

The RecycleViewBehavior associated with this instance.

refresh_view_attrs(index, data_item, view)[source]

(internal) Syncs the view and brings it up to date with the data.

This method calls RecycleDataViewBehavior.refresh_view_attrs() if the view inherits from RecycleDataViewBehavior. See that method for more details.

Note

Any sizing and position info is skipped when syncing with the data.

refresh_view_layout(index, layout, view, viewport)[source]

Updates the sizing information of the view.

viewport is in coordinates of the layout manager.

This method calls RecycleDataViewBehavior.refresh_view_attrs() if the view inherits from RecycleDataViewBehavior. See that method for more details.

Note

Any sizing and position info is skipped when syncing with the data.

set_visible_views(indices, data, viewclasses)[source]

Gets a 3-tuple of the new, remaining, and old views for the current viewport.

The new views are synced to the data except for the size/pos properties. The old views need to be removed from the layout, and the new views added.

The new views are not necessarily new, but are all the currently visible views.

class kivy.uix.recycleview.views.RecycleDataViewBehavior[source]

Bases: builtins.object

A optional base class for data views (RecycleView.viewclass). If a view inherits from this class, the class’s functions will be called when the view needs to be updated due to a data change or layout update.

refresh_view_attrs(rv, index, data)[source]

Called by the RecycleAdapter when the view is initially populated with the values from the data dictionary for this item.

Any pos or size info should be removed because they are set subsequently with refresh_view_layout.

Parameters:
rv: RecycleView instance

The RecycleView that caused the update.

data: dict

The data dict used to populate this view.
refresh_view_layout(rv, index, layout, viewport)[source]

Called when the view’s size is updated by the layout manager, RecycleLayoutManagerBehavior.

Parameters:
rv: RecycleView instance

The RecycleView that caused the update.

viewport: 4-tuple

The coordinates of the bottom left and width height in layout manager coordinates. This may be larger than this view item.
Raises:

LayoutChangeException: If the sizing or data changed during a call to this method, raising a LayoutChangeException exception will force a refresh. Useful when data changed and we don’t want to layout further since it’ll be overwritten again soon.

Abstract View

New in version 1.5.

Deprecated since version 1.10.0: The feature has been deprecated.

Warning

This code is still experimental, and its API is subject to change in a future version.

The AbstractView widget has an adapter property for an adapter that mediates to data. The adapter manages an item_view_instance dict property that holds views for each data item, operating as a cache.

class kivy.uix.abstractview.AbstractView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.floatlayout.FloatLayout

View using an Adapter as a data provider.

adapter

The adapter can be one of several kinds of adapters. The most common example is the ListAdapter used for managing data items in a list.

Accordion

New in version 1.0.8.

_images/accordion.jpg

The Accordion widget is a form of menu where the options are stacked either vertically or horizontally and the item in focus (when touched) opens up to display its content.

The Accordion should contain one or many AccordionItem instances, each of which should contain one root content widget. You’ll end up with a Tree something like this:

  • Accordion
    • AccordionItem
      • YourContent
    • AccordionItem
      • BoxLayout
        • Another user content 1
        • Another user content 2
    • AccordionItem
      • Another user content

The current implementation divides the AccordionItem into two parts:

  1. One container for the title bar
  2. One container for the content

The title bar is made from a Kv template. We’ll see how to create a new template to customize the design of the title bar.

Warning

If you see message like:

[WARNING] [Accordion] not have enough space for displaying all children
[WARNING] [Accordion] need 440px, got 100px
[WARNING] [Accordion] layout aborted.

That means you have too many children and there is no more space to display the content. This is “normal” and nothing will be done. Try to increase the space for the accordion or reduce the number of children. You can also reduce the Accordion.min_space.

Simple example
from kivy.uix.accordion import Accordion, AccordionItem
from kivy.uix.label import Label
from kivy.app import App


class AccordionApp(App):
    def build(self):
        root = Accordion()
        for x in range(5):
            item = AccordionItem(title='Title %d' % x)
            item.add_widget(Label(text='Very big content\n' * 10))
            root.add_widget(item)
        return root


if __name__ == '__main__':
    AccordionApp().run()
Customize the accordion

You can increase the default size of the title bar:

root = Accordion(min_space=60)

Or change the orientation to vertical:

root = Accordion(orientation='vertical')

The AccordionItem is more configurable and you can set your own title background when the item is collapsed or opened:

item = AccordionItem(background_normal='image_when_collapsed.png',
    background_selected='image_when_selected.png')
class kivy.uix.accordion.Accordion(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.widget.Widget

Accordion class. See module documentation for more information.

add_widget(widget, *largs)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
anim_duration

Duration of the animation in seconds when a new accordion item is selected.

anim_duration is a NumericProperty and defaults to .25 (250ms).

anim_func

Easing function to use for the animation. Check kivy.animation.AnimationTransition for more information about available animation functions.

anim_func is an ObjectProperty and defaults to ‘out_expo’. You can set a string or a function to use as an easing function.

min_space

Minimum space to use for the title of each item. This value is automatically set for each child every time the layout event occurs.

min_space is a NumericProperty and defaults to 44 (px).

orientation

Orientation of the layout.

orientation is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘horizontal’. Can take a value of ‘vertical’ or ‘horizontal’.

class kivy.uix.accordion.AccordionItem(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.floatlayout.FloatLayout

AccordionItem class that must be used in conjunction with the Accordion class. See the module documentation for more information.

accordion

Instance of the Accordion that the item belongs to.

accordion is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

add_widget(widget)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
background_disabled_normal

Background image of the accordion item used for the default graphical representation when the item is collapsed and disabled.

New in version 1.8.0.

background__disabled_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/button_disabled’.

background_disabled_selected

Background image of the accordion item used for the default graphical representation when the item is selected (not collapsed) and disabled.

New in version 1.8.0.

background_disabled_selected is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/button_disabled_pressed’.

background_normal

Background image of the accordion item used for the default graphical representation when the item is collapsed.

background_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/button’.

background_selected

Background image of the accordion item used for the default graphical representation when the item is selected (not collapsed).

background_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/button_pressed’.

collapse

Boolean to indicate if the current item is collapsed or not.

collapse is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

collapse_alpha

Value between 0 and 1 to indicate how much the item is collapsed (1) or whether it is selected (0). It’s mostly used for animation.

collapse_alpha is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

container

(internal) Property that will be set to the container of children inside the AccordionItem representation.

container_title

(internal) Property that will be set to the container of title inside the AccordionItem representation.

content_size

(internal) Set by the Accordion to the size allocated for the content.

min_space

Link to the Accordion.min_space property.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
orientation

Link to the Accordion.orientation property.

remove_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
title

Title string of the item. The title might be used in conjunction with the AccordionItemTitle template. If you are using a custom template, you can use that property as a text entry, or not. By default, it’s used for the title text. See title_template and the example below.

title is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’.

title_args

Default arguments that will be passed to the kivy.lang.Builder.template() method.

title_args is a DictProperty and defaults to {}.

title_template

Template to use for creating the title part of the accordion item. The default template is a simple Label, not customizable (except the text) that supports vertical and horizontal orientation and different backgrounds for collapse and selected mode.

It’s better to create and use your own template if the default template does not suffice.

title is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘AccordionItemTitle’. The current default template lives in the kivy/data/style.kv file.

Here is the code if you want to build your own template:

[AccordionItemTitle@Label]:
    text: ctx.title
    canvas.before:
        Color:
            rgb: 1, 1, 1
        BorderImage:
            source:
                ctx.item.background_normal                         if ctx.item.collapse                         else ctx.item.background_selected
            pos: self.pos
            size: self.size
        PushMatrix
        Translate:
            xy: self.center_x, self.center_y
        Rotate:
            angle: 90 if ctx.item.orientation == 'horizontal' else 0
            axis: 0, 0, 1
        Translate:
            xy: -self.center_x, -self.center_y
    canvas.after:
        PopMatrix
exception kivy.uix.accordion.AccordionException[source]

Bases: Exception

AccordionException class.

Action Bar

New in version 1.8.0.

_images/actionbar.png

The ActionBar widget is like Android’s ActionBar, where items are stacked horizontally. When the area becomes to small, widgets are moved into the ActionOverflow area.

An ActionBar contains an ActionView with various ContextualActionViews. An ActionView will contain an ActionPrevious having title, app_icon and previous_icon properties. An ActionView will contain subclasses of ActionItems. Some predefined ones include an ActionButton, an ActionToggleButton, an ActionCheck, an ActionSeparator and an ActionGroup.

An ActionGroup is used to display ActionItems in a group. An ActionView will always display an ActionGroup after other ActionItems. An ActionView contains an ActionOverflow, but this is only made visible when required i.e. the available area is too small to fit all the widgets. A ContextualActionView is a subclass of an:class:ActionView.

Changed in version 1.10.1: ActionGroup core rewritten from Spinner to pure DropDown

exception kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionBarException[source]

Bases: Exception

ActionBarException class

class kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionItem[source]

Bases: builtins.object

ActionItem class, an abstract class for all ActionBar widgets. To create a custom widget for an ActionBar, inherit from this class. See module documentation for more information.

background_down

Background image of the ActionItem used for the default graphical representation when an ActionItem is pressed.

background_down is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/action_item_down’.

background_normal

Background image of the ActionItem used for the default graphical representation when the ActionItem is not pressed.

background_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/action_item’.

important

Determines if an ActionItem is important or not. If an item is important and space is limited, this item will be displayed in preference to others.

important is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

inside_group

(internal) Determines if an ActionItem is displayed inside an ActionGroup or not.

inside_group is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

minimum_width

Minimum Width required by an ActionItem.

minimum_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to ’90sp’.

mipmap

Defines whether the image/icon dispayed on top of the button uses a mipmap or not.

mipmap is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

pack_width

(read-only) The actual width to use when packing the items. Equal to the greater of minimum_width and width.

pack_width is an AliasProperty.

class kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionButton(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.button.Button, kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionItem

ActionButton class, see module documentation for more information.

The text color, width and size_hint_x are set manually via the Kv language file. It covers a lot of cases: with/without an icon, with/without a group and takes care of the padding between elements.

You don’t have much control over these properties, so if you want to customize it’s appearance, we suggest you create you own button representation. You can do this by creating a class that subclasses an existing widget and an ActionItem:

class MyOwnActionButton(Button, ActionItem):
    pass

You can then create your own style using the Kv language.

icon

Source image to use when the Button is part of the ActionBar. If the Button is in a group, the text will be preferred.

icon is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

class kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionToggleButton(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionItem, kivy.uix.togglebutton.ToggleButton

ActionToggleButton class, see module documentation for more information.

icon

Source image to use when the Button is part of the ActionBar. If the Button is in a group, the text will be preferred.

class kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionCheck(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionItem, kivy.uix.checkbox.CheckBox

ActionCheck class, see module documentation for more information.

class kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionSeparator(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionItem, kivy.uix.widget.Widget

ActionSeparator class, see module documentation for more information.

background_image

Background image for the separators default graphical representation.

background_image is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/separator’.

class kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionDropDown(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.dropdown.DropDown

ActionDropDown class, see module documentation for more information.

class kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionGroup(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionItem, kivy.uix.button.Button

ActionGroup class, see module documentation for more information.

add_widget(item)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
clear_widgets()[source]

Remove all (or the specified) children of this widget. If the ‘children’ argument is specified, it should be a list (or filtered list) of children of the current widget.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The children argument can be used to specify the children you want to remove.

dropdown_width

If non zero, provides the width for the associated DropDown. This is useful when some items in the ActionGroup’s DropDown are wider than usual and you don’t want to make the ActionGroup widget itself wider.

dropdown_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

New in version 1.10.0.

is_open

By default, the DropDown is not open. Set to True to open it.

is_open is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

mode

Sets the current mode of an ActionGroup. If mode is ‘normal’, the ActionGroups children will be displayed normally if there is enough space, otherwise they will be displayed in a spinner. If mode is ‘spinner’, then the children will always be displayed in a spinner.

mode is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘normal’.

separator_image

Background Image for an ActionSeparator in an ActionView.

separator_image is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/separator’.

separator_width

Width of the ActionSeparator in an ActionView.

separator_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

use_separator

Specifies whether to use a separator after/before this group or not.

use_separator is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

class kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionOverflow(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionGroup

ActionOverflow class, see module documentation for more information.

add_widget(action_item, index=0)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
overflow_image

Image to be used as an Overflow Image.

overflow_image is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/overflow’.

class kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.boxlayout.BoxLayout

ActionView class, see module documentation for more information.

action_previous

Previous button for an ActionView.

action_previous is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

add_widget(action_item, index=0)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
background_color

Background color in the format (r, g, b, a).

background_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

background_image

Background image of an ActionViews default graphical representation.

background_image is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/action_view’.

overflow_group

Widget to be used for the overflow.

overflow_group is an ObjectProperty and defaults to an instance of ActionOverflow.

remove_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
use_separator

Specify whether to use a separator before every ActionGroup or not.

use_separator is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

class kivy.uix.actionbar.ContextualActionView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionView

ContextualActionView class, see the module documentation for more information.

class kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionPrevious(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.boxlayout.BoxLayout, kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionItem

ActionPrevious class, see module documentation for more information.

app_icon

Application icon for the ActionView.

app_icon is a StringProperty and defaults to the window icon if set, otherwise ‘data/logo/kivy-icon-32.png’.

app_icon_height

Height of app_icon image.

app_icon_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

app_icon_width

Width of app_icon image.

app_icon_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

color

Text color, in the format (r, g, b, a)

color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

markup

If True, the text will be rendered using the MarkupLabel: you can change the style of the text using tags. Check the Text Markup documentation for more information.

markup is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

previous_image

Image for the ‘previous’ ActionButtons default graphical representation.

previous_image is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/previous_normal’.

previous_image_height

Height of previous_image image.

app_icon_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

previous_image_width

Width of previous_image image.

width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

title

Title for ActionView.

title is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’.

with_previous

Specifies whether the previous_icon will be shown or not. Note that it is up to the user to implement the desired behavior using the on_press or similar events.

with_previous is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

class kivy.uix.actionbar.ActionBar(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.boxlayout.BoxLayout

ActionBar class, which acts as the main container for an ActionView instance. The ActionBar determines the overall styling aspects of the bar. ActionItems are not added to this class directly, but to the contained ActionView instance.

Events:
on_previous

Fired when action_previous of action_view is pressed.

Please see the module documentation for more information.

action_view

action_view of the ActionBar.

action_view is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None or the last ActionView instance added to the ActionBar.

add_widget(view)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
background_color

Background color, in the format (r, g, b, a).

background_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

background_image

Background image of the ActionBars default graphical representation.

background_image is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/action_bar’.

border

The border to be applied to the background_image.

border is a ListProperty and defaults to [2, 2, 2, 2]

Anchor Layout

_images/anchorlayout.gif

The AnchorLayout aligns its children to a border (top, bottom, left, right) or center.

To draw a button in the lower-right corner:

layout = AnchorLayout(
    anchor_x='right', anchor_y='bottom')
btn = Button(text='Hello World')
layout.add_widget(btn)
class kivy.uix.anchorlayout.AnchorLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.layout.Layout

Anchor layout class. See the module documentation for more information.

anchor_x

Horizontal anchor.

anchor_x is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘center’. It accepts values of ‘left’, ‘center’ or ‘right’.

anchor_y

Vertical anchor.

anchor_y is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘center’. It accepts values of ‘top’, ‘center’ or ‘bottom’.

do_layout(*largs)[source]

This function is called when a layout is called by a trigger. If you are writing a new Layout subclass, don’t call this function directly but use _trigger_layout() instead.

The function is by default called before the next frame, therefore the layout isn’t updated immediately. Anything depending on the positions of e.g. children should be scheduled for the next frame.

New in version 1.0.8.

padding

Padding between the widget box and its children, in pixels: [padding_left, padding_top, padding_right, padding_bottom].

padding also accepts a two argument form [padding_horizontal, padding_vertical] and a one argument form [padding].

padding is a VariableListProperty and defaults to [0, 0, 0, 0].

Box Layout

_images/boxlayout.gif

BoxLayout arranges children in a vertical or horizontal box.

To position widgets above/below each other, use a vertical BoxLayout:

layout = BoxLayout(orientation='vertical')
btn1 = Button(text='Hello')
btn2 = Button(text='World')
layout.add_widget(btn1)
layout.add_widget(btn2)

To position widgets next to each other, use a horizontal BoxLayout. In this example, we use 10 pixel spacing between children; the first button covers 70% of the horizontal space, the second covers 30%:

layout = BoxLayout(spacing=10)
btn1 = Button(text='Hello', size_hint=(.7, 1))
btn2 = Button(text='World', size_hint=(.3, 1))
layout.add_widget(btn1)
layout.add_widget(btn2)

Position hints are partially working, depending on the orientation:

  • If the orientation is vertical: x, right and center_x will be used.
  • If the orientation is horizontal: y, top and center_y will be used.

You can check the examples/widgets/boxlayout_poshint.py for a live example.

Note

The size_hint uses the available space after subtracting all the fixed-size widgets. For example, if you have a layout that is 800px wide, and add three buttons like this:

btn1 = Button(text='Hello', size=(200, 100), size_hint=(None, None))
btn2 = Button(text='Kivy', size_hint=(.5, 1))
btn3 = Button(text='World', size_hint=(.5, 1))

The first button will be 200px wide as specified, the second and third will be 300px each, e.g. (800-200) * 0.5

Changed in version 1.4.1: Added support for pos_hint.

class kivy.uix.boxlayout.BoxLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.layout.Layout

Box layout class. See module documentation for more information.

add_widget(widget, index=0, canvas=None)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
do_layout(*largs)[source]

This function is called when a layout is called by a trigger. If you are writing a new Layout subclass, don’t call this function directly but use _trigger_layout() instead.

The function is by default called before the next frame, therefore the layout isn’t updated immediately. Anything depending on the positions of e.g. children should be scheduled for the next frame.

New in version 1.0.8.

minimum_height

Automatically computed minimum height needed to contain all children.

New in version 1.10.0.

minimum_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0. It is read only.

minimum_size

Automatically computed minimum size needed to contain all children.

New in version 1.10.0.

minimum_size is a ReferenceListProperty of (minimum_width, minimum_height) properties. It is read only.

minimum_width

Automatically computed minimum width needed to contain all children.

New in version 1.10.0.

minimum_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0. It is read only.

orientation

Orientation of the layout.

orientation is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘horizontal’. Can be ‘vertical’ or ‘horizontal’.

padding

Padding between layout box and children: [padding_left, padding_top, padding_right, padding_bottom].

padding also accepts a two argument form [padding_horizontal, padding_vertical] and a one argument form [padding].

Changed in version 1.7.0: Replaced NumericProperty with VariableListProperty.

padding is a VariableListProperty and defaults to [0, 0, 0, 0].

remove_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
spacing

Spacing between children, in pixels.

spacing is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

Bubble

New in version 1.1.0.

_images/bubble.jpg

The Bubble widget is a form of menu or a small popup where the menu options are stacked either vertically or horizontally.

The Bubble contains an arrow pointing in the direction you choose.

Simple example
'''
Bubble
======

Test of the widget Bubble.
'''

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.floatlayout import FloatLayout
from kivy.uix.button import Button
from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.uix.bubble import Bubble

Builder.load_string('''
<cut_copy_paste>
    size_hint: (None, None)
    size: (160, 120)
    pos_hint: {'center_x': .5, 'y': .6}
    BubbleButton:
        text: 'Cut'
    BubbleButton:
        text: 'Copy'
    BubbleButton:
        text: 'Paste'
''')


class cut_copy_paste(Bubble):
    pass


class BubbleShowcase(FloatLayout):

    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(BubbleShowcase, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.but_bubble = Button(text='Press to show bubble')
        self.but_bubble.bind(on_release=self.show_bubble)
        self.add_widget(self.but_bubble)

    def show_bubble(self, *l):
        if not hasattr(self, 'bubb'):
            self.bubb = bubb = cut_copy_paste()
            self.add_widget(bubb)
        else:
            values = ('left_top', 'left_mid', 'left_bottom', 'top_left',
                'top_mid', 'top_right', 'right_top', 'right_mid',
                'right_bottom', 'bottom_left', 'bottom_mid', 'bottom_right')
            index = values.index(self.bubb.arrow_pos)
            self.bubb.arrow_pos = values[(index + 1) % len(values)]


class TestBubbleApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return BubbleShowcase()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    TestBubbleApp().run()
Customize the Bubble

You can choose the direction in which the arrow points:

Bubble(arrow_pos='top_mid')

The widgets added to the Bubble are ordered horizontally by default, like a Boxlayout. You can change that by:

orientation = 'vertical'

To add items to the bubble:

bubble = Bubble(orientation = 'vertical')
bubble.add_widget(your_widget_instance)

To remove items:

bubble.remove_widget(widget)
or
bubble.clear_widgets()

To access the list of children, use content.children:

bubble.content.children

Warning

This is important! Do not use bubble.children

To change the appearance of the bubble:

bubble.background_color = (1, 0, 0, .5) #50% translucent red
bubble.border = [0, 0, 0, 0]
background_image = 'path/to/background/image'
arrow_image = 'path/to/arrow/image'
class kivy.uix.bubble.Bubble(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.gridlayout.GridLayout

Bubble class. See module documentation for more information.

add_widget(*l)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
arrow_image

Image of the arrow pointing to the bubble.

arrow_image is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/bubble_arrow’.

arrow_pos

Specifies the position of the arrow relative to the bubble. Can be one of: left_top, left_mid, left_bottom top_left, top_mid, top_right right_top, right_mid, right_bottom bottom_left, bottom_mid, bottom_right.

arrow_pos is a OptionProperty and defaults to ‘bottom_mid’.

background_color

Background color, in the format (r, g, b, a). To use it you have to set either background_image or arrow_image first.

background_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

background_image

Background image of the bubble.

background_image is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/bubble’.

border

Border used for BorderImage graphics instruction. Used with the background_image. It should be used when using custom backgrounds.

It must be a list of 4 values: (bottom, right, top, left). Read the BorderImage instructions for more information about how to use it.

border is a ListProperty and defaults to (16, 16, 16, 16)

clear_widgets(**kwargs)[source]

Remove all (or the specified) children of this widget. If the ‘children’ argument is specified, it should be a list (or filtered list) of children of the current widget.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The children argument can be used to specify the children you want to remove.

content

This is the object where the main content of the bubble is held.

content is a ObjectProperty and defaults to ‘None’.

limit_to

Specifies the widget to which the bubbles position is restricted.

New in version 1.6.0.

limit_to is a ObjectProperty and defaults to ‘None’.

orientation

This specifies the manner in which the children inside bubble are arranged. Can be one of ‘vertical’ or ‘horizontal’.

orientation is a OptionProperty and defaults to ‘horizontal’.

remove_widget(*l)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
show_arrow

Indicates whether to show arrow.

New in version 1.8.0.

show_arrow is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

class kivy.uix.bubble.BubbleButton(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.button.Button

A button intended for use in a Bubble widget. You can use a “normal” button class, but it will not look good unless the background is changed.

Rather use this BubbleButton widget that is already defined and provides a suitable background for you.

class kivy.uix.bubble.BubbleContent(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.gridlayout.GridLayout

Button

_images/button.jpg

The Button is a Label with associated actions that are triggered when the button is pressed (or released after a click/touch). To configure the button, the same properties (padding, font_size, etc) and sizing system are used as for the Label class:

button = Button(text='Hello world', font_size=14)

To attach a callback when the button is pressed (clicked/touched), use bind:

def callback(instance):
    print('The button <%s> is being pressed' % instance.text)

btn1 = Button(text='Hello world 1')
btn1.bind(on_press=callback)
btn2 = Button(text='Hello world 2')
btn2.bind(on_press=callback)

If you want to be notified every time the button state changes, you can bind to the Button.state property:

def callback(instance, value):
    print('My button <%s> state is <%s>' % (instance, value))
btn1 = Button(text='Hello world 1')
btn1.bind(state=callback)
class kivy.uix.button.Button(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.behaviors.button.ButtonBehavior, kivy.uix.label.Label

Button class, see module documentation for more information.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The behavior / logic of the button has been moved to ButtonBehaviors.

background_color

Background color, in the format (r, g, b, a).

This acts as a multiplier to the texture colour. The default texture is grey, so just setting the background color will give a darker result. To set a plain color, set the background_normal to ''.

New in version 1.0.8.

The background_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

background_disabled_down

Background image of the button used for the default graphical representation when the button is disabled and pressed.

New in version 1.8.0.

background_disabled_down is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/button_disabled_pressed’.

background_disabled_normal

Background image of the button used for the default graphical representation when the button is disabled and not pressed.

New in version 1.8.0.

background_disabled_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/button_disabled’.

background_down

Background image of the button used for the default graphical representation when the button is pressed.

New in version 1.0.4.

background_down is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/button_pressed’.

background_normal

Background image of the button used for the default graphical representation when the button is not pressed.

New in version 1.0.4.

background_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/button’.

border

Border used for BorderImage graphics instruction. Used with background_normal and background_down. Can be used for custom backgrounds.

It must be a list of four values: (bottom, right, top, left). Read the BorderImage instruction for more information about how to use it.

border is a ListProperty and defaults to (16, 16, 16, 16)

Camera

The Camera widget is used to capture and display video from a camera. Once the widget is created, the texture inside the widget will be automatically updated. Our CameraBase implementation is used under the hood:

cam = Camera()

By default, the first camera found on your system is used. To use a different camera, set the index property:

cam = Camera(index=1)

You can also select the camera resolution:

cam = Camera(resolution=(320, 240))

Warning

The camera texture is not updated as soon as you have created the object. The camera initialization is asynchronous, so there may be a delay before the requested texture is created.

class kivy.uix.camera.Camera(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.image.Image

Camera class. See module documentation for more information.

index

Index of the used camera, starting from 0.

index is a NumericProperty and defaults to -1 to allow auto selection.

play

Boolean indicating whether the camera is playing or not. You can start/stop the camera by setting this property:

# start the camera playing at creation (default)
cam = Camera(play=True)

# create the camera, and start later
cam = Camera(play=False)
# and later
cam.play = True

play is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

resolution

Preferred resolution to use when invoking the camera. If you are using [-1, -1], the resolution will be the default one:

# create a camera object with the best image available
cam = Camera()

# create a camera object with an image of 320x240 if possible
cam = Camera(resolution=(320, 240))

Warning

Depending on the implementation, the camera may not respect this property.

resolution is a ListProperty and defaults to [-1, -1].

Carousel

_images/carousel.gif

New in version 1.4.0.

The Carousel widget provides the classic mobile-friendly carousel view where you can swipe between slides. You can add any content to the carousel and have it move horizontally or vertically. The carousel can display pages in a sequence or a loop.

Example:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.carousel import Carousel
from kivy.uix.image import AsyncImage


class CarouselApp(App):
    def build(self):
        carousel = Carousel(direction='right')
        for i in range(10):
            src = "http://placehold.it/480x270.png&text=slide-%d&.png" % i
            image = AsyncImage(source=src, allow_stretch=True)
            carousel.add_widget(image)
        return carousel


CarouselApp().run()

Changed in version 1.5.0: The carousel now supports active children, like the ScrollView. It will detect a swipe gesture according to the Carousel.scroll_timeout and Carousel.scroll_distance properties.

In addition, the slide container is no longer exposed by the API. The impacted properties are Carousel.slides, Carousel.current_slide, Carousel.previous_slide and Carousel.next_slide.

class kivy.uix.carousel.Carousel(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.stencilview.StencilView

Carousel class. See module documentation for more information.

add_widget(widget, index=0, canvas=None)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
anim_cancel_duration

Defines the duration of the animation when a swipe movement is not accepted. This is generally when the user does not make a large enough swipe. See min_move.

anim_cancel_duration is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.3.

anim_move_duration

Defines the duration of the Carousel animation between pages.

anim_move_duration is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.5.

anim_type

Type of animation to use while animating to the next/previous slide. This should be the name of an AnimationTransition function.

anim_type is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘out_quad’.

New in version 1.8.0.

clear_widgets()[source]

Remove all (or the specified) children of this widget. If the ‘children’ argument is specified, it should be a list (or filtered list) of children of the current widget.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The children argument can be used to specify the children you want to remove.

current_slide

The currently shown slide.

current_slide is an AliasProperty.

Changed in version 1.5.0: The property no longer exposes the slides container. It returns the widget you have added.

direction

Specifies the direction in which the slides are ordered. This corresponds to the direction from which the user swipes to go from one slide to the next. It can be right, left, top, or bottom. For example, with the default value of right, the second slide is to the right of the first and the user would swipe from the right towards the left to get to the second slide.

direction is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘right’.

ignore_perpendicular_swipes

Ignore swipes on axis perpendicular to direction.

ignore_perpendicular_swipes is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

New in version 1.10.0.

index

Get/Set the current slide based on the index.

index is an AliasProperty and defaults to 0 (the first item).

load_next(mode='next')[source]

Animate to the next slide.

New in version 1.7.0.

load_previous()[source]

Animate to the previous slide.

New in version 1.7.0.

load_slide(slide)[source]

Animate to the slide that is passed as the argument.

Changed in version 1.8.0.

loop

Allow the Carousel to loop infinitely. If True, when the user tries to swipe beyond last page, it will return to the first. If False, it will remain on the last page.

loop is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

min_move

Defines the minimum distance to be covered before the touch is considered a swipe gesture and the Carousel content changed. This is a expressed as a fraction of the Carousel’s width. If the movement doesn’t reach this minimum value, the movement is cancelled and the content is restored to its original position.

min_move is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.2.

next_slide

The next slide in the Carousel. It is None if the current slide is the last slide in the Carousel. This ordering reflects the order in which the slides are added: their presentation varies according to the direction property.

next_slide is an AliasProperty.

Changed in version 1.5.0: The property no longer exposes the slides container. It returns the widget you have added.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

previous_slide

The previous slide in the Carousel. It is None if the current slide is the first slide in the Carousel. This ordering reflects the order in which the slides are added: their presentation varies according to the direction property.

previous_slide is an AliasProperty.

Changed in version 1.5.0: This property no longer exposes the slides container. It returns the widget you have added.

remove_widget(widget, *args, **kwargs)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
scroll_distance

Distance to move before scrolling the Carousel in pixels. As soon as the distance has been traveled, the Carousel will start to scroll, and no touch event will go to children. It is advisable that you base this value on the dpi of your target device’s screen.

scroll_distance is a NumericProperty and defaults to 20dp.

New in version 1.5.0.

scroll_timeout

Timeout allowed to trigger the scroll_distance, in milliseconds. If the user has not moved scroll_distance within the timeout, no scrolling will occur and the touch event will go to the children.

scroll_timeout is a NumericProperty and defaults to 200 (milliseconds)

New in version 1.5.0.

slides

List of slides inside the Carousel. The slides are the widgets added to the Carousel using the add_widget method.

slides is a ListProperty and is read-only.

CheckBox

New in version 1.4.0.

_images/checkbox.png

CheckBox is a specific two-state button that can be either checked or unchecked. If the CheckBox is in a Group, it becomes a Radio button. As with the ToggleButton, only one Radio button at a time can be selected when the CheckBox.group is set.

An example usage:

from kivy.uix.checkbox import CheckBox

# ...

def on_checkbox_active(checkbox, value):
    if value:
        print('The checkbox', checkbox, 'is active')
    else:
        print('The checkbox', checkbox, 'is inactive')

checkbox = CheckBox()
checkbox.bind(active=on_checkbox_active)
class kivy.uix.checkbox.CheckBox(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.behaviors.togglebutton.ToggleButtonBehavior, kivy.uix.widget.Widget

CheckBox class, see module documentation for more information.

active

Indicates if the switch is active or inactive.

active is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

background_checkbox_disabled_down

Background image of the checkbox used for the default graphical representation when the checkbox is disabled and active.

New in version 1.9.0.

background_checkbox_disabled_down is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_disabled_on’.

background_checkbox_disabled_normal

Background image of the checkbox used for the default graphical representation when the checkbox is disabled and not active.

New in version 1.9.0.

background_checkbox_disabled_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_disabled_off’.

background_checkbox_down

Background image of the checkbox used for the default graphical representation when the checkbox is active.

New in version 1.9.0.

background_checkbox_down is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_on’.

background_checkbox_normal

Background image of the checkbox used for the default graphical representation when the checkbox is not active.

New in version 1.9.0.

background_checkbox_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_off’.

background_radio_disabled_down

Background image of the radio button used for the default graphical representation when the radio button is disabled and active.

New in version 1.9.0.

background_radio_disabled_down is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_radio_disabled_on’.

background_radio_disabled_normal

Background image of the radio button used for the default graphical representation when the radio button is disabled and not active.

New in version 1.9.0.

background_radio_disabled_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_radio_disabled_off’.

background_radio_down

Background image of the radio button used for the default graphical representation when the radio button is active.

New in version 1.9.0.

background_radio_down is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_radio_on’.

background_radio_normal

Background image of the radio button used for the default graphical representation when the radio button is not active.

New in version 1.9.0.

background_radio_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/checkbox_radio_off’.

color

Color is used for tinting the default graphical representation of checkbox and radio button (images).

Color is in the format (r, g, b, a).

New in version 1.10.0.

color is a ListProperty and defaults to ‘[1, 1, 1, 1]’.

Code Input

New in version 1.5.0.

_images/codeinput.jpg

Note

This widget requires pygments package to run. Install it with pip.

The CodeInput provides a box of editable highlighted text like the one shown in the image.

It supports all the features provided by the textinput as well as code highlighting for languages supported by pygments along with KivyLexer for kivy.lang highlighting.

Usage example

To create a CodeInput with highlighting for KV language:

from kivy.uix.codeinput import CodeInput
from kivy.extras.highlight import KivyLexer
codeinput = CodeInput(lexer=KivyLexer())

To create a CodeInput with highlighting for Cython:

from kivy.uix.codeinput import CodeInput
from pygments.lexers import CythonLexer
codeinput = CodeInput(lexer=CythonLexer())
class kivy.uix.codeinput.CodeInput(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.behaviors.codenavigation.CodeNavigationBehavior, kivy.uix.textinput.TextInput

CodeInput class, used for displaying highlighted code.

lexer

This holds the selected Lexer used by pygments to highlight the code.

lexer is an ObjectProperty and defaults to PythonLexer.

style

The pygments style object to use for formatting.

When style_name is set, this will be changed to the corresponding style object.

style is a ObjectProperty and defaults to None

style_name

Name of the pygments style to use for formatting.

style_name is an OptionProperty and defaults to 'default'.

Color Picker

New in version 1.7.0.

Warning

This widget is experimental. Its use and API can change at any time until this warning is removed.

_images/colorpicker.png

The ColorPicker widget allows a user to select a color from a chromatic wheel where pinch and zoom can be used to change the wheel’s saturation. Sliders and TextInputs are also provided for entering the RGBA/HSV/HEX values directly.

Usage:

clr_picker = ColorPicker()
parent.add_widget(clr_picker)

# To monitor changes, we can bind to color property changes
def on_color(instance, value):
    print "RGBA = ", str(value)  #  or instance.color
    print "HSV = ", str(instance.hsv)
    print "HEX = ", str(instance.hex_color)

clr_picker.bind(color=on_color)
class kivy.uix.colorpicker.ColorPicker(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.relativelayout.RelativeLayout

See module documentation.

color

The color holds the color currently selected in rgba format.

color is a ListProperty and defaults to (1, 1, 1, 1).

font_name

Specifies the font used on the ColorPicker.

font_name is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘data/fonts/RobotoMono-Regular.ttf’.

hex_color

The hex_color holds the currently selected color in hex.

hex_color is an AliasProperty and defaults to #ffffffff.

hsv

The hsv holds the color currently selected in hsv format.

hsv is a ListProperty and defaults to (1, 1, 1).

wheel

The wheel holds the color wheel.

wheel is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

class kivy.uix.colorpicker.ColorWheel(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.widget.Widget

Chromatic wheel for the ColorPicker.

Changed in version 1.7.1: font_size, font_name and foreground_color have been removed. The sizing is now the same as others widget, based on ‘sp’. Orientation is also automatically determined according to the width/height ratio.

a

The Alpha value of the color currently selected.

a is a BoundedNumericProperty and can be a value from 0 to 1.

b

The Blue value of the color currently selected.

b is a BoundedNumericProperty and can be a value from 0 to 1.

color

The holds the color currently selected.

color is a ReferenceListProperty and contains a list of r, g, b, a values.

g

The Green value of the color currently selected.

g is a BoundedNumericProperty and can be a value from 0 to 1.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

r

The Red value of the color currently selected.

r is a BoundedNumericProperty and can be a value from 0 to 1. It defaults to 0.

Drop-Down List

_images/dropdown.gif

New in version 1.4.0.

A versatile drop-down list that can be used with custom widgets. It allows you to display a list of widgets under a displayed widget. Unlike other toolkits, the list of widgets can contain any type of widget: simple buttons, images etc.

The positioning of the drop-down list is fully automatic: we will always try to place the dropdown list in a way that the user can select an item in the list.

Basic example

A button with a dropdown list of 10 possible values. All the buttons within the dropdown list will trigger the dropdown DropDown.select() method. After being called, the main button text will display the selection of the dropdown.

from kivy.uix.dropdown import DropDown
from kivy.uix.button import Button
from kivy.base import runTouchApp

# create a dropdown with 10 buttons
dropdown = DropDown()
for index in range(10):
    # When adding widgets, we need to specify the height manually
    # (disabling the size_hint_y) so the dropdown can calculate
    # the area it needs.

    btn = Button(text='Value %d' % index, size_hint_y=None, height=44)

    # for each button, attach a callback that will call the select() method
    # on the dropdown. We'll pass the text of the button as the data of the
    # selection.
    btn.bind(on_release=lambda btn: dropdown.select(btn.text))

    # then add the button inside the dropdown
    dropdown.add_widget(btn)

# create a big main button
mainbutton = Button(text='Hello', size_hint=(None, None))

# show the dropdown menu when the main button is released
# note: all the bind() calls pass the instance of the caller (here, the
# mainbutton instance) as the first argument of the callback (here,
# dropdown.open.).
mainbutton.bind(on_release=dropdown.open)

# one last thing, listen for the selection in the dropdown list and
# assign the data to the button text.
dropdown.bind(on_select=lambda instance, x: setattr(mainbutton, 'text', x))

runTouchApp(mainbutton)
Extending dropdown in Kv

You could create a dropdown directly from your kv:

#:kivy 1.4.0
<CustomDropDown>:
    Button:
        text: 'My first Item'
        size_hint_y: None
        height: 44
        on_release: root.select('item1')
    Label:
        text: 'Unselectable item'
        size_hint_y: None
        height: 44
    Button:
        text: 'My second Item'
        size_hint_y: None
        height: 44
        on_release: root.select('item2')

And then, create the associated python class and use it:

class CustomDropDown(DropDown):
    pass

dropdown = CustomDropDown()
mainbutton = Button(text='Hello', size_hint=(None, None))
mainbutton.bind(on_release=dropdown.open)
dropdown.bind(on_select=lambda instance, x: setattr(mainbutton, 'text', x))
class kivy.uix.dropdown.DropDown(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.scrollview.ScrollView

DropDown class. See module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_select: data

Fired when a selection is done. The data of the selection is passed in as the first argument and is what you pass in the select() method as the first argument.

on_dismiss:

New in version 1.8.0.

Fired when the DropDown is dismissed, either on selection or on touching outside the widget.
add_widget(*largs)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
attach_to

(internal) Property that will be set to the widget to which the drop down list is attached.

The open() method will automatically set this property whilst dismiss() will set it back to None.

auto_dismiss

By default, the dropdown will be automatically dismissed when a touch happens outside of it, this option allows to disable this feature

auto_dismiss is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

New in version 1.8.0.

auto_width

By default, the width of the dropdown will be the same as the width of the attached widget. Set to False if you want to provide your own width.

auto_width is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

clear_widgets()[source]

Remove all (or the specified) children of this widget. If the ‘children’ argument is specified, it should be a list (or filtered list) of children of the current widget.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The children argument can be used to specify the children you want to remove.

container

(internal) Property that will be set to the container of the dropdown list. It is a GridLayout by default.

dismiss(*largs)[source]

Remove the dropdown widget from the window and detach it from the attached widget.

dismiss_on_select

By default, the dropdown will be automatically dismissed when a selection has been done. Set to False to prevent the dismiss.

dismiss_on_select is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

max_height

Indicate the maximum height that the dropdown can take. If None, it will take the maximum height available until the top or bottom of the screen is reached.

max_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to None.

min_state_time

Minimum time before the DropDown is dismissed. This is used to allow for the widget inside the dropdown to display a down state or for the DropDown itself to display a animation for closing.

min_state_time is a NumericProperty and defaults to the Config value min_state_time.

New in version 1.10.0.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

open(widget)[source]

Open the dropdown list and attach it to a specific widget. Depending on the position of the widget within the window and the height of the dropdown, the dropdown might be above or below that widget.

remove_widget(*largs)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
select(data)[source]

Call this method to trigger the on_select event with the data selection. The data can be anything you want.

EffectWidget

New in version 1.9.0.

The EffectWidget is able to apply a variety of fancy graphical effects to its children. It works by rendering to a series of Fbo instances with custom opengl fragment shaders. As such, effects can freely do almost anything, from inverting the colors of the widget, to anti-aliasing, to emulating the appearance of a crt monitor!

Warning

This code is still experimental, and its API is subject to change in a future version.

The basic usage is as follows:

w = EffectWidget()
w.add_widget(Button(text='Hello!')
w.effects = [InvertEffect(), HorizontalBlurEffect(size=2.0)]

The equivalent in kv would be:

#: import ew kivy.uix.effectwidget
EffectWidget:
    effects: ew.InvertEffect(), ew.HorizontalBlurEffect(size=2.0)
    Button:
        text: 'Hello!'

The effects can be a list of effects of any length, and they will be applied sequentially.

The module comes with a range of prebuilt effects, but the interface is designed to make it easy to create your own. Instead of writing a full glsl shader, you provide a single function that takes some inputs based on the screen (current pixel color, current widget texture etc.). See the sections below for more information.

Usage Guidelines

It is not efficient to resize an EffectWidget, as the Fbo is recreated on each resize event. If you need to resize frequently, consider doing things a different way.

Although some effects have adjustable parameters, it is not efficient to animate these, as the entire shader is reconstructed every time. You should use glsl uniform variables instead. The AdvancedEffectBase may make this easier.

Note

The EffectWidget cannot draw outside its own widget area (pos -> pos + size). Any child widgets overlapping the boundary will be cut off at this point.

Provided Effects

The module comes with several pre-written effects. Some have adjustable properties (e.g. blur radius). Please see the individual effect documentation for more details.

Creating Effects

Effects are designed to make it easy to create and use your own transformations. You do this by creating and using an instance of EffectBase with your own custom EffectBase.glsl property.

The glsl property is a string representing part of a glsl fragment shader. You can include as many functions as you like (the string is simply spliced into the whole shader), but it must implement a function effect as below:

vec4 effect(vec4 color, sampler2D texture, vec2 tex_coords, vec2 coords)
{
    // ... your code here
    return something;  // must be a vec4 representing the new color
}

The full shader will calculate the normal pixel color at each point, then call your effect function to transform it. The parameters are:

  • color: The normal color of the current pixel (i.e. texture sampled at tex_coords).
  • texture: The texture containing the widget’s normal background.
  • tex_coords: The normal texture_coords used to access texture.
  • coords: The pixel indices of the current pixel.

The shader code also has access to two useful uniform variables, time containing the time (in seconds) since the program start, and resolution containing the shape (x pixels, y pixels) of the widget.

For instance, the following simple string (taken from the InvertEffect) would invert the input color but set alpha to 1.0:

vec4 effect(vec4 color, sampler2D texture, vec2 tex_coords, vec2 coords)
{
    return vec4(1.0 - color.xyz, 1.0);
}

You can also set the glsl by automatically loading the string from a file, simply set the EffectBase.source property of an effect.

class kivy.uix.effectwidget.EffectWidget(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.relativelayout.RelativeLayout

Widget with the ability to apply a series of graphical effects to its children. See the module documentation for more information on setting effects and creating your own.

add_widget(widget)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
background_color

This defines the background color to be used for the fbo in the EffectWidget.

background_color is a ListProperty defaults to (0, 0, 0, 0)

clear_widgets(children=None)[source]

Remove all (or the specified) children of this widget. If the ‘children’ argument is specified, it should be a list (or filtered list) of children of the current widget.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The children argument can be used to specify the children you want to remove.

effects

List of all the effects to be applied. These should all be instances or subclasses of EffectBase.

effects is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

fbo_list

(internal) List of all the fbos that are being used to apply the effects.

fbo_list is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

refresh_fbo_setup(*args)[source]

(internal) Creates and assigns one Fbo per effect, and makes sure all sizes etc. are correct and consistent.

remove_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
texture

The output texture of the final Fbo after all effects have been applied.

texture is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

class kivy.uix.effectwidget.EffectBase(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

The base class for GLSL effects. It simply returns its input.

See the module documentation for more details.

fbo

The fbo currently using this effect. The EffectBase automatically handles this.

fbo is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

glsl

The glsl string defining your effect function. See the module documentation for more details.

glsl is a StringProperty and defaults to a trivial effect that returns its input.

set_fbo_shader(*args)[source]

Sets the Fbo’s shader by splicing the glsl string into a full fragment shader.

The full shader is made up of shader_header + shader_uniforms + self.glsl + shader_footer_effect.

source

The (optional) filename from which to load the glsl string.

source is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’.

class kivy.uix.effectwidget.AdvancedEffectBase(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.effectwidget.EffectBase

An EffectBase with additional behavior to easily set and update uniform variables in your shader.

This class is provided for convenience when implementing your own effects: it is not used by any of those provided with Kivy.

In addition to your base glsl string that must be provided as normal, the AdvancedEffectBase has an extra property uniforms, a dictionary of name-value pairs. Whenever a value is changed, the new value for the uniform variable is uploaded to the shader.

You must still manually declare your uniform variables at the top of your glsl string.

set_fbo_shader(*args)[source]

Sets the Fbo’s shader by splicing the glsl string into a full fragment shader.

The full shader is made up of shader_header + shader_uniforms + self.glsl + shader_footer_effect.

uniforms

A dictionary of uniform variable names and their values. These are automatically uploaded to the fbo shader if appropriate.

uniforms is a DictProperty and defaults to {}.

class kivy.uix.effectwidget.MonochromeEffect(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.effectwidget.EffectBase

Returns its input colors in monochrome.

class kivy.uix.effectwidget.InvertEffect(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.effectwidget.EffectBase

Inverts the colors in the input.

class kivy.uix.effectwidget.ChannelMixEffect(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.effectwidget.EffectBase

Mixes the color channels of the input according to the order property. Channels may be arbitrarily rearranged or repeated.

order

The new sorted order of the rgb channels.

order is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 2, 0], corresponding to (g, b, r).

class kivy.uix.effectwidget.ScanlinesEffect(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.effectwidget.EffectBase

Adds scanlines to the input.

class kivy.uix.effectwidget.PixelateEffect(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.effectwidget.EffectBase

Pixelates the input according to its pixel_size

pixel_size

Sets the size of a new ‘pixel’ in the effect, in terms of number of ‘real’ pixels.

pixel_size is a NumericProperty and defaults to 10.

class kivy.uix.effectwidget.HorizontalBlurEffect(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.effectwidget.EffectBase

Blurs the input horizontally, with the width given by size.

size

The blur width in pixels.

size is a NumericProperty and defaults to 4.0.

class kivy.uix.effectwidget.VerticalBlurEffect(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.effectwidget.EffectBase

Blurs the input vertically, with the width given by size.

size

The blur width in pixels.

size is a NumericProperty and defaults to 4.0.

class kivy.uix.effectwidget.FXAAEffect(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.effectwidget.EffectBase

Applies very simple anti-aliasing via fxaa.

FileChooser

The FileChooser module provides various classes for describing, displaying and browsing file systems.

Simple widgets

There are two ready-to-use widgets that provide views of the file system. Each of these present the files and folders in a different style.

The FileChooserListView displays file entries as text items in a vertical list, where folders can be collapsed and expanded.

_images/filechooser_list.png

The FileChooserIconView presents icons and text from left to right, wrapping them as required.

_images/filechooser_icon.png

They both provide for scrolling, selection and basic user interaction. Please refer to the FileChooserController for details on supported events and properties.

Widget composition

FileChooser classes adopt a MVC design. They are exposed so that you to extend and customize your file chooser according to your needs.

The FileChooser classes can be categorized as follows:

This means you can define your own views or provide FileSystemAbstract implementations for alternative file systems for use with these widgets. The FileChooser can be used as a controller for handling multiple, synchronized views of the same path. By combining these elements, you can add your own views and file systems and have them easily interact with the existing components.

Usage example

main.py

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.floatlayout import FloatLayout
from kivy.factory import Factory
from kivy.properties import ObjectProperty
from kivy.uix.popup import Popup

import os


class LoadDialog(FloatLayout):
    load = ObjectProperty(None)
    cancel = ObjectProperty(None)


class SaveDialog(FloatLayout):
    save = ObjectProperty(None)
    text_input = ObjectProperty(None)
    cancel = ObjectProperty(None)


class Root(FloatLayout):
    loadfile = ObjectProperty(None)
    savefile = ObjectProperty(None)
    text_input = ObjectProperty(None)

    def dismiss_popup(self):
        self._popup.dismiss()

    def show_load(self):
        content = LoadDialog(load=self.load, cancel=self.dismiss_popup)
        self._popup = Popup(title="Load file", content=content,
                            size_hint=(0.9, 0.9))
        self._popup.open()

    def show_save(self):
        content = SaveDialog(save=self.save, cancel=self.dismiss_popup)
        self._popup = Popup(title="Save file", content=content,
                            size_hint=(0.9, 0.9))
        self._popup.open()

    def load(self, path, filename):
        with open(os.path.join(path, filename[0])) as stream:
            self.text_input.text = stream.read()

        self.dismiss_popup()

    def save(self, path, filename):
        with open(os.path.join(path, filename), 'w') as stream:
            stream.write(self.text_input.text)

        self.dismiss_popup()


class Editor(App):
    pass


Factory.register('Root', cls=Root)
Factory.register('LoadDialog', cls=LoadDialog)
Factory.register('SaveDialog', cls=SaveDialog)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    Editor().run()

editor.kv

#:kivy 1.1.0

Root:
    text_input: text_input

    BoxLayout:
        orientation: 'vertical'
        BoxLayout:
            size_hint_y: None
            height: 30
            Button:
                text: 'Load'
                on_release: root.show_load()
            Button:
                text: 'Save'
                on_release: root.show_save()

        BoxLayout:
            TextInput:
                id: text_input
                text: ''

            RstDocument:
                text: text_input.text
                show_errors: True

<LoadDialog>:
    BoxLayout:
        size: root.size
        pos: root.pos
        orientation: "vertical"
        FileChooserListView:
            id: filechooser

        BoxLayout:
            size_hint_y: None
            height: 30
            Button:
                text: "Cancel"
                on_release: root.cancel()

            Button:
                text: "Load"
                on_release: root.load(filechooser.path, filechooser.selection)

<SaveDialog>:
    text_input: text_input
    BoxLayout:
        size: root.size
        pos: root.pos
        orientation: "vertical"
        FileChooserListView:
            id: filechooser
            on_selection: text_input.text = self.selection and self.selection[0] or ''

        TextInput:
            id: text_input
            size_hint_y: None
            height: 30
            multiline: False

        BoxLayout:
            size_hint_y: None
            height: 30
            Button:
                text: "Cancel"
                on_release: root.cancel()

            Button:
                text: "Save"
                on_release: root.save(filechooser.path, text_input.text)

New in version 1.0.5.

Changed in version 1.2.0: In the chooser template, the controller is no longer a direct reference but a weak-reference. If you are upgrading, you should change the notation root.controller.xxx to root.controller().xxx.

class kivy.uix.filechooser.FileChooserListView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.filechooser.FileChooserController

Implementation of a FileChooserController using a list view.

New in version 1.9.0.

class kivy.uix.filechooser.FileChooserIconView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.filechooser.FileChooserController

Implementation of a FileChooserController using an icon view.

New in version 1.9.0.

class kivy.uix.filechooser.FileChooserListLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.filechooser.FileChooserLayout

File chooser layout using a list view.

New in version 1.9.0.

class kivy.uix.filechooser.FileChooserIconLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.filechooser.FileChooserLayout

File chooser layout using an icon view.

New in version 1.9.0.

class kivy.uix.filechooser.FileChooser(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.filechooser.FileChooserController

Implementation of a FileChooserController which supports switching between multiple, synced layout views.

The FileChooser can be used as follows:

BoxLayout:
    orientation: 'vertical'

    BoxLayout:
        size_hint_y: None
        height: sp(52)

        Button:
            text: 'Icon View'
            on_press: fc.view_mode = 'icon'
        Button:
            text: 'List View'
            on_press: fc.view_mode = 'list'

    FileChooser:
        id: fc
        FileChooserIconLayout
        FileChooserListLayout

New in version 1.9.0.

add_widget(widget, **kwargs)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
manager

Reference to the ScreenManager instance.

manager is an ObjectProperty.

view_list

List of views added to this FileChooser.

view_list is an AliasProperty of type list.

view_mode

Current layout view mode.

view_mode is an AliasProperty of type str.

class kivy.uix.filechooser.FileChooserController(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.relativelayout.RelativeLayout

Base for implementing a FileChooser. Don’t use this class directly, but prefer using an implementation such as the FileChooser, FileChooserListView or FileChooserIconView.

Events:
on_entry_added: entry, parent

Fired when a root-level entry is added to the file list. If you return True from this event, the entry is not added to FileChooser.

on_entries_cleared

Fired when the the entries list is cleared, usually when the root is refreshed.

on_subentry_to_entry: entry, parent

Fired when a sub-entry is added to an existing entry or when entries are removed from an entry e.g. when a node is closed.

on_submit: selection, touch

Fired when a file has been selected with a double-tap.
cancel(*largs)[source]

Cancel any background action started by filechooser, such as loading a new directory.

New in version 1.2.0.

dirselect

Determines whether directories are valid selections or not.

dirselect is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

New in version 1.1.0.

entry_released(entry, touch)[source]

(internal) This method must be called by the template when an entry is touched by the user.

New in version 1.1.0.

entry_touched(entry, touch)[source]

(internal) This method must be called by the template when an entry is touched by the user.

file_encodings

Possible encodings for decoding a filename to unicode. In the case that the user has a non-ascii filename, undecodable without knowing it’s initial encoding, we have no other choice than to guess it.

Please note that if you encounter an issue because of a missing encoding here, we’ll be glad to add it to this list.

file_encodings is a ListProperty and defaults to [‘utf-8’, ‘latin1’, ‘cp1252’].

New in version 1.3.0.

Deprecated since version 1.8.0: This property is no longer used as the filechooser no longer decodes the file names.

file_system

The file system object used to access the file system. This should be a subclass of FileSystemAbstract.

file_system is an ObjectProperty and defaults to FileSystemLocal()

New in version 1.8.0.

files

The list of files in the directory specified by path after applying the filters.

files is a read-only ListProperty.

filter_dirs

Indicates whether filters should also apply to directories. filter_dirs is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

filters

filters specifies the filters to be applied to the files in the directory. filters is a ListProperty and defaults to []. This is equivalent to ‘*’ i.e. nothing is filtered.

The filters are not reset when the path changes. You need to do that yourself if desired.

There are two kinds of filters: patterns and callbacks.

  1. Patterns

    e.g. [‘*.png’]. You can use the following patterns:

    Pattern Meaning
    * matches everything
    ? matches any single character
    [seq] matches any character in seq
    [!seq] matches any character not in seq

  2. Callbacks

    You can specify a function that will be called for each file. The callback will be passed the folder and file name as the first and second parameters respectively. It should return True to indicate a match and False otherwise.

Changed in version 1.4.0: Added the option to specify the filter as a callback.

get_nice_size(fn)[source]

Pass the filepath. Returns the size in the best human readable format or ‘’ if it is a directory (Don’t recursively calculate size).

layout

Reference to the layout widget instance.

layout is an ObjectProperty.

New in version 1.9.0.

multiselect

Determines whether the user is able to select multiple files or not.

multiselect is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

path

path is a StringProperty and defaults to the current working directory as a unicode string. It specifies the path on the filesystem that this controller should refer to.

Warning

If a unicode path is specified, all the files returned will be in unicode, allowing the display of unicode files and paths. If a bytes path is specified, only files and paths with ascii names will be displayed properly: non-ascii filenames will be displayed and listed with questions marks (?) instead of their unicode characters.

progress_cls

Class to use for displaying a progress indicator for filechooser loading.

progress_cls is an ObjectProperty and defaults to FileChooserProgress.

New in version 1.2.0.

Changed in version 1.8.0: If set to a string, the Factory will be used to resolve the class name.

rootpath

Root path to use instead of the system root path. If set, it will not show a “..” directory to go up to the root path. For example, if you set rootpath to /users/foo, the user will be unable to go to /users or to any other directory not starting with /users/foo.

rootpath is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

New in version 1.2.0.

Note

Similarly to path, whether rootpath is specified as bytes or a unicode string determines the type of the filenames and paths read.

selection

Contains the list of files that are currently selected.

selection is a read-only ListProperty and defaults to [].

show_hidden

Determines whether hidden files and folders should be shown.

show_hidden is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

sort_func

Provides a function to be called with a list of filenames as the first argument and the filesystem implementation as the second argument. It returns a list of filenames sorted for display in the view.

sort_func is an ObjectProperty and defaults to a function returning alphanumerically named folders first.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The signature needs now 2 arguments: first the list of files, second the filesystem class to use.

class kivy.uix.filechooser.FileChooserProgressBase(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.floatlayout.FloatLayout

Base for implementing a progress view. This view is used when too many entries need to be created and are delayed over multiple frames.

New in version 1.2.0.

cancel(*largs)[source]

Cancel any action from the FileChooserController.

index

Current index of total entries to be loaded.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

path

Current path of the FileChooser, read-only.

total

Total number of entries to load.

class kivy.uix.filechooser.FileSystemAbstract[source]

Bases: builtins.object

Class for implementing a File System view that can be used with the FileChooser.

New in version 1.8.0.

getsize(fn)[source]

Return the size in bytes of a file

is_dir(fn)[source]

Return True if the argument passed to this method is a directory

is_hidden(fn)[source]

Return True if the file is hidden

listdir(fn)[source]

Return the list of files in the directory fn

class kivy.uix.filechooser.FileSystemLocal[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.filechooser.FileSystemAbstract

Implementation of FileSystemAbstract for local files.

New in version 1.8.0.

getsize(fn)[source]

Return the size in bytes of a file

is_dir(fn)[source]

Return True if the argument passed to this method is a directory

is_hidden(fn)[source]

Return True if the file is hidden

listdir(fn)[source]

Return the list of files in the directory fn

Float Layout

FloatLayout honors the pos_hint and the size_hint properties of its children.

_images/floatlayout.gif

For example, a FloatLayout with a size of (300, 300) is created:

layout = FloatLayout(size=(300, 300))

By default, all widgets have their size_hint=(1, 1), so this button will adopt the same size as the layout:

button = Button(text='Hello world')
layout.add_widget(button)

To create a button 50% of the width and 25% of the height of the layout and positioned at (20, 20), you can do:

button = Button(
    text='Hello world',
    size_hint=(.5, .25),
    pos=(20, 20))

If you want to create a button that will always be the size of layout minus 20% on each side:

button = Button(text='Hello world', size_hint=(.6, .6),
                pos_hint={'x':.2, 'y':.2})

Note

This layout can be used for an application. Most of the time, you will use the size of Window.

Warning

If you are not using pos_hint, you must handle the positioning of the children: if the float layout is moving, you must handle moving the children too.

class kivy.uix.floatlayout.FloatLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.layout.Layout

Float layout class. See module documentation for more information.

add_widget(widget, index=0, canvas=None)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
do_layout(*largs, **kwargs)[source]

This function is called when a layout is called by a trigger. If you are writing a new Layout subclass, don’t call this function directly but use _trigger_layout() instead.

The function is by default called before the next frame, therefore the layout isn’t updated immediately. Anything depending on the positions of e.g. children should be scheduled for the next frame.

New in version 1.0.8.

remove_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)

Gesture Surface

New in version 1.9.0.

Warning

This is experimental and subject to change as long as this warning notice is present.

See kivy/examples/demo/multistroke/main.py for a complete application example.

class kivy.uix.gesturesurface.GestureSurface(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.floatlayout.FloatLayout

Simple gesture surface to track/draw touch movements. Typically used to gather user input suitable for kivy.multistroke.Recognizer.

Properties:
temporal_window

Time to wait from the last touch_up event before attempting to recognize the gesture. If you set this to 0, the on_gesture_complete event is not fired unless the max_strokes condition is met.

temporal_window is a NumericProperty and defaults to 2.0

max_strokes

Max number of strokes in a single gesture; if this is reached, recognition will start immediately on the final touch_up event. If this is set to 0, the on_gesture_complete event is not fired unless the temporal_window expires.

max_strokes is a NumericProperty and defaults to 2.0

bbox_margin

Bounding box margin for detecting gesture collisions, in pixels.

bbox_margin is a NumericProperty and defaults to 30

draw_timeout

Number of seconds to keep lines/bbox on canvas after the on_gesture_complete event is fired. If this is set to 0, gestures are immediately removed from the surface when complete.

draw_timeout is a NumericProperty and defaults to 3.0

color

Color used to draw the gesture, in RGB. This option does not have an effect if use_random_color is True.

draw_timeout is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1] (white)

use_random_color

Set to True to pick a random color for each gesture, if you do this then color is ignored. Defaults to False.

use_random_color is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False

line_width

Line width used for tracing touches on the surface. Set to 0 if you only want to detect gestures without drawing anything. If you use 1.0, OpenGL GL_LINE is used for drawing; values > 1 will use an internal drawing method based on triangles (less efficient), see kivy.graphics.

line_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 2

draw_bbox

Set to True if you want to draw bounding box behind gestures. This only works if line_width >= 1. Default is False.

draw_bbox is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True

bbox_alpha

Opacity for bounding box if draw_bbox is True. Default 0.1

bbox_alpha is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.1
Events:
on_gesture_start GestureContainer

Fired when a new gesture is initiated on the surface, i.e. the first on_touch_down that does not collide with an existing gesture on the surface.

on_gesture_extend GestureContainer

Fired when a touch_down event occurs within an existing gesture.

on_gesture_merge GestureContainer, GestureContainer

Fired when two gestures collide and get merged to one gesture. The first argument is the gesture that has been merged (no longer valid); the second is the combined (resulting) gesture.

on_gesture_complete GestureContainer

Fired when a set of strokes is considered a complete gesture, this happens when temporal_window expires or max_strokes is reached. Typically you will bind to this event and use the provided GestureContainer get_vectors() method to match against your gesture database.

on_gesture_cleanup GestureContainer

Fired draw_timeout seconds after on_gesture_complete, The gesture will be removed from the canvas (if line_width > 0 or draw_bbox is True) and the internal gesture list before this.

on_gesture_discard GestureContainer

Fired when a gesture does not meet the minimum size requirements for recognition (width/height < 5, or consists only of single- point strokes).
find_colliding_gesture(touch)[source]

Checks if a touch x/y collides with the bounding box of an existing gesture. If so, return it (otherwise returns None)

get_gesture(touch)[source]

Returns GestureContainer associated with given touch

init_gesture(touch)[source]

Create a new gesture from touch, i.e. it’s the first on surface, or was not close enough to any existing gesture (yet)

merge_gestures(g, other)[source]

Merges two gestures together, the oldest one is retained and the newer one gets the GestureContainer.was_merged flag raised.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

When a new touch is registered, the first thing we do is to test if it collides with the bounding box of another known gesture. If so, it is assumed to be part of that gesture.

on_touch_move(touch)[source]

When a touch moves, we add a point to the line on the canvas so the path is updated. We must also check if the new point collides with the bounding box of another gesture - if so, they should be merged.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

class kivy.uix.gesturesurface.GestureContainer(touch, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

Container object that stores information about a gesture. It has various properties that are updated by GestureSurface as drawing progresses.

Arguments:
touch

Touch object (as received by on_touch_down) used to initialize the gesture container. Required.
Properties:
active

Set to False once the gesture is complete (meets max_stroke setting or GestureSurface.temporal_window)

active is a BooleanProperty

active_strokes

Number of strokes currently active in the gesture, ie concurrent touches associated with this gesture.

active_strokes is a NumericProperty

max_strokes

Max number of strokes allowed in the gesture. This is set by GestureSurface.max_strokes but can be overridden for example from on_gesture_start.

max_strokes is a NumericProperty

was_merged

Indicates that this gesture has been merged with another gesture and should be considered discarded.

was_merged is a BooleanProperty

bbox

Dictionary with keys minx, miny, maxx, maxy. Represents the size of the gesture bounding box.

bbox is a DictProperty

width

Represents the width of the gesture.

width is a NumericProperty

height

Represents the height of the gesture.

height is a NumericProperty
accept_stroke(count=1)[source]

Returns True if this container can accept count new strokes

add_stroke(touch, line)[source]

Associate a list of points with a touch.uid; the line itself is created by the caller, but subsequent move/up events look it up via us. This is done to avoid problems during merge.

complete_stroke()[source]

Called on touch up events to keep track of how many strokes are active in the gesture (we only want to dispatch event when the last stroke in the gesture is released)

get_vectors(**kwargs)[source]

Return strokes in a format that is acceptable for kivy.multistroke.Recognizer as a gesture candidate or template. The result is cached automatically; the cache is invalidated at the start and end of a stroke and if update_bbox is called. If you are going to analyze a gesture mid-stroke, you may need to set the no_cache argument to True.

handles(touch)[source]

Returns True if this container handles the given touch

single_points_test()[source]

Returns True if the gesture consists only of single-point strokes, we must discard it in this case, or an exception will be raised

update_bbox(touch)[source]

Update gesture bbox from a touch coordinate

Grid Layout

_images/gridlayout.gif

New in version 1.0.4.

The GridLayout arranges children in a matrix. It takes the available space and divides it into columns and rows, then adds widgets to the resulting “cells”.

Changed in version 1.0.7: The implementation has changed to use the widget size_hint for calculating column/row sizes. uniform_width and uniform_height have been removed and other properties have added to give you more control.

Background

Unlike many other toolkits, you cannot explicitly place a widget in a specific column/row. Each child is automatically assigned a position determined by the layout configuration and the child’s index in the children list.

A GridLayout must always have at least one input constraint: GridLayout.cols or GridLayout.rows. If you do not specify cols or rows, the Layout will throw an exception.

Column Width and Row Height

The column width/row height are determined in 3 steps:

  • The initial size is given by the col_default_width and row_default_height properties. To customize the size of a single column or row, use cols_minimum or rows_minimum.
  • The size_hint_x/size_hint_y of the children are taken into account. If no widgets have a size hint, the maximum size is used for all children.
  • You can force the default size by setting the col_force_default or row_force_default property. This will force the layout to ignore the width and size_hint properties of children and use the default size.
Using a GridLayout

In the example below, all widgets will have an equal size. By default, the size_hint is (1, 1), so a Widget will take the full size of the parent:

layout = GridLayout(cols=2)
layout.add_widget(Button(text='Hello 1'))
layout.add_widget(Button(text='World 1'))
layout.add_widget(Button(text='Hello 2'))
layout.add_widget(Button(text='World 2'))
_images/gridlayout_1.jpg

Now, let’s fix the size of Hello buttons to 100px instead of using size_hint_x=1:

layout = GridLayout(cols=2)
layout.add_widget(Button(text='Hello 1', size_hint_x=None, width=100))
layout.add_widget(Button(text='World 1'))
layout.add_widget(Button(text='Hello 2', size_hint_x=None, width=100))
layout.add_widget(Button(text='World 2'))
_images/gridlayout_2.jpg

Next, let’s fix the row height to a specific size:

layout = GridLayout(cols=2, row_force_default=True, row_default_height=40)
layout.add_widget(Button(text='Hello 1', size_hint_x=None, width=100))
layout.add_widget(Button(text='World 1'))
layout.add_widget(Button(text='Hello 2', size_hint_x=None, width=100))
layout.add_widget(Button(text='World 2'))
_images/gridlayout_3.jpg
class kivy.uix.gridlayout.GridLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.layout.Layout

Grid layout class. See module documentation for more information.

col_default_width

Default minimum size to use for a column.

New in version 1.0.7.

col_default_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

col_force_default

If True, ignore the width and size_hint_x of the child and use the default column width.

New in version 1.0.7.

col_force_default is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

cols

Number of columns in the grid.

Changed in version 1.0.8: Changed from a NumericProperty to BoundedNumericProperty. You can no longer set this to a negative value.

cols is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

cols_minimum

Dict of minimum width for each column. The dictionary keys are the column numbers, e.g. 0, 1, 2…

New in version 1.0.7.

cols_minimum is a DictProperty and defaults to {}.

do_layout(*largs)[source]

This function is called when a layout is called by a trigger. If you are writing a new Layout subclass, don’t call this function directly but use _trigger_layout() instead.

The function is by default called before the next frame, therefore the layout isn’t updated immediately. Anything depending on the positions of e.g. children should be scheduled for the next frame.

New in version 1.0.8.

minimum_height

Automatically computed minimum height needed to contain all children.

New in version 1.0.8.

minimum_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0. It is read only.

minimum_size

Automatically computed minimum size needed to contain all children.

New in version 1.0.8.

minimum_size is a ReferenceListProperty of (minimum_width, minimum_height) properties. It is read only.

minimum_width

Automatically computed minimum width needed to contain all children.

New in version 1.0.8.

minimum_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0. It is read only.

padding

Padding between the layout box and it’s children: [padding_left, padding_top, padding_right, padding_bottom].

padding also accepts a two argument form [padding_horizontal, padding_vertical] and a one argument form [padding].

Changed in version 1.7.0: Replaced NumericProperty with VariableListProperty.

padding is a VariableListProperty and defaults to [0, 0, 0, 0].

row_default_height

Default minimum size to use for row.

New in version 1.0.7.

row_default_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

row_force_default

If True, ignore the height and size_hint_y of the child and use the default row height.

New in version 1.0.7.

row_force_default is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

rows

Number of rows in the grid.

Changed in version 1.0.8: Changed from a NumericProperty to a BoundedNumericProperty. You can no longer set this to a negative value.

rows is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

rows_minimum

Dict of minimum height for each row. The dictionary keys are the row numbers, e.g. 0, 1, 2…

New in version 1.0.7.

rows_minimum is a DictProperty and defaults to {}.

spacing

Spacing between children: [spacing_horizontal, spacing_vertical].

spacing also accepts a one argument form [spacing].

spacing is a VariableListProperty and defaults to [0, 0].

exception kivy.uix.gridlayout.GridLayoutException[source]

Bases: Exception

Exception for errors if the grid layout manipulation fails.

Image

The Image widget is used to display an image:

wimg = Image(source='mylogo.png')
Asynchronous Loading

To load an image asynchronously (for example from an external webserver), use the AsyncImage subclass:

aimg = AsyncImage(source='http://mywebsite.com/logo.png')

This can be useful as it prevents your application from waiting until the image is loaded. If you want to display large images or retrieve them from URL’s, using AsyncImage will allow these resources to be retrieved on a background thread without blocking your application.

Alignment

By default, the image is centered and fits inside the widget bounding box. If you don’t want that, you can set allow_stretch to True and keep_ratio to False.

You can also inherit from Image and create your own style. For example, if you want your image to be greater than the size of your widget, you could do:

class FullImage(Image):
    pass

And in your kivy language file:

<-FullImage>:
    canvas:
        Color:
            rgb: (1, 1, 1)
        Rectangle:
            texture: self.texture
            size: self.width + 20, self.height + 20
            pos: self.x - 10, self.y - 10
class kivy.uix.image.Image(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.widget.Widget

Image class, see module documentation for more information.

allow_stretch

If True, the normalized image size will be maximized to fit in the image box. Otherwise, if the box is too tall, the image will not be stretched more than 1:1 pixels.

New in version 1.0.7.

allow_stretch is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

anim_delay

Delay the animation if the image is sequenced (like an animated gif). If anim_delay is set to -1, the animation will be stopped.

New in version 1.0.8.

anim_delay is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.25 (4 FPS).

anim_loop

Number of loops to play then stop animating. 0 means keep animating.

New in version 1.9.0.

anim_loop is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

color

Image color, in the format (r, g, b, a). This attribute can be used to ‘tint’ an image. Be careful: if the source image is not gray/white, the color will not really work as expected.

New in version 1.0.6.

color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

image_ratio

Ratio of the image (width / float(height).

image_ratio is an AliasProperty and is read-only.

keep_data

If True, the underlaying _coreimage will store the raw image data. This is useful when performing pixel based collision detection.

New in version 1.3.0.

keep_data is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

keep_ratio

If False along with allow_stretch being True, the normalized image size will be maximized to fit in the image box and ignores the aspect ratio of the image. Otherwise, if the box is too tall, the image will not be stretched more than 1:1 pixels.

New in version 1.0.8.

keep_ratio is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

mipmap

Indicate if you want OpenGL mipmapping to be applied to the texture. Read Mipmapping for more information.

New in version 1.0.7.

mipmap is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

nocache

If this property is set True, the image will not be added to the internal cache. The cache will simply ignore any calls trying to append the core image.

New in version 1.6.0.

nocache is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

norm_image_size

Normalized image size within the widget box.

This size will always fit the widget size and will preserve the image ratio.

norm_image_size is an AliasProperty and is read-only.

reload()[source]

Reload image from disk. This facilitates re-loading of images from disk in case the image content changes.

New in version 1.3.0.

Usage:

im = Image(source = '1.jpg')
# -- do something --
im.reload()
# image will be re-loaded from disk
source

Filename / source of your image.

source is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

texture

Texture object of the image. The texture represents the original, loaded image texture. It is stretched and positioned during rendering according to the allow_stretch and keep_ratio properties.

Depending of the texture creation, the value will be a Texture or a TextureRegion object.

texture is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

texture_size

Texture size of the image. This represents the original, loaded image texture size.

Warning

The texture size is set after the texture property. So if you listen to the change on texture, the property texture_size will not be up-to-date. Use self.texture.size instead.

class kivy.uix.image.AsyncImage(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.image.Image

Asynchronous Image class. See the module documentation for more information.

Note

The AsyncImage is a specialized form of the Image class. You may want to refer to the loader documentation and in particular, the ProxyImage for more detail on how to handle events around asynchronous image loading.

reload()[source]

Reload image from disk. This facilitates re-loading of images from disk in case the image content changes.

New in version 1.3.0.

Usage:

im = Image(source = '1.jpg')
# -- do something --
im.reload()
# image will be re-loaded from disk

Label

_images/label.png

The Label widget is for rendering text. It supports ascii and unicode strings:

# hello world text
l = Label(text='Hello world')

# unicode text; can only display glyphs that are available in the font
l = Label(text=u'Hello world ' + unichr(2764))

# multiline text
l = Label(text='Multi\nLine')

# size
l = Label(text='Hello world', font_size='20sp')
Sizing and text content

By default, the size of Label is not affected by text content and the text is not affected by the size. In order to control sizing, you must specify text_size to constrain the text and/or bind size to texture_size to grow with the text.

For example, this label’s size will be set to the text content (plus padding):

Label:
    size: self.texture_size

This label’s text will wrap at the specified width and be clipped to the height:

Label:
    text_size: cm(6), cm(4)

Note

The shorten and max_lines attributes control how overflowing text behaves.

Combine these concepts to create a Label that can grow vertically but wraps the text at a certain width:

Label:
    text_size: root.width, None
    size: self.texture_size
Text alignment and wrapping

The Label has halign and valign properties to control the alignment of its text. However, by default the text image (texture) is only just large enough to contain the characters and is positioned in the center of the Label. The valign property will have no effect and halign will only have an effect if your text has newlines; a single line of text will appear to be centered even though halign is set to left (by default).

In order for the alignment properties to take effect, set the text_size, which specifies the size of the bounding box within which text is aligned. For instance, the following code binds this size to the size of the Label, so text will be aligned within the widget bounds. This will also automatically wrap the text of the Label to remain within this area.

Label:
    text_size: self.size
    halign: 'right'
    valign: 'middle'
Markup text

New in version 1.1.0.

You can change the style of the text using Text Markup. The syntax is similar to the bbcode syntax but only the inline styling is allowed:

# hello world with world in bold
l = Label(text='Hello [b]World[/b]', markup=True)

# hello in red, world in blue
l = Label(text='[color=ff3333]Hello[/color][color=3333ff]World[/color]',
    markup = True)

If you need to escape the markup from the current text, use kivy.utils.escape_markup():

text = 'This is an important message [1]'
l = Label(text='[b]' + escape_markup(text) + '[/b]', markup=True)

The following tags are available:

[b][/b]
Activate bold text
[i][/i]
Activate italic text
[u][/u]
Underlined text
[s][/s]
Strikethrough text
[font=<str>][/font]
Change the font
[size=<integer>][/size]
Change the font size
[color=#<color>][/color]
Change the text color
[ref=<str>][/ref]
Add an interactive zone. The reference + bounding box inside the reference will be available in Label.refs
[anchor=<str>]
Put an anchor in the text. You can get the position of your anchor within the text with Label.anchors
[sub][/sub]
Display the text at a subscript position relative to the text before it.
[sup][/sup]
Display the text at a superscript position relative to the text before it.

If you want to render the markup text with a [ or ] or & character, you need to escape them. We created a simple syntax:

[   -> &bl;
]   -> &br;
&   -> &amp;

Then you can write:

"[size=24]Hello &bl;World&br;[/size]"
Interactive zone in text

New in version 1.1.0.

You can now have definable “links” using text markup. The idea is to be able to detect when the user clicks on part of the text and to react. The tag [ref=xxx] is used for that.

In this example, we are creating a reference on the word “World”. When this word is clicked, the function print_it will be called with the name of the reference:

def print_it(instance, value):
    print('User clicked on', value)
widget = Label(text='Hello [ref=world]World[/ref]', markup=True)
widget.bind(on_ref_press=print_it)

For prettier rendering, you could add a color for the reference. Replace the text= in the previous example with:

'Hello [ref=world][color=0000ff]World[/color][/ref]'
Catering for Unicode languages

The font kivy uses does not contain all the characters required for displaying all languages. When you use the built-in widgets, this results in a block being drawn where you expect a character.

If you want to display such characters, you can chose a font that supports them and deploy it universally via kv:

<Label>:
    font_name: '/<path>/<to>/<font>'

Note that this needs to be done before your widgets are loaded as kv rules are only applied at load time.

Usage example

The following example marks the anchors and references contained in a label:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.label import Label
from kivy.clock import Clock
from kivy.graphics import Color, Rectangle


class TestApp(App):

    @staticmethod
    def get_x(label, ref_x):
        """ Return the x value of the ref/anchor relative to the canvas """
        return label.center_x - label.texture_size[0] * 0.5 + ref_x

    @staticmethod
    def get_y(label, ref_y):
        """ Return the y value of the ref/anchor relative to the canvas """
        # Note the inversion of direction, as y values start at the top of
        # the texture and increase downwards
        return label.center_y + label.texture_size[1] * 0.5 - ref_y

    def show_marks(self, label):

        # Indicate the position of the anchors with a red top marker
        for name, anc in label.anchors.items():
            with label.canvas:
                Color(1, 0, 0)
                Rectangle(pos=(self.get_x(label, anc[0]),
                               self.get_y(label, anc[1])),
                          size=(3, 3))

        # Draw a green surround around the refs. Note the sizes y inversion
        for name, boxes in label.refs.items():
            for box in boxes:
                with label.canvas:
                    Color(0, 1, 0, 0.25)
                    Rectangle(pos=(self.get_x(label, box[0]),
                                   self.get_y(label, box[1])),
                              size=(box[2] - box[0],
                                    box[1] - box[3]))

    def build(self):
        label = Label(
            text='[anchor=a]a\nChars [anchor=b]b\n[ref=myref]ref[/ref]',
            markup=True)
        Clock.schedule_once(lambda dt: self.show_marks(label), 1)
        return label

TestApp().run()
class kivy.uix.label.Label(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.widget.Widget

Label class, see module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_ref_press

Fired when the user clicks on a word referenced with a [ref] tag in a text markup.
anchors

New in version 1.1.0.

Position of all the [anchor=xxx] markup in the text. These co-ordinates are relative to the top left corner of the text, with the y value increasing downwards. Anchors names should be unique and only the first occurrence of any duplicate anchors will be recorded.

You can place anchors in your markup text as follows:

text = """
    [anchor=title1][size=24]This is my Big title.[/size]
    [anchor=content]Hello world
"""

Then, all the [anchor=] references will be removed and you’ll get all the anchor positions in this property (only after rendering):

>>> widget = Label(text=text, markup=True)
>>> widget.texture_update()
>>> widget.anchors
{"content": (20, 32), "title1": (20, 16)}

Note

This works only with markup text. You need markup set to True.

bold

Indicates use of the bold version of your font.

Note

Depending of your font, the bold attribute may have no impact on your text rendering.

bold is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

color

Text color, in the format (r, g, b, a).

color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

disabled_color

The color of the text when the widget is disabled, in the (r, g, b, a) format.

New in version 1.8.0.

disabled_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, .3].

disabled_outline_color

The color of the text outline when the widget is disabled, in the (r, g, b) format.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 text provider.

New in version 1.10.0.

disabled_outline_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [0, 0, 0].

ellipsis_options

Font options for the ellipsis string(‘…’) used to split the text.

Accepts a dict as option name with the value. Only applied when markup is true and text is shortened. All font options which work for Label will work for ellipsis_options. Defaults for the options not specified are taken from the surronding text.

Label:
    text: 'Some very long line which will be cut'
    markup: True
    shorten: True
    ellipsis_options: {'color':(1,0.5,0.5,1),'underline':True}

New in version 2.0.0.

ellipsis_options is a DictProperty and defaults to {} (the empty dict).

font_blended

Whether blended or solid font rendering should be used.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 text provider.

New in version 1.10.0.

font_blended is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

font_hinting

What hinting option to use for font rendering. Can be one of ‘normal’, ‘light’, ‘mono’ or None.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 text provider.

New in version 1.10.0.

font_hinting is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘normal’.

font_kerning

Whether kerning is enabled for font rendering.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 text provider.

New in version 1.10.0.

font_kerning is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

font_name

Filename of the font to use. The path can be absolute or relative. Relative paths are resolved by the resource_find() function.

Warning

Depending of your text provider, the font file can be ignored. However, you can mostly use this without problems.

If the font used lacks the glyphs for the particular language/symbols you are using, you will see ‘[]’ blank box characters instead of the actual glyphs. The solution is to use a font that has the glyphs you need to display. For example, to display unicodechar, use a font such as freesans.ttf that has the glyph.

font_name is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘Roboto’. This value is taken from Config.

font_size

Font size of the text, in pixels.

font_size is a NumericProperty and defaults to 15sp.

halign

Horizontal alignment of the text.

halign is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘left’. Available options are : left, center, right and justify.

Warning

This doesn’t change the position of the text texture of the Label (centered), only the position of the text in this texture. You probably want to bind the size of the Label to the texture_size or set a text_size.

Changed in version 1.6.0: A new option was added to halign, namely justify.

is_shortened

This property indicates if text was rendered with or without shortening when shorten is True.

New in version 1.10.0.

is_shortened is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

italic

Indicates use of the italic version of your font.

Note

Depending of your font, the italic attribute may have no impact on your text rendering.

italic is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

line_height

Line Height for the text. e.g. line_height = 2 will cause the spacing between lines to be twice the size.

line_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.0.

New in version 1.5.0.

markup

New in version 1.1.0.

If True, the text will be rendered using the MarkupLabel: you can change the style of the text using tags. Check the Text Markup documentation for more information.

markup is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

max_lines

Maximum number of lines to use, defaults to 0, which means unlimited. Please note that shorten take over this property. (with shorten, the text is always one line.)

New in version 1.8.0.

max_lines is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

mipmap

Indicates whether OpenGL mipmapping is applied to the texture or not. Read Mipmapping for more information.

New in version 1.0.7.

mipmap is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
outline_color

The color of the text outline, in the (r, g, b) format.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 text provider.

New in version 1.10.0.

outline_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [0, 0, 0].

outline_width

Width in pixels for the outline around the text. No outline will be rendered if the value is None.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 text provider.

New in version 1.10.0.

outline_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to None.

padding

Padding of the text in the format (padding_x, padding_y)

padding is a ReferenceListProperty of (padding_x, padding_y) properties.

padding_x

Horizontal padding of the text inside the widget box.

padding_x is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

Changed in version 1.9.0: padding_x has been fixed to work as expected. In the past, the text was padded by the negative of its values.

padding_y

Vertical padding of the text inside the widget box.

padding_y is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

Changed in version 1.9.0: padding_y has been fixed to work as expected. In the past, the text was padded by the negative of its values.

refs

New in version 1.1.0.

List of [ref=xxx] markup items in the text with the bounding box of all the words contained in a ref, available only after rendering.

For example, if you wrote:

Check out my [ref=hello]link[/ref]

The refs will be set with:

{'hello': ((64, 0, 78, 16), )}

The references marked “hello” have a bounding box at (x1, y1, x2, y2). These co-ordinates are relative to the top left corner of the text, with the y value increasing downwards. You can define multiple refs with the same name: each occurrence will be added as another (x1, y1, x2, y2) tuple to this list.

The current Label implementation uses these references if they exist in your markup text, automatically doing the collision with the touch and dispatching an on_ref_press event.

You can bind a ref event like this:

def print_it(instance, value):
    print('User click on', value)
widget = Label(text='Hello [ref=world]World[/ref]', markup=True)
widget.on_ref_press(print_it)

Note

This works only with markup text. You need markup set to True.

shorten

Indicates whether the label should attempt to shorten its textual contents as much as possible if a text_size is given. Setting this to True without an appropriately set text_size will lead to unexpected results.

shorten_from and split_str control the direction from which the text is split, as well as where in the text we are allowed to split.

shorten is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

shorten_from

The side from which we should shorten the text from, can be left, right, or center.

For example, if left, the ellipsis will appear towards the left side and we will display as much text starting from the right as possible. Similar to shorten, this option only applies when text_size [0] is not None, In this case, the string is shortened to fit within the specified width.

New in version 1.9.0.

shorten_from is a OptionProperty and defaults to center.

split_str

The string used to split the text while shortening the string when shorten is True.

For example, if it’s a space, the string will be broken into words and as many whole words that can fit into a single line will be displayed. If split_str is the empty string, ‘’, we split on every character fitting as much text as possible into the line.

New in version 1.9.0.

split_str is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’ (the empty string).

strikethrough

Adds a strikethrough line to the text.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 text provider.

New in version 1.10.0.

strikethrough is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

strip

Whether leading and trailing spaces and newlines should be stripped from each displayed line. If True, every line will start at the right or left edge, depending on halign. If halign is justify it is implicitly True.

New in version 1.9.0.

strip is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

text

Text of the label.

Creation of a simple hello world:

widget = Label(text='Hello world')

If you want to create the widget with an unicode string, use:

widget = Label(text=u'My unicode string')

text is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’.

text_size

By default, the label is not constrained to any bounding box. You can set the size constraint of the label with this property. The text will autoflow into the constraints. So although the font size will not be reduced, the text will be arranged to fit into the box as best as possible, with any text still outside the box clipped.

This sets and clips texture_size to text_size if not None.

New in version 1.0.4.

For example, whatever your current widget size is, if you want the label to be created in a box with width=200 and unlimited height:

Label(text='Very big big line', text_size=(200, None))

Note

This text_size property is the same as the usersize property in the Label class. (It is named size= in the constructor.)

text_size is a ListProperty and defaults to (None, None), meaning no size restriction by default.

texture

Texture object of the text. The text is rendered automatically when a property changes. The OpenGL texture created in this operation is stored in this property. You can use this texture for any graphics elements.

Depending on the texture creation, the value will be a Texture or TextureRegion object.

Warning

The texture update is scheduled for the next frame. If you need the texture immediately after changing a property, you have to call the texture_update() method before accessing texture:

l = Label(text='Hello world')
# l.texture is good
l.font_size = '50sp'
# l.texture is not updated yet
l.texture_update()
# l.texture is good now.

texture is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

texture_size

Texture size of the text. The size is determined by the font size and text. If text_size is [None, None], the texture will be the size required to fit the text, otherwise it’s clipped to fit text_size.

When text_size is [None, None], one can bind to texture_size and rescale it proportionally to fit the size of the label in order to make the text fit maximally in the label.

Warning

The texture_size is set after the texture property. If you listen for changes to texture, texture_size will not be up-to-date in your callback. Bind to texture_size instead.

texture_update(*largs)[source]

Force texture recreation with the current Label properties.

After this function call, the texture and texture_size will be updated in this order.

underline

Adds an underline to the text.

Note

This feature requires the SDL2 text provider.

New in version 1.10.0.

underline is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

unicode_errors

How to handle unicode decode errors. Can be ‘strict’, ‘replace’ or ‘ignore’.

New in version 1.9.0.

unicode_errors is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘replace’.

valign

Vertical alignment of the text.

valign is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘bottom’. Available options are : ‘bottom’, ‘middle’ (or ‘center’) and ‘top’.

Changed in version 1.10.0: The ‘center’ option has been added as an alias of ‘middle’.

Warning

This doesn’t change the position of the text texture of the Label (centered), only the position of the text within this texture. You probably want to bind the size of the Label to the texture_size or set a text_size to change this behavior.

Layout

Layouts are used to calculate and assign widget positions.

The Layout class itself cannot be used directly. You should use one of the following layout classes:

Understanding the size_hint Property in Widget

The size_hint is a tuple of values used by layouts to manage the sizes of their children. It indicates the size relative to the layout’s size instead of an absolute size (in pixels/points/cm/etc). The format is:

widget.size_hint = (width_percent, height_percent)

The percent is specified as a floating point number in the range 0-1. For example, 0.5 is 50%, 1 is 100%.

If you want a widget’s width to be half of the parent’s width and the height to be identical to the parent’s height, you would do:

widget.size_hint = (0.5, 1.0)

If you don’t want to use a size_hint for either the width or height, set the value to None. For example, to make a widget that is 250px wide and 30% of the parent’s height, do:

widget.size_hint = (None, 0.3)
widget.width = 250

Being Kivy properties, these can also be set via constructor arguments:

widget = Widget(size_hint=(None, 0.3), width=250)

Changed in version 1.4.1: The reposition_child internal method (made public by mistake) has been removed.

class kivy.uix.layout.Layout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.widget.Widget

Layout interface class, used to implement every layout. See module documentation for more information.

add_widget(widget, index=0, canvas=None)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
do_layout(*largs)[source]

This function is called when a layout is called by a trigger. If you are writing a new Layout subclass, don’t call this function directly but use _trigger_layout() instead.

The function is by default called before the next frame, therefore the layout isn’t updated immediately. Anything depending on the positions of e.g. children should be scheduled for the next frame.

New in version 1.0.8.

layout_hint_with_bounds(sh_sum, available_space, min_bounded_size, sh_min_vals, sh_max_vals, hint)[source]

(internal) Computes the appropriate (size) hint for all the widgets given (potential) min or max bounds on the widgets’ size. The hint list is updated with appropriate sizes.

It walks through the hints and for any widgets whose hint will result in violating min or max constraints, it fixes the hint. Any remaining or missing space after all the widgets are fixed get distributed to the widgets making them smaller or larger according to their size hint.

This algorithms knows nothing about the widgets other than what is passed through the input params, so it’s fairly generic for laying things out according to constraints using size hints.

Parameters:
sh_sum: float

The sum of the size hints (basically sum(size_hint)).

available_space: float

The amount of pixels available for all the widgets whose size hint is not None. Cannot be zero.

min_bounded_size: float

The minimum amount of space required according to the size_hint_min of the widgets (basically sum(size_hint_min)).

sh_min_vals: list or iterable

Items in the iterable are the size_hint_min for each widget. Can be None. The length should be the same as hint

sh_max_vals: list or iterable

Items in the iterable are the size_hint_max for each widget. Can be None. The length should be the same as hint

hint: list

A list whose size is the same as the length of sh_min_vals and sh_min_vals whose each element is the corresponding size hint value of that element. This list is updated in place with correct size hints that ensure the constraints are not violated.
Returns:

Nothing. hint is updated in place.
remove_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)

List View

New in version 1.5.

Deprecated since version 1.10.0: ListView has been deprecated, use RecycleView instead.

Warning

This code is still experimental, and its API is subject to change in a future version.

The ListView implements an AbstractView as a vertical, scrollable,pannable list clipped to the scrollview’s bounding box and contains list item view instances.

The AbstractView has one property: adapter. The adapter can be one of the following: a SimpleListAdapter, a ListAdapter or a DictAdapter. The Adapter can make use of args_converters to prepare you data for passing into the constructor for each item view instantiation.

For an overview of how all these components fit together, please see the adapters module documentation.

Introduction

Lists are central parts of many software projects. Kivy’s approach to lists includes providing solutions for simple lists, along with a substantial framework for building lists of moderate to advanced complexity. For a new user, it can be difficult to ramp up from simple to advanced. For this reason, Kivy provides an extensive set of examples (with the Kivy package) that you may wish to run first, to get a taste of the range of functionality offered. You can tell from the names of the examples that they illustrate the “ramping up” from simple to advanced:

Many of the examples feature selection, some restricting selection to single selection, where only one item at a time can be selected, and others allowing multiple item selection. Many of the examples illustrate how selection in one list can be connected to actions and selections in another view or another list.

Find your own way of reading the documentation here, examining the source code for the example apps and running the examples. Some may prefer to read the documentation through first, others may want to run the examples and view their code. No matter what you do, going back and forth will likely be needed.

Basic Example

In its simplest form, we make a listview with 100 items:

from kivy.uix.listview import ListView
from kivy.base import runTouchApp


class MainView(ListView):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(MainView, self).__init__(
            item_strings=[str(index) for index in range(100)])

if __name__ == '__main__':
    runTouchApp(MainView())

Or, we could declare the listview using the kv language:

from kivy.uix.boxlayout import BoxLayout
from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.base import runTouchApp

Builder.load_string("""
<MyListView>:
    ListView:
        item_strings: [str(index) for index in range(100)]
""")


class MyListView(BoxLayout):
    pass

if __name__ == '__main__':
    runTouchApp(MyListView())
Using an Adapter

Behind the scenes, the basic example above uses the SimpleListAdapter. When the constructor for the ListView sees that only a list of strings is provided as an argument (called item_strings), it creates a SimpleListAdapter using the list of strings.

“Simple” in SimpleListAdapter means without selection support. It is a scrollable list of items that does not respond to touch events.

To use a SimpleListAdapter explicitly when creating a ListView instance, do:

simple_list_adapter = SimpleListAdapter(
        data=["Item #{0}".format(i) for i in range(100)],
        cls=Label)

list_view = ListView(adapter=simple_list_adapter)

The instance of SimpleListAdapter has a required data argument which contains data items to use for instantiating Label views for the list view (note the cls=Label argument). The data items are strings. Each item string is set by the SimpleListAdapter as the text argument for each Label instantiation.

You can declare a ListView with an adapter in a kv file with special attention given to the way longer python blocks are indented:

from kivy.uix.boxlayout import BoxLayout
from kivy.base import runTouchApp
from kivy.lang import Builder

# Note the special nature of indentation in the adapter declaration, where
# the adapter: is on one line, then the value side must be given at one
# level of indentation.

Builder.load_string("""
#:import label kivy.uix.label
#:import sla kivy.adapters.simplelistadapter

<MyListView>:
    ListView:
        adapter:
            sla.SimpleListAdapter(
            data=["Item #{0}".format(i) for i in range(100)],
            cls=label.Label)
""")


class MyListView(BoxLayout):
    pass

if __name__ == '__main__':
    runTouchApp(MyListView())
ListAdapter and DictAdapter

For most use cases, your data is more complex than a simple list of strings. Selection functionality is also often needed. The ListAdapter and DictAdapter cover these more elaborate needs.

The ListAdapter is the base class for DictAdapter, so we can start with it.

Refer to the ListAdapter docs for details, but here is a synopsis of its arguments:

  • data: strings, class instances, dicts, etc. that form the base data for instantiating views.
  • cls: a Kivy view that is to be instantiated for each list item. There are several built-in types available, including ListItemLabel and ListItemButton, or you can make your own class that mixes in the required SelectableView.
  • template: the name of a Kivy language (kv) template that defines the Kivy view for each list item.

Note

Pick only one, cls or template, to provide as an argument.

  • args_converters: a function that takes a data item object as input and uses it to build and return an args dict, ready to be used in a call to instantiate item views using the item view cls or template. In the case of cls, the args dict becomes a kwargs constructor argument. For a template, it is treated as a context (ctx) but is essentially similar in form to the kwargs usage.
  • selection_mode: a string with the value ‘single’, ‘multiple’ or other.
  • allow_empty_selection: a boolean, which if False (the default), forces there to always be a selection if there is data available. If True, selection happens only as a result of user action.

In narrative, we can summarize as follows:

A listview’s adapter takes data items and uses an args_converter function to transform them into arguments for creating list item view instances, using either a cls or a kv template.

In a graphic, a summary of the relationship between a listview and its components can be summarized as follows:

_images/adapters.png

Please refer to the adapters documentation for more details.

A DictAdapter has the same arguments and requirements as a ListAdapter except for two things:

  1. There is an additional argument, sorted_keys, which must meet the requirements of normal python dictionary keys.
  2. The data argument is, as you would expect, a dict. Keys in the dict must include the keys in the sorted_keys argument, but they may form a superset of the keys in sorted_keys. Values may be strings, class instances, dicts, etc. (The args_converter uses it accordingly).
Using an Args Converter

A ListView allows use of built-in list item views, such as ListItemButton, your own custom item view class or a custom kv template. Whichever type of list item view is used, an args_converter function is needed to prepare, per list data item, kwargs for the cls or the ctx for the template.

Note

Only the ListItemLabel, ListItemButton or custom classes like them (and not the simple Label or Button classes) are to be used in the listview system.

Warning

ListItemButton inherits the background_normal and background_down properties from the Button widget, so the selected_color and deselected_color are not represented faithfully by default.

Here is an args_converter for use with the built-in ListItemButton specified as a normal Python function:

def args_converter(row_index, an_obj):
    return {'text': an_obj.text,
            'size_hint_y': None,
            'height': 25}

and as a lambda:

args_converter = lambda row_index, an_obj: {'text': an_obj.text,
                                            'size_hint_y': None,
                                            'height': 25}

In the args converter example above, the data item is assumed to be an object (class instance), hence the reference an_obj.text.

Here is an example of an args converter that works with list data items that are dicts:

args_converter = lambda row_index, obj: {'text': obj['text'],
                                         'size_hint_y': None,
                                         'height': 25}

So, it is the responsibility of the developer to code the args_converter according to the data at hand. The row_index argument can be useful in some cases, such as when custom labels are needed.

An Example ListView

Now, to some example code:

from kivy.adapters.listadapter import ListAdapter
from kivy.uix.listview import ListItemButton, ListView

data = [{'text': str(i), 'is_selected': False} for i in range(100)]

args_converter = lambda row_index, rec: {'text': rec['text'],
                                         'size_hint_y': None,
                                         'height': 25}

list_adapter = ListAdapter(data=data,
                           args_converter=args_converter,
                           cls=ListItemButton,
                           selection_mode='single',
                           allow_empty_selection=False)

list_view = ListView(adapter=list_adapter)

This listview will show 100 buttons with text of 0 to 100. The args_converter function converts the dict items in the data and instantiates ListItemButton views by passing these converted items into it’s constructor. The listview will only allow single selection and the first item will already be selected as allow_empty_selection is False. For a complete discussion on these arguments, please see the ListAdapter documentation.

The ListItemLabel works in much the same way as the ListItemButton.

Using a Custom Item View Class

The data used in an adapter can be any of the normal Python types or custom classes, as shown below. It is up to the programmer to assure that the args_converter performs the appropriate conversions.

Here we make a simple DataItem class that has the required text and is_selected properties:

from kivy.uix.listview import ListItemButton
from kivy.adapters.listadapter import ListAdapter


class DataItem(object):
    def __init__(self, text='', is_selected=False):
        self.text = text
        self.is_selected = is_selected

data_items = [DataItem(text='cat'),
              DataItem(text='dog'),
              DataItem(text='frog')]

list_item_args_converter = lambda row_index, obj: {'text': obj.text,
                                                   'size_hint_y': None,
                                                   'height': 25}

list_adapter = ListAdapter(data=data_items,
                           args_converter=list_item_args_converter,
                           propagate_selection_to_data=True,
                           cls=ListItemButton)

list_view = ListView(adapter=list_adapter)

The data is passed to the ListAdapter along with an args_converter function. The propagation setting means that the is_selected property for each data item will be set and kept in sync with the list item views. This setting should be set to True if you wish to initialize the view with item views already selected.

You may also use the provided SelectableDataItem mixin to make a custom class. Instead of the “manually-constructed” DataItem class above, we could do:

from kivy.adapters.models import SelectableDataItem

class DataItem(SelectableDataItem):
    # Add properties here.
    pass

SelectableDataItem is a simple mixin class that has an is_selected property.

Using an Item View Template

SelectableView is another simple mixin class that has required properties for a list item: text, and is_selected. To make your own template, mix it in as follows:

from kivy.lang import Builder

Builder.load_string("""
[CustomListItem@SelectableView+BoxLayout]:
    size_hint_y: ctx.size_hint_y
    height: ctx.height
    ListItemButton:
        text: ctx.text
        is_selected: ctx.is_selected
""")

A class called CustomListItem can then be instantiated for each list item. Note that it subclasses a BoxLayout and is thus a type of layout. It contains a ListItemButton instance.

Using the power of the Kivy language (kv), you can easily build composite list items: in addition to ListItemButton, you could have a ListItemLabel or a custom class you have defined and registered via the Factory.

An args_converter needs to be constructed that goes along with such a kv template. For example, to use the kv template above:

list_item_args_converter = \
        lambda row_index, rec: {'text': rec['text'],
                                'is_selected': rec['is_selected'],
                                'size_hint_y': None,
                                'height': 25}
integers_dict = \
    { str(i): {'text': str(i), 'is_selected': False} for i in range(100)}

dict_adapter = DictAdapter(sorted_keys=[str(i) for i in range(100)],
                           data=integers_dict,
                           args_converter=list_item_args_converter,
                           template='CustomListItem')

list_view = ListView(adapter=dict_adapter)

A dict adapter is created with 1..100 integer strings as sorted_keys, and an integers_dict as data. integers_dict has the integer strings as keys and dicts with text and is_selected properties. The CustomListItem defined above in the Builder.load_string() call is set as the kv template for the list item views. The list_item_args_converter lambda function will take each dict in integers_dict and will return an args dict, ready for passing as the context (ctx) for the template.

Using CompositeListItem

The class CompositeListItem is another option for building advanced composite list items. The kv language approach has its advantages, but here we build a composite list view using a plain Python:

args_converter = lambda row_index, rec: \
    {'text': rec['text'],
    'size_hint_y': None,
    'height': 25,
    'cls_dicts': [{'cls': ListItemButton,
                    'kwargs': {'text': rec['text']}},
                {'cls': ListItemLabel,
                    'kwargs': {'text': "Middle-{0}".format(rec['text']),
                            'is_representing_cls': True}},
                {'cls': ListItemButton,
                    'kwargs': {'text': rec['text']}}]}

item_strings = ["{0}".format(index) for index in range(100)]

integers_dict = \
    {str(i): {'text': str(i), 'is_selected': False} for i in range(100)}

dict_adapter = DictAdapter(sorted_keys=item_strings,
                           data=integers_dict,
                           args_converter=args_converter,
                           selection_mode='single',
                           allow_empty_selection=False,
                           cls=CompositeListItem)

list_view = ListView(adapter=dict_adapter)

The args_converter is somewhat complicated, so we should go through the details. Observe in the DictAdapter instantiation that CompositeListItem instance is set as the cls to be instantiated for each list item component. The args_converter will make args dicts for this cls. In the args_converter, the first three items, text, size_hint_y, and height, are arguments for the CompositeListItem itself. After that you see a cls_dicts list that contains argument sets for each of the member widgets for this composite: 2 ListItemButtons and a ListItemLabel. This is a similar approach to using a kv template described above.

For details on how CompositeListItem works, examine the code, looking for how parsing of the cls_dicts list and kwargs processing is done.

Uses for Selection

What can we do with selection? Combining selection with the system of bindings in Kivy, we can build a wide range of user interface designs.

We could make data items that contain the names of dog breeds, and connect the selection of dog breed to the display of details in another view, which would update automatically on selection. This is done via a binding to the on_selection_change event:

list_adapter.bind(on_selection_change=callback_function)

where callback_function() gets passed the adapter as an argument and does whatever is needed for the update. See the example called list_master_detail.py, and imagine that the list on the left could be a list of dog breeds, and the detail view on the right could show details for a selected dog breed.

In another example, we could set the selection_mode of a listview to ‘multiple’, and load it with a list of answers to a multiple-choice question. The question could have several correct answers. A color swatch view could be bound to selection change, as above, so that it turns green as soon as the correct choices are made, unless the number of touches exceeds a limit, then answer session could be terminated. See the examples that feature thumbnail the images to get some ideas, e.g. list_cascade_dict.py.

In a more involved example, we could chain together three listviews, where selection in the first controls the items shown in the second, and selection in the second controls the items shown in the third. If allow_empty_selection were set to False for these listviews, a dynamic system of selection “cascading” from one list to the next, would result.

There are so many ways that listviews and Kivy bindings functionality can be used, that we have only scratched the surface here. For on-disk examples, see:

kivy/examples/widgets/lists/list_*.py

Several examples show the “cascading” behavior described above. Others demonstrate the use of kv templates and composite list views.

class kivy.uix.listview.SelectableView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

The SelectableView mixin is used with list items and other classes that are to be instantiated in a list view or other classes which use a selection-enabled adapter such as ListAdapter. select() and deselect() can be overridden with display code to mark items as selected or not, if desired.

deselect(*args)[source]

The list item is responsible for updating the display when being unselected, if desired.

index

The index into the underlying data list or the data item this view represents.

is_selected

A SelectableView instance carries this property which should be kept in sync with the equivalent property the data item represents.

select(*args)[source]

The list item is responsible for updating the display when being selected, if desired.

class kivy.uix.listview.ListItemButton(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.listview.ListItemReprMixin, kivy.uix.selectableview.SelectableView, kivy.uix.button.Button

ListItemButton mixes SelectableView with Button to produce a button suitable for use in ListView.

deselect(*args)[source]

The list item is responsible for updating the display when being unselected, if desired.

deselected_color

deselected_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [0., 1., 0., 1].

select(*args)[source]

The list item is responsible for updating the display when being selected, if desired.

selected_color

selected_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1., 0., 0., 1].

class kivy.uix.listview.ListItemLabel(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.listview.ListItemReprMixin, kivy.uix.selectableview.SelectableView, kivy.uix.label.Label

ListItemLabel mixes SelectableView with Label to produce a label suitable for use in ListView.

deselect(*args)[source]

The list item is responsible for updating the display when being unselected, if desired.

select(*args)[source]

The list item is responsible for updating the display when being selected, if desired.

class kivy.uix.listview.CompositeListItem(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.selectableview.SelectableView, kivy.uix.boxlayout.BoxLayout

CompositeListItem mixes SelectableView with BoxLayout for a generic container-style list item, to be used in ListView.

background_color

ListItem subclasses Button, which has background_color, but for a composite list item, we must add this property.

background_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

deselect(*args)[source]

The list item is responsible for updating the display when being unselected, if desired.

deselected_color

deselected_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [.33, .33, .33, 1].

representing_cls

Which component view class, if any, should represent for the composite list item in __repr__()?

representing_cls is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

select(*args)[source]

The list item is responsible for updating the display when being selected, if desired.

selected_color

selected_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1., 0., 0., 1].

class kivy.uix.listview.ListView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.abstractview.AbstractView, kivy.event.EventDispatcher

ListView is a primary high-level widget, handling the common task of presenting items in a scrolling list. Flexibility is afforded by use of a variety of adapters to interface with data.

The adapter property comes via the mixed in AbstractView class.

ListView also subclasses EventDispatcher for scrolling. The event on_scroll_complete is used in refreshing the main view.

For a simple list of string items, without selection, use SimpleListAdapter. For list items that respond to selection, ranging from simple items to advanced composites, use ListAdapter. For an alternate powerful adapter, use DictAdapter, rounding out the choice for designing highly interactive lists.

Events:
on_scroll_complete: (boolean, )

Fired when scrolling completes.
container

The container is a GridLayout widget held within a ScrollView widget. (See the associated kv block in the Builder.load_string() setup). Item view instances managed and provided by the adapter are added to this container. The container is cleared with a call to clear_widgets() when the list is rebuilt by the populate() method. A padding Widget instance is also added as needed, depending on the row height calculations.

container is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

divider

[TODO] Not used.

divider_height

[TODO] Not used.

item_strings

If item_strings is provided, create an instance of SimpleListAdapter with this list of strings, and use it to manage a no-selection list.

item_strings is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

row_height

The row_height property is calculated on the basis of the height of the container and the count of items.

row_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to None.

scrolling

If the scroll_to() method is called while scrolling operations are happening, a call recursion error can occur. scroll_to() checks to see that scrolling is False before calling populate(). scroll_to() dispatches a scrolling_complete event, which sets scrolling back to False.

scrolling is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

class kivy.uix.listview.ListItemReprMixin(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.label.Label

The ListItemReprMixin provides a Label with a Python 2/3 compatible string representation (__repr__). It is intended for internal usage.

ModalView

New in version 1.4.0.

The ModalView widget is used to create modal views. By default, the view will cover the whole “parent” window.

Remember that the default size of a Widget is size_hint=(1, 1). If you don’t want your view to be fullscreen, either use size hints with values lower than 1 (for instance size_hint=(.8, .8)) or deactivate the size_hint and use fixed size attributes.

Examples

Example of a simple 400x400 Hello world view:

view = ModalView(size_hint=(None, None), size=(400, 400))
view.add_widget(Label(text='Hello world'))

By default, any click outside the view will dismiss it. If you don’t want that, you can set ModalView.auto_dismiss to False:

view = ModalView(auto_dismiss=False)
view.add_widget(Label(text='Hello world'))
view.open()

To manually dismiss/close the view, use the ModalView.dismiss() method of the ModalView instance:

view.dismiss()

Both ModalView.open() and ModalView.dismiss() are bindable. That means you can directly bind the function to an action, e.g. to a button’s on_press

# create content and add it to the view
content = Button(text='Close me!')
view = ModalView(auto_dismiss=False)
view.add_widget(content)

# bind the on_press event of the button to the dismiss function
content.bind(on_press=view.dismiss)

# open the view
view.open()
ModalView Events

There are two events available: on_open which is raised when the view is opening, and on_dismiss which is raised when the view is closed. For on_dismiss, you can prevent the view from closing by explictly returning True from your callback.

def my_callback(instance):
    print('ModalView', instance, 'is being dismissed, but is prevented!')
    return True
view = ModalView()
view.add_widget(Label(text='Hello world'))
view.bind(on_dismiss=my_callback)
view.open()

Changed in version 1.5.0: The ModalView can be closed by hitting the escape key on the keyboard if the ModalView.auto_dismiss property is True (the default).

class kivy.uix.modalview.ModalView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.anchorlayout.AnchorLayout

ModalView class. See module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_pre_open:

Fired before the ModalView is opened. When this event is fired ModalView is not yet added to window.

on_open:

Fired when the ModalView is opened.

on_pre_dismiss:

Fired before the ModalView is closed.

on_dismiss:

Fired when the ModalView is closed. If the callback returns True, the dismiss will be canceled.

Changed in version 1.11.0: Added events on_pre_open and on_pre_dismiss.

attach_to

If a widget is set on attach_to, the view will attach to the nearest parent window of the widget. If none is found, it will attach to the main/global Window.

attach_to is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

auto_dismiss

This property determines if the view is automatically dismissed when the user clicks outside it.

auto_dismiss is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

background

Background image of the view used for the view background.

background is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/modalview-background’.

background_color

Background color in the format (r, g, b, a).

background_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [0, 0, 0, .7].

border

Border used for BorderImage graphics instruction. Used for the background_normal and the background_down properties. Can be used when using custom backgrounds.

It must be a list of four values: (bottom, right, top, left). Read the BorderImage instructions for more information about how to use it.

border is a ListProperty and defaults to (16, 16, 16, 16).

dismiss(*largs, **kwargs)[source]

Close the view if it is open. If you really want to close the view, whatever the on_dismiss event returns, you can use the force argument:

view = ModalView()
view.dismiss(force=True)

When the view is dismissed, it will be faded out before being removed from the parent. If you don’t want animation, use:

view.dismiss(animation=False)
on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

open(*largs, **kwargs)[source]

Show the view window from the attach_to widget. If set, it will attach to the nearest window. If the widget is not attached to any window, the view will attach to the global Window.

When the view is opened, it will be faded in with an animation. If you don’t want the animation, use:

view.open(animation=False)

PageLayout

_images/pagelayout.gif

The PageLayout class is used to create a simple multi-page layout, in a way that allows easy flipping from one page to another using borders.

PageLayout does not currently honor the size_hint, size_hint_min, size_hint_max, or pos_hint properties.

New in version 1.8.0.

Example:

PageLayout:
    Button:
        text: 'page1'
    Button:
        text: 'page2'
    Button:
        text: 'page3'

Transitions from one page to the next are made by swiping in from the border areas on the right or left hand side. If you wish to display multiple widgets in a page, we suggest you use a containing layout. Ideally, each page should consist of a single layout widget that contains the remaining widgets on that page.

class kivy.uix.pagelayout.PageLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.layout.Layout

PageLayout class. See module documentation for more information.

anim_kwargs

The animation kwargs used to construct the animation

anim_kwargs is a DictProperty and defaults to {‘d’: .5, ‘t’: ‘in_quad’}.

New in version 1.11.0.

border

The width of the border around the current page used to display the previous/next page swipe areas when needed.

border is a NumericProperty and defaults to 50dp.

do_layout(*largs)[source]

This function is called when a layout is called by a trigger. If you are writing a new Layout subclass, don’t call this function directly but use _trigger_layout() instead.

The function is by default called before the next frame, therefore the layout isn’t updated immediately. Anything depending on the positions of e.g. children should be scheduled for the next frame.

New in version 1.0.8.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

page

The currently displayed page.

page is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

swipe_threshold

The thresold used to trigger swipes as percentage of the widget size.

swipe_threshold is a NumericProperty and defaults to .5.

Popup

New in version 1.0.7.

_images/popup.jpg

The Popup widget is used to create modal popups. By default, the popup will cover the whole “parent” window. When you are creating a popup, you must at least set a Popup.title and Popup.content.

Remember that the default size of a Widget is size_hint=(1, 1). If you don’t want your popup to be fullscreen, either use size hints with values less than 1 (for instance size_hint=(.8, .8)) or deactivate the size_hint and use fixed size attributes.

Changed in version 1.4.0: The Popup class now inherits from ModalView. The Popup offers a default layout with a title and a separation bar.

Examples

Example of a simple 400x400 Hello world popup:

popup = Popup(title='Test popup',
    content=Label(text='Hello world'),
    size_hint=(None, None), size=(400, 400))

By default, any click outside the popup will dismiss/close it. If you don’t want that, you can set auto_dismiss to False:

popup = Popup(title='Test popup', content=Label(text='Hello world'),
              auto_dismiss=False)
popup.open()

To manually dismiss/close the popup, use dismiss:

popup.dismiss()

Both open() and dismiss() are bindable. That means you can directly bind the function to an action, e.g. to a button’s on_press:

# create content and add to the popup
content = Button(text='Close me!')
popup = Popup(content=content, auto_dismiss=False)

# bind the on_press event of the button to the dismiss function
content.bind(on_press=popup.dismiss)

# open the popup
popup.open()

Same thing in KV language only with Factory:

#:import Factory kivy.factory.Factory
<MyPopup@Popup>:
    auto_dismiss: False
    Button:
        text: 'Close me!'
        on_release: root.dismiss()

Button:
    text: 'Open popup'
    on_release: Factory.MyPopup().open()

Note

Popup is a special widget. Don’t try to add it as a child to any other widget. If you do, Popup will be handled like an ordinary widget and won’t be created hidden in the background.

BoxLayout:
    MyPopup:  # bad!

Progress Bar

New in version 1.0.8.

_images/progressbar.jpg

The ProgressBar widget is used to visualize the progress of some task. Only the horizontal mode is currently supported: the vertical mode is not yet available.

The progress bar has no interactive elements and is a display-only widget.

To use it, simply assign a value to indicate the current progress:

from kivy.uix.progressbar import ProgressBar
pb = ProgressBar(max=1000)

# this will update the graphics automatically (75% done)
pb.value = 750
class kivy.uix.progressbar.ProgressBar(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.widget.Widget

Class for creating a progress bar widget.

See module documentation for more details.

max

Maximum value allowed for value.

max is a NumericProperty and defaults to 100.

value

Current value used for the slider.

value is an AliasProperty that returns the value of the progress bar. If the value is < 0 or > max, it will be normalized to those boundaries.

Changed in version 1.6.0: The value is now limited to between 0 and max.

value_normalized

Normalized value inside the range 0-1:

>>> pb = ProgressBar(value=50, max=100)
>>> pb.value
50
>>> pb.value_normalized
0.5

value_normalized is an AliasProperty.

RecycleBoxLayout

New in version 1.10.0.

Warning

This module is highly experimental, its API may change in the future and the documentation is not complete at this time.

The RecycleBoxLayout is designed to provide a BoxLayout type layout when used with the RecycleView widget. Please refer to the recycleview module documentation for more information.

class kivy.uix.recycleboxlayout.RecycleBoxLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.recyclelayout.RecycleLayout, kivy.uix.boxlayout.BoxLayout

compute_visible_views(data, viewport)[source]

viewport is in coordinates of the layout manager.

get_view_index_at(pos)[source]

Return the view index on which position, pos, falls.

pos is in coordinates of the layout manager.

RecycleGridLayout

New in version 1.10.0.

Warning

This module is highly experimental, its API may change in the future and the documentation is not complete at this time.

The RecycleGridLayout is designed to provide a GridLayout type layout when used with the RecycleView widget. Please refer to the recycleview module documentation for more information.

class kivy.uix.recyclegridlayout.RecycleGridLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.recyclelayout.RecycleLayout, kivy.uix.gridlayout.GridLayout

compute_visible_views(data, viewport)[source]

viewport is in coordinates of the layout manager.

get_view_index_at(pos)[source]

Return the view index on which position, pos, falls.

pos is in coordinates of the layout manager.

RecycleLayout

New in version 1.10.0.

Warning

This module is highly experimental, its API may change in the future and the documentation is not complete at this time.

class kivy.uix.recyclelayout.RecycleLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.recycleview.layout.RecycleLayoutManagerBehavior, kivy.uix.layout.Layout

RecycleLayout provides the default layout for RecycleViews.

default_size

size as in w, h. They each can be None.

do_layout(*largs)[source]

This function is called when a layout is called by a trigger. If you are writing a new Layout subclass, don’t call this function directly but use _trigger_layout() instead.

The function is by default called before the next frame, therefore the layout isn’t updated immediately. Anything depending on the positions of e.g. children should be scheduled for the next frame.

New in version 1.0.8.

refresh_view_layout(index, layout, view, viewport)[source]

See :meth:`~kivy.uix.recycleview.views.RecycleDataAdapter.refresh_view_layout.

set_visible_views(indices, data, viewport)[source]

viewport is in coordinates of the layout manager.

Relative Layout

New in version 1.4.0.

This layout allows you to set relative coordinates for children. If you want absolute positioning, use the FloatLayout.

The RelativeLayout class behaves just like the regular FloatLayout except that its child widgets are positioned relative to the layout.

When a widget with position = (0,0) is added to a RelativeLayout, the child widget will also move when the position of the RelativeLayout is changed. The child widgets coordinates remain (0,0) as they are always relative to the parent layout.

Coordinate Systems
Window coordinates

By default, there’s only one coordinate system that defines the position of widgets and touch events dispatched to them: the window coordinate system, which places (0, 0) at the bottom left corner of the window. Although there are other coordinate systems defined, e.g. local and parent coordinates, these coordinate systems are identical to the window coordinate system as long as a relative layout type widget is not in the widget’s parent stack. When widget.pos is read or a touch is received, the coordinate values are in parent coordinates, but as mentioned, these are identical to window coordinates, even in complex widget stacks.

For example:

BoxLayout:
    Label:
        text: 'Left'
    Button:
        text: 'Middle'
        on_touch_down: print('Middle: {}'.format(args[1].pos))
    BoxLayout:
        on_touch_down: print('Box: {}'.format(args[1].pos))
        Button:
            text: 'Right'
            on_touch_down: print('Right: {}'.format(args[1].pos))

When the middle button is clicked and the touch propagates through the different parent coordinate systems, it prints the following:

>>> Box: (430.0, 282.0)
>>> Right: (430.0, 282.0)
>>> Middle: (430.0, 282.0)

As claimed, the touch has identical coordinates to the window coordinates in every coordinate system. collide_point() for example, takes the point in window coordinates.

Parent coordinates

Other RelativeLayout type widgets are Scatter, ScatterLayout, and ScrollView. If such a special widget is in the parent stack, only then does the parent and local coordinate system diverge from the window coordinate system. For each such widget in the stack, a coordinate system with (0, 0) of that coordinate system being at the bottom left corner of that widget is created. Position and touch coordinates received and read by a widget are in the coordinate system of the most recent special widget in its parent stack (not including itself) or in window coordinates if there are none (as in the first example). We call these coordinates parent coordinates.

For example:

BoxLayout:
    Label:
        text: 'Left'
    Button:
        text: 'Middle'
        on_touch_down: print('Middle: {}'.format(args[1].pos))
    RelativeLayout:
        on_touch_down: print('Relative: {}'.format(args[1].pos))
        Button:
            text: 'Right'
            on_touch_down: print('Right: {}'.format(args[1].pos))

Clicking on the middle button prints:

>>> Relative: (396.0, 298.0)
>>> Right: (-137.33, 298.0)
>>> Middle: (396.0, 298.0)

As the touch propagates through the widgets, for each widget, the touch is received in parent coordinates. Because both the relative and middle widgets don’t have these special widgets in their parent stack, the touch is the same as window coordinates. Only the right widget, which has a RelativeLayout in its parent stack, receives the touch in coordinates relative to that RelativeLayout which is different than window coordinates.

Local and Widget coordinates

When expressed in parent coordinates, the position is expressed in the coordinates of the most recent special widget in its parent stack, not including itself. When expressed in local or widget coordinates, the widgets themselves are also included.

Changing the above example to transform the parent coordinates into local coordinates:

BoxLayout:
    Label:
        text: 'Left'
    Button:
        text: 'Middle'
        on_touch_down: print('Middle: {}'.format(self.to_local(*args[1].pos)))
    RelativeLayout:
        on_touch_down: print('Relative: {}'.format(self.to_local(*args[1].pos)))
        Button:
            text: 'Right'
            on_touch_down: print('Right: {}'.format(self.to_local(*args[1].pos)))

Now, clicking on the middle button prints:

>>> Relative: (-135.33, 301.0)
>>> Right: (-135.33, 301.0)
>>> Middle: (398.0, 301.0)

This is because now the relative widget also expresses the coordinates relative to itself.

Coordinate transformations

Widget provides 4 functions to transform coordinates between the various coordinate systems. For now, we assume that the relative keyword of these functions is False. to_widget() takes the coordinates expressed in window coordinates and returns them in local (widget) coordinates. to_window() takes the coordinates expressed in local coordinates and returns them in window coordinates. to_parent() takes the coordinates expressed in local coordinates and returns them in parent coordinates. to_local() takes the coordinates expressed in parent coordinates and returns them in local coordinates.

Each of the 4 transformation functions take a relative parameter. When the relative parameter is True, the coordinates are returned or originate in true relative coordinates - relative to a coordinate system with its (0, 0) at the bottom left corner of the widget in question.

Common Pitfalls

As all positions within a RelativeLayout are relative to the position of the layout itself, the position of the layout should never be used in determining the position of sub-widgets or the layout’s canvas.

Take the following kv code for example:

_images/relativelayout-fixedposition.png

expected result

_images/relativelayout-doubleposition.png

actual result

FloatLayout:
    Widget:
        size_hint: None, None
        size: 200, 200
        pos: 200, 200

        canvas:
            Color:
                rgba: 1, 1, 1, 1
            Rectangle:
                pos: self.pos
                size: self.size

    RelativeLayout:
        size_hint: None, None
        size: 200, 200
        pos: 200, 200

        canvas:
            Color:
                rgba: 1, 0, 0, 0.5
            Rectangle:
                pos: self.pos  # incorrect
                size: self.size

You might expect this to render a single pink rectangle; however, the content of the RelativeLayout is already transformed, so the use of pos: self.pos will double that transformation. In this case, using pos: 0, 0 or omitting pos completely will provide the expected result.

This also applies to the position of sub-widgets. Instead of positioning a Widget based on the layout’s own position:

RelativeLayout:
    Widget:
        pos: self.parent.pos
    Widget:
        center: self.parent.center

use the pos_hint property:

RelativeLayout:
    Widget:
        pos_hint: {'x': 0, 'y': 0}
    Widget:
        pos_hint: {'center_x': 0.5, 'center_y': 0.5}

Changed in version 1.7.0: Prior to version 1.7.0, the RelativeLayout was implemented as a FloatLayout inside a Scatter. This behaviour/widget has been renamed to ScatterLayout. The RelativeLayout now only supports relative positions (and can’t be rotated, scaled or translated on a multitouch system using two or more fingers). This was done so that the implementation could be optimized and avoid the heavier calculations of Scatter (e.g. inverse matrix, recalculating multiple properties etc.)

class kivy.uix.relativelayout.RelativeLayout(**kw)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.floatlayout.FloatLayout

RelativeLayout class, see module documentation for more information.

do_layout(*args)[source]

This function is called when a layout is called by a trigger. If you are writing a new Layout subclass, don’t call this function directly but use _trigger_layout() instead.

The function is by default called before the next frame, therefore the layout isn’t updated immediately. Anything depending on the positions of e.g. children should be scheduled for the next frame.

New in version 1.0.8.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

to_local(x, y, **k)[source]

Transform parent coordinates to local coordinates. See relativelayout for details on the coordinate systems.

Parameters:
relative: bool, defaults to False

Change to True if you want to translate coordinates to relative widget coordinates.
to_parent(x, y, **k)[source]

Transform local coordinates to parent coordinates. See relativelayout for details on the coordinate systems.

Parameters:
relative: bool, defaults to False

Change to True if you want to translate relative positions from a widget to its parent coordinates.

reStructuredText renderer

New in version 1.1.0.

reStructuredText is an easy-to-read, what-you-see-is-what-you-get plaintext markup syntax and parser system.

Note

This widget requires the docutils package to run. Install it with pip or include it as one of your deployment requirements.

Warning

This widget is highly experimental. The styling and implementation should not be considered stable until this warning has been removed.

Usage with Text
text = """
.. _top:

Hello world
===========

This is an **emphased text**, some ``interpreted text``.
And this is a reference to top_::

    $ print("Hello world")

"""
document = RstDocument(text=text)

The rendering will output:

_images/rstdocument.png
Usage with Source

You can also render a rst file using the source property:

document = RstDocument(source='index.rst')

You can reference other documents using the role :doc:. For example, in the document index.rst you can write:

Go to my next document: :doc:`moreinfo.rst`

It will generate a link that, when clicked, opens the moreinfo.rst document.

class kivy.uix.rst.RstDocument(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.scrollview.ScrollView

Base widget used to store an Rst document. See module documentation for more information.

background_color

Specifies the background_color to be used for the RstDocument.

New in version 1.8.0.

background_color is an AliasProperty for colors[‘background’].

base_font_size

Font size for the biggest title, 31 by default. All other font sizes are derived from this.

New in version 1.8.0.

colors

Dictionary of all the colors used in the RST rendering.

Warning

This dictionary is needs special handling. You also need to call RstDocument.render() if you change them after loading.

colors is a DictProperty.

document_root

Root path where :doc: will search for rst documents. If no path is given, it will use the directory of the first loaded source file.

document_root is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

goto(ref, *largs)[source]

Scroll to the reference. If it’s not found, nothing will be done.

For this text:

.. _myref:

This is something I always wanted.

You can do:

from kivy.clock import Clock
from functools import partial

doc = RstDocument(...)
Clock.schedule_once(partial(doc.goto, 'myref'), 0.1)

Note

It is preferable to delay the call of the goto if you just loaded the document because the layout might not be finished or the size of the RstDocument has not yet been determined. In either case, the calculation of the scrolling would be wrong.

You can, however, do a direct call if the document is already loaded.

New in version 1.3.0.

preload(filename, encoding='utf-8', errors='strict')[source]

Preload a rst file to get its toctree and its title.

The result will be stored in toctrees with the filename as key.

render()[source]

Force document rendering.

resolve_path(filename)[source]

Get the path for this filename. If the filename doesn’t exist, it returns the document_root + filename.

show_errors

Indicate whether RST parsers errors should be shown on the screen or not.

show_errors is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

source

Filename of the RST document.

source is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

source_encoding

Encoding to be used for the source file.

source_encoding is a StringProperty and defaults to utf-8.

Note

It is your responsibility to ensure that the value provided is a valid codec supported by python.

source_error

Error handling to be used while encoding the source file.

source_error is an OptionProperty and defaults to strict. Can be one of ‘strict’, ‘ignore’, ‘replace’, ‘xmlcharrefreplace’ or ‘backslashreplac’.

text

RST markup text of the document.

text is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

title

Title of the current document.

title is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’. It is read-only.

toctrees

Toctree of all loaded or preloaded documents. This dictionary is filled when a rst document is explicitly loaded or where preload() has been called.

If the document has no filename, e.g. when the document is loaded from a text file, the key will be ‘’.

toctrees is a DictProperty and defaults to {}.

underline_color

underline color of the titles, expressed in html color notation

underline_color is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘204a9699’.

Sandbox

New in version 1.8.0.

Warning

This is experimental and subject to change as long as this warning notice is present.

This is a widget that runs itself and all of its children in a Sandbox. That means if a child raises an Exception, it will be caught. The Sandbox itself runs its own Clock, Cache, etc.

The SandBox widget is still experimental and required for the Kivy designer. When the user designs their own widget, if they do something wrong (wrong size value, invalid python code), it will be caught correctly without breaking the whole application. Because it has been designed that way, we are still enhancing this widget and the kivy.context module. Don’t use it unless you know what you are doing.

class kivy.uix.sandbox.Sandbox(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.floatlayout.FloatLayout

Sandbox widget, used to trap all the exceptions raised by child widgets.

add_widget(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
clear_widgets(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Remove all (or the specified) children of this widget. If the ‘children’ argument is specified, it should be a list (or filtered list) of children of the current widget.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The children argument can be used to specify the children you want to remove.

on_context_created()[source]

Override this method in order to load your kv file or do anything else with the newly created context.

on_exception(exception, _traceback=None)[source]

Override this method in order to catch all the exceptions from children.

If you return True, it will not reraise the exception. If you return False, the exception will be raised to the parent.

on_touch_down(touch)

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

remove_widget(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)

Scatter

_images/scatter.gif

Scatter is used to build interactive widgets that can be translated, rotated and scaled with two or more fingers on a multitouch system.

Scatter has its own matrix transformation: the modelview matrix is changed before the children are drawn and the previous matrix is restored when the drawing is finished. That makes it possible to perform rotation, scaling and translation over the entire children tree without changing any widget properties. That specific behavior makes the scatter unique, but there are some advantages / constraints that you should consider:

  1. The children are positioned relative to the scatter similarly to a RelativeLayout. So when dragging the scatter, the position of the children don’t change, only the position of the scatter does.
  2. The scatter size has no impact on the size of it’s children.
  3. If you want to resize the scatter, use scale, not size (read #2). Scale transforms both the scatter and its children, but does not change size.
  4. The scatter is not a layout. You must manage the size of the children yourself.

For touch events, the scatter converts from the parent matrix to the scatter matrix automatically in on_touch_down/move/up events. If you are doing things manually, you will need to use to_parent() and to_local().

Usage

By default, the Scatter does not have a graphical representation: it is a container only. The idea is to combine the Scatter with another widget, for example an Image:

scatter = Scatter()
image = Image(source='sun.jpg')
scatter.add_widget(image)
Control Interactions

By default, all interactions are enabled. You can selectively disable them using the do_rotation, do_translation and do_scale properties.

Disable rotation:

scatter = Scatter(do_rotation=False)

Allow only translation:

scatter = Scatter(do_rotation=False, do_scale=False)

Allow only translation on x axis:

scatter = Scatter(do_rotation=False, do_scale=False,
                  do_translation_y=False)
Automatic Bring to Front

If the Scatter.auto_bring_to_front property is True, the scatter widget will be removed and re-added to the parent when it is touched (brought to front, above all other widgets in the parent). This is useful when you are manipulating several scatter widgets and don’t want the active one to be partially hidden.

Scale Limitation

We are using a 32-bit matrix in double representation. That means we have a limit for scaling. You cannot do infinite scaling down/up with our implementation. Generally, you don’t hit the minimum scale (because you don’t see it on the screen), but the maximum scale is 9.99506983235e+19 (2^66).

You can also limit the minimum and maximum scale allowed:

scatter = Scatter(scale_min=.5, scale_max=3.)
Behavior

Changed in version 1.1.0: If no control interactions are enabled, then the touch handler will never return True.

class kivy.uix.scatter.Scatter(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.widget.Widget

Scatter class. See module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_transform_with_touch:

Fired when the scatter has been transformed by user touch or multitouch, such as panning or zooming.

on_bring_to_front:

Fired when the scatter is brought to the front.

Changed in version 1.9.0: Event on_bring_to_front added.

Changed in version 1.8.0: Event on_transform_with_touch added.

apply_transform(trans, post_multiply=False, anchor=(0, 0))[source]

Transforms the scatter by applying the “trans” transformation matrix (on top of its current transformation state). The resultant matrix can be found in the transform property.

Parameters:
trans: Matrix.

Transformation matix to be applied to the scatter widget.

anchor: tuple, defaults to (0, 0).

The point to use as the origin of the transformation (uses local widget space).

post_multiply: bool, defaults to False.

If True, the transform matrix is post multiplied (as if applied before the current transform).

Usage example:

from kivy.graphics.transformation import Matrix
mat = Matrix().scale(3, 3, 3)
scatter_instance.apply_transform(mat)
auto_bring_to_front

If True, the widget will be automatically pushed on the top of parent widget list for drawing.

auto_bring_to_front is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

bbox

Bounding box of the widget in parent space:

((x, y), (w, h))
# x, y = lower left corner

bbox is an AliasProperty.

collide_point(x, y)[source]

Check if a point (x, y) is inside the widget’s axis aligned bounding box.

Parameters:
x: numeric

x position of the point (in parent coordinates)

y: numeric

y position of the point (in parent coordinates)
Returns:

A bool. True if the point is inside the bounding box, False otherwise.

 
>>> Widget(pos=(10, 10), size=(50, 50)).collide_point(40, 40)
True
do_collide_after_children

If True, the collision detection for limiting the touch inside the scatter will be done after dispaching the touch to the children. You can put children outside the bounding box of the scatter and still be able to touch them.

do_collide_after_children is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

New in version 1.3.0.

do_rotation

Allow rotation.

do_rotation is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

do_scale

Allow scaling.

do_scale is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

do_translation

Allow translation on the X or Y axis.

do_translation is an AliasProperty of (do_translation_x + do_translation_y)

do_translation_x

Allow translation on the X axis.

do_translation_x is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

do_translation_y

Allow translation on Y axis.

do_translation_y is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

on_bring_to_front(touch)[source]

Called when a touch event causes the scatter to be brought to the front of the parent (only if auto_bring_to_front is True)

Parameters:
touch:

The touch object which brought the scatter to front.

New in version 1.9.0.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_transform_with_touch(touch)[source]

Called when a touch event has transformed the scatter widget. By default this does nothing, but can be overriden by derived classes that need to react to transformations caused by user input.

Parameters:
touch:

The touch object which triggered the transformation.

New in version 1.8.0.

rotation

Rotation value of the scatter in degrees moving in a counterclockwise direction.

rotation is an AliasProperty and defaults to 0.0.

scale

Scale value of the scatter.

scale is an AliasProperty and defaults to 1.0.

scale_max

Maximum scaling factor allowed.

scale_max is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1e20.

scale_min

Minimum scaling factor allowed.

scale_min is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.01.

to_local(x, y, **k)[source]

Transform parent coordinates to local coordinates. See relativelayout for details on the coordinate systems.

Parameters:
relative: bool, defaults to False

Change to True if you want to translate coordinates to relative widget coordinates.
to_parent(x, y, **k)[source]

Transform local coordinates to parent coordinates. See relativelayout for details on the coordinate systems.

Parameters:
relative: bool, defaults to False

Change to True if you want to translate relative positions from a widget to its parent coordinates.
transform

Transformation matrix.

transform is an ObjectProperty and defaults to the identity matrix.

Note

This matrix reflects the current state of the transformation matrix but setting it directly will erase previously applied transformations. To apply a transformation considering context, please use the apply_transform method.

transform_inv

Inverse of the transformation matrix.

transform_inv is an ObjectProperty and defaults to the identity matrix.

translation_touches

Determine whether translation was triggered by a single or multiple touches. This only has effect when do_translation = True.

translation_touches is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

New in version 1.7.0.

class kivy.uix.scatter.ScatterPlane(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.scatter.Scatter

This is essentially an unbounded Scatter widget. It’s a convenience class to make it easier to handle infinite planes.

collide_point(x, y)[source]

Check if a point (x, y) is inside the widget’s axis aligned bounding box.

Parameters:
x: numeric

x position of the point (in parent coordinates)

y: numeric

y position of the point (in parent coordinates)
Returns:

A bool. True if the point is inside the bounding box, False otherwise.

 
>>> Widget(pos=(10, 10), size=(50, 50)).collide_point(40, 40)
True

Scatter Layout

New in version 1.6.0.

This layout behaves just like a RelativeLayout. When a widget is added with position = (0,0) to a ScatterLayout, the child widget will also move when you change the position of the ScatterLayout. The child widget’s coordinates remain (0,0) as they are relative to the parent layout.

However, since ScatterLayout is implemented using a Scatter widget, you can also translate, rotate and scale the layout using touches or clicks, just like in the case of a normal Scatter widget, and the child widgets will behave as expected.

In contrast to a Scatter, the Layout favours ‘hint’ properties, such as size_hint, size_hint_x, size_hint_y and pos_hint.

Note

The ScatterLayout is implemented as a FloatLayout inside a Scatter.

Warning

Since the actual ScatterLayout is a Scatter, its add_widget and remove_widget functions are overridden to add children to the embedded FloatLayout (accessible as the content property of Scatter) automatically. So if you want to access the added child elements, you need self.content.children instead of self.children.

Warning

The ScatterLayout was introduced in 1.7.0 and was called RelativeLayout in prior versions. The RelativeLayout is now an optimized implementation that uses only a positional transform to avoid some of the heavier calculation involved for Scatter.

class kivy.uix.scatterlayout.ScatterLayout(**kw)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.scatter.Scatter

ScatterLayout class, see module documentation for more information.

add_widget(*l)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
clear_widgets()[source]

Remove all (or the specified) children of this widget. If the ‘children’ argument is specified, it should be a list (or filtered list) of children of the current widget.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The children argument can be used to specify the children you want to remove.

remove_widget(*l)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
class kivy.uix.scatterlayout.ScatterPlaneLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.scatter.ScatterPlane

ScatterPlaneLayout class, see module documentation for more information.

Similar to ScatterLayout, but based on ScatterPlane - so the input is not bounded.

New in version 1.9.0.

collide_point(x, y)[source]

Check if a point (x, y) is inside the widget’s axis aligned bounding box.

Parameters:
x: numeric

x position of the point (in parent coordinates)

y: numeric

y position of the point (in parent coordinates)
Returns:

A bool. True if the point is inside the bounding box, False otherwise.

 
>>> Widget(pos=(10, 10), size=(50, 50)).collide_point(40, 40)
True

Screen Manager

_images/screenmanager.gif

New in version 1.4.0.

The screen manager is a widget dedicated to managing multiple screens for your application. The default ScreenManager displays only one Screen at a time and uses a TransitionBase to switch from one Screen to another.

Multiple transitions are supported based on changing the screen coordinates / scale or even performing fancy animation using custom shaders.

Basic Usage

Let’s construct a Screen Manager with 4 named screens. When you are creating a screen, you absolutely need to give a name to it:

from kivy.uix.screenmanager import ScreenManager, Screen

# Create the manager
sm = ScreenManager()

# Add few screens
for i in range(4):
    screen = Screen(name='Title %d' % i)
    sm.add_widget(screen)

# By default, the first screen added into the ScreenManager will be
# displayed. You can then change to another screen.

# Let's display the screen named 'Title 2'
# A transition will automatically be used.
sm.current = 'Title 2'

The default ScreenManager.transition is a SlideTransition with options direction and duration.

Please note that by default, a Screen displays nothing: it’s just a RelativeLayout. You need to use that class as a root widget for your own screen, the best way being to subclass.

Warning

As Screen is a RelativeLayout, it is important to understand the Common Pitfalls.

Here is an example with a ‘Menu Screen’ and a ‘Settings Screen’:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.uix.screenmanager import ScreenManager, Screen

# Create both screens. Please note the root.manager.current: this is how
# you can control the ScreenManager from kv. Each screen has by default a
# property manager that gives you the instance of the ScreenManager used.
Builder.load_string("""
<MenuScreen>:
    BoxLayout:
        Button:
            text: 'Goto settings'
            on_press: root.manager.current = 'settings'
        Button:
            text: 'Quit'

<SettingsScreen>:
    BoxLayout:
        Button:
            text: 'My settings button'
        Button:
            text: 'Back to menu'
            on_press: root.manager.current = 'menu'
""")

# Declare both screens
class MenuScreen(Screen):
    pass

class SettingsScreen(Screen):
    pass

# Create the screen manager
sm = ScreenManager()
sm.add_widget(MenuScreen(name='menu'))
sm.add_widget(SettingsScreen(name='settings'))

class TestApp(App):

    def build(self):
        return sm

if __name__ == '__main__':
    TestApp().run()
Changing Direction

A common use case for ScreenManager involves using a SlideTransition which slides right to the next screen and slides left to the previous screen. Building on the previous example, this can be accomplished like so:

Builder.load_string("""
<MenuScreen>:
    BoxLayout:
        Button:
            text: 'Goto settings'
            on_press:
                root.manager.transition.direction = 'left'
                root.manager.current = 'settings'
        Button:
            text: 'Quit'

<SettingsScreen>:
    BoxLayout:
        Button:
            text: 'My settings button'
        Button:
            text: 'Back to menu'
            on_press:
                root.manager.transition.direction = 'right'
                root.manager.current = 'menu'
""")
Advanced Usage

From 1.8.0, you can now switch dynamically to a new screen, change the transition options and remove the previous one by using switch_to():

sm = ScreenManager()
screens = [Screen(name='Title {}'.format(i)) for i in range(4)]

sm.switch_to(screens[0])
# later
sm.switch_to(screens[1], direction='right')

Note that this method adds the screen to the ScreenManager instance and should not be used if your screens have already been added to this instance. To switch to a screen which is already added, you should use the current property.

Changing transitions

You have multiple transitions available by default, such as:

  • NoTransition - switches screens instantly with no animation
  • SlideTransition - slide the screen in/out, from any direction
  • CardTransition - new screen slides on the previous or the old one slides off the new one depending on the mode
  • SwapTransition - implementation of the iOS swap transition
  • FadeTransition - shader to fade the screen in/out
  • WipeTransition - shader to wipe the screens from right to left
  • FallOutTransition - shader where the old screen ‘falls’ and becomes transparent, revealing the new one behind it.
  • RiseInTransition - shader where the new screen rises from the screen centre while fading from transparent to opaque.

You can easily switch transitions by changing the ScreenManager.transition property:

sm = ScreenManager(transition=FadeTransition())

Note

Currently, none of Shader based Transitions use anti-aliasing. This is because they use the FBO which doesn’t have any logic to handle supersampling. This is a known issue and we are working on a transparent implementation that will give the same results as if it had been rendered on screen.

To be more concrete, if you see sharp edged text during the animation, it’s normal.

class kivy.uix.screenmanager.Screen(**kw)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.relativelayout.RelativeLayout

Screen is an element intended to be used with a ScreenManager. Check module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_pre_enter: ()

Event fired when the screen is about to be used: the entering animation is started.

on_enter: ()

Event fired when the screen is displayed: the entering animation is complete.

on_pre_leave: ()

Event fired when the screen is about to be removed: the leaving animation is started.

on_leave: ()

Event fired when the screen is removed: the leaving animation is finished.

Changed in version 1.6.0: Events on_pre_enter, on_enter, on_pre_leave and on_leave were added.

manager

ScreenManager object, set when the screen is added to a manager.

manager is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None, read-only.

name

Name of the screen which must be unique within a ScreenManager. This is the name used for ScreenManager.current.

name is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’.

transition_progress

Value that represents the completion of the current transition, if any is occurring.

If a transition is in progress, whatever the mode, the value will change from 0 to 1. If you want to know if it’s an entering or leaving animation, check the transition_state.

transition_progress is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

transition_state

Value that represents the state of the transition:

  • ‘in’ if the transition is going to show your screen
  • ‘out’ if the transition is going to hide your screen

After the transition is complete, the state will retain it’s last value (in or out).

transition_state is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘out’.

class kivy.uix.screenmanager.ScreenManager(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.floatlayout.FloatLayout

Screen manager. This is the main class that will control your Screen stack and memory.

By default, the manager will show only one screen at a time.

add_widget(screen)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
clear_widgets(screens=None)[source]

Remove all (or the specified) children of this widget. If the ‘children’ argument is specified, it should be a list (or filtered list) of children of the current widget.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The children argument can be used to specify the children you want to remove.

current

Name of the screen currently shown, or the screen to show.

from kivy.uix.screenmanager import ScreenManager, Screen

sm = ScreenManager()
sm.add_widget(Screen(name='first'))
sm.add_widget(Screen(name='second'))

# By default, the first added screen will be shown. If you want to
# show another one, just set the 'current' property.
sm.current = 'second'

current is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

current_screen

Contains the currently displayed screen. You must not change this property manually, use current instead.

current_screen is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None, read-only.

get_screen(name)[source]

Return the screen widget associated with the name or raise a ScreenManagerException if not found.

has_screen(name)[source]

Return True if a screen with the name has been found.

New in version 1.6.0.

next()[source]

Return the name of the next screen from the screen list.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

previous()[source]

Return the name of the previous screen from the screen list.

remove_widget(*l)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
screen_names

List of the names of all the Screen widgets added. The list is read only.

screens_names is an AliasProperty and is read-only. It is updated if the screen list changes or the name of a screen changes.

screens

List of all the Screen widgets added. You should not change this list manually. Use the add_widget method instead.

screens is a ListProperty and defaults to [], read-only.

switch_to(screen, **options)[source]

Add a new screen to the ScreenManager and switch to it. The previous screen will be removed from the children. options are the transition options that will be changed before the animation happens.

If no previous screens are available, the screen will be used as the main one:

sm = ScreenManager()
sm.switch_to(screen1)
# later
sm.switch_to(screen2, direction='left')
# later
sm.switch_to(screen3, direction='right', duration=1.)

If any animation is in progress, it will be stopped and replaced by this one: you should avoid this because the animation will just look weird. Use either switch_to() or current but not both.

The screen name will be changed if there is any conflict with the current screen.

transition

Transition object to use for animating the transition from the current screen to the next one being shown.

For example, if you want to use a WipeTransition between slides:

from kivy.uix.screenmanager import ScreenManager, Screen,
WipeTransition

sm = ScreenManager(transition=WipeTransition())
sm.add_widget(Screen(name='first'))
sm.add_widget(Screen(name='second'))

# by default, the first added screen will be shown. If you want to
# show another one, just set the 'current' property.
sm.current = 'second'

transition is an ObjectProperty and defaults to a SlideTransition.

Changed in version 1.8.0: Default transition has been changed from SwapTransition to SlideTransition.

exception kivy.uix.screenmanager.ScreenManagerException[source]

Bases: Exception

Exception for the ScreenManager.

class kivy.uix.screenmanager.TransitionBase[source]

Bases: kivy.event.EventDispatcher

TransitionBase is used to animate 2 screens within the ScreenManager. This class acts as a base for other implementations like the SlideTransition and SwapTransition.

Events:
on_progress: Transition object, progression float

Fired during the animation of the transition.

on_complete: Transition object

Fired when the transition is finished.
add_screen(screen)[source]

(internal) Used to add a screen to the ScreenManager.

duration

Duration in seconds of the transition.

duration is a NumericProperty and defaults to .4 (= 400ms).

Changed in version 1.8.0: Default duration has been changed from 700ms to 400ms.

is_active

Indicate whether the transition is currently active or not.

is_active is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False, read-only.

manager

ScreenManager object, set when the screen is added to a manager.

manager is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None, read-only.

remove_screen(screen)[source]

(internal) Used to remove a screen from the ScreenManager.

screen_in

Property that contains the screen to show. Automatically set by the ScreenManager.

screen_in is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

screen_out

Property that contains the screen to hide. Automatically set by the ScreenManager.

screen_out is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

start(manager)[source]

(internal) Starts the transition. This is automatically called by the ScreenManager.

stop()[source]

(internal) Stops the transition. This is automatically called by the ScreenManager.

class kivy.uix.screenmanager.ShaderTransition[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.screenmanager.TransitionBase

Transition class that uses a Shader for animating the transition between 2 screens. By default, this class doesn’t assign any fragment/vertex shader. If you want to create your own fragment shader for the transition, you need to declare the header yourself and include the “t”, “tex_in” and “tex_out” uniform:

# Create your own transition. This shader implements a "fading"
# transition.
fs = """$HEADER
    uniform float t;
    uniform sampler2D tex_in;
    uniform sampler2D tex_out;

    void main(void) {
        vec4 cin = texture2D(tex_in, tex_coord0);
        vec4 cout = texture2D(tex_out, tex_coord0);
        gl_FragColor = mix(cout, cin, t);
    }
"""

# And create your transition
tr = ShaderTransition(fs=fs)
sm = ScreenManager(transition=tr)
add_screen(screen)[source]

(internal) Used to add a screen to the ScreenManager.

clearcolor

Sets the color of Fbo ClearColor.

New in version 1.9.0.

clearcolor is a ListProperty and defaults to [0, 0, 0, 1].

fs

Fragment shader to use.

fs is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

remove_screen(screen)[source]

(internal) Used to remove a screen from the ScreenManager.

stop()[source]

(internal) Stops the transition. This is automatically called by the ScreenManager.

vs

Vertex shader to use.

vs is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

class kivy.uix.screenmanager.SlideTransition[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.screenmanager.TransitionBase

Slide Transition, can be used to show a new screen from any direction: left, right, up or down.

direction

Direction of the transition.

direction is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘left’. Can be one of ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘up’ or ‘down’.

class kivy.uix.screenmanager.SwapTransition(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.screenmanager.TransitionBase

Swap transition that looks like iOS transition when a new window appears on the screen.

add_screen(screen)[source]

(internal) Used to add a screen to the ScreenManager.

start(manager)[source]

(internal) Starts the transition. This is automatically called by the ScreenManager.

class kivy.uix.screenmanager.FadeTransition[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.screenmanager.ShaderTransition

Fade transition, based on a fragment Shader.

class kivy.uix.screenmanager.WipeTransition[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.screenmanager.ShaderTransition

Wipe transition, based on a fragment Shader.

class kivy.uix.screenmanager.FallOutTransition[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.screenmanager.ShaderTransition

Transition where the new screen ‘falls’ from the screen centre, becoming smaller and more transparent until it disappears, and revealing the new screen behind it. Mimics the popular/standard Android transition.

New in version 1.8.0.

duration

Duration in seconds of the transition, replacing the default of TransitionBase.

duration is a NumericProperty and defaults to .15 (= 150ms).

class kivy.uix.screenmanager.RiseInTransition[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.screenmanager.ShaderTransition

Transition where the new screen rises from the screen centre, becoming larger and changing from transparent to opaque until it fills the screen. Mimics the popular/standard Android transition.

New in version 1.8.0.

duration

Duration in seconds of the transition, replacing the default of TransitionBase.

duration is a NumericProperty and defaults to .2 (= 200ms).

class kivy.uix.screenmanager.NoTransition[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.screenmanager.TransitionBase

No transition, instantly switches to the next screen with no delay or animation.

New in version 1.8.0.

class kivy.uix.screenmanager.CardTransition[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.screenmanager.SlideTransition

Card transition that looks similar to Android 4.x application drawer interface animation.

It supports 4 directions like SlideTransition: left, right, up and down, and two modes, pop and push. If push mode is activated, the previous screen does not move, and the new one slides in from the given direction. If the pop mode is activated, the previous screen slides out, when the new screen is already on the position of the ScreenManager.

New in version 1.10.

mode

Indicates if the transition should push or pop the screen on/off the ScreenManager.

  • ‘push’ means the screen slides in in the given direction
  • ‘pop’ means the screen slides out in the given direction

mode is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘push’.

start(manager)[source]

(internal) Starts the transition. This is automatically called by the ScreenManager.

ScrollView

New in version 1.0.4.

The ScrollView widget provides a scrollable/pannable viewport that is clipped at the scrollview’s bounding box.

Scrolling Behavior

The ScrollView accepts only one child and applies a viewport/window to it according to the scroll_x and scroll_y properties. Touches are analyzed to determine if the user wants to scroll or control the child in some other manner: you cannot do both at the same time. To determine if interaction is a scrolling gesture, these properties are used:

If a touch travels scroll_distance pixels within the scroll_timeout period, it is recognized as a scrolling gesture and translation (scroll/pan) will begin. If the timeout occurs, the touch down event is dispatched to the child instead (no translation).

The default value for those settings can be changed in the configuration file:

[widgets]
scroll_timeout = 250
scroll_distance = 20

New in version 1.1.1: ScrollView now animates scrolling in Y when a mousewheel is used.

Limiting to the X or Y Axis

By default, the ScrollView allows scrolling along both the X and Y axes. You can explicitly disable scrolling on an axis by setting the do_scroll_x or do_scroll_y properties to False.

Managing the Content Size and Position

The ScrollView manages the position of its children similarly to a RelativeLayout but does not use the size_hint. You must carefully specify the size of your content to get the desired scroll/pan effect.

By default, the size_hint is (1, 1), so the content size will fit your ScrollView exactly (you will have nothing to scroll). You must deactivate at least one of the size_hint instructions (x or y) of the child to enable scrolling. Setting size_hint_min to not be None will also enable scrolling for that dimension when the ScrollView is smaller than the minimum size.

To scroll a GridLayout on it’s Y-axis/vertically, set the child’s width to that of the ScrollView (size_hint_x=1), and set the size_hint_y property to None:

from kivy.uix.gridlayout import GridLayout
from kivy.uix.button import Button
from kivy.uix.scrollview import ScrollView
from kivy.core.window import Window
from kivy.app import runTouchApp

layout = GridLayout(cols=1, spacing=10, size_hint_y=None)
# Make sure the height is such that there is something to scroll.
layout.bind(minimum_height=layout.setter('height'))
for i in range(100):
    btn = Button(text=str(i), size_hint_y=None, height=40)
    layout.add_widget(btn)
root = ScrollView(size_hint=(1, None), size=(Window.width, Window.height))
root.add_widget(layout)

runTouchApp(root)
Overscroll Effects

New in version 1.7.0.

When scrolling would exceed the bounds of the ScrollView, it uses a ScrollEffect to handle the overscroll. These effects can perform actions like bouncing back, changing opacity, or simply preventing scrolling beyond the normal boundaries. Note that complex effects may perform many computations, which can be slow on weaker hardware.

You can change what effect is being used by setting effect_cls to any effect class. Current options include:

  • ScrollEffect: Does not allow scrolling beyond the ScrollView boundaries.
  • DampedScrollEffect: The current default. Allows the user to scroll beyond the normal boundaries, but has the content spring back once the touch/click is released.
  • OpacityScrollEffect: Similar to the DampedScrollEffect, but also reduces opacity during overscroll.

You can also create your own scroll effect by subclassing one of these, then pass it as the effect_cls in the same way.

Alternatively, you can set effect_x and/or effect_y to an instance of the effect you want to use. This will override the default effect set in effect_cls.

All the effects are located in the kivy.effects.

class kivy.uix.scrollview.ScrollView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.stencilview.StencilView

ScrollView class. See module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_scroll_start

Generic event fired when scrolling starts from touch.

on_scroll_move

Generic event fired when scrolling move from touch.

on_scroll_stop

Generic event fired when scrolling stops from touch.

Changed in version 1.9.0: on_scroll_start, on_scroll_move and on_scroll_stop events are now dispatched when scrolling to handle nested ScrollViews.

Changed in version 1.7.0: auto_scroll, scroll_friction, scroll_moves, scroll_stoptime’ has been deprecated, use :attr:`effect_cls instead.

add_widget(widget, index=0)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
bar_color

Color of horizontal / vertical scroll bar, in RGBA format.

New in version 1.2.0.

bar_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [.7, .7, .7, .9].

bar_inactive_color

Color of horizontal / vertical scroll bar (in RGBA format), when no scroll is happening.

New in version 1.9.0.

bar_inactive_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [.7, .7, .7, .2].

bar_margin

Margin between the bottom / right side of the scrollview when drawing the horizontal / vertical scroll bar.

New in version 1.2.0.

bar_margin is a NumericProperty, default to 0

bar_pos

Which side of the scroll view to place each of the bars on.

bar_pos is a ReferenceListProperty of (bar_pos_x, bar_pos_y)

bar_pos_x

Which side of the ScrollView the horizontal scroll bar should go on. Possible values are ‘top’ and ‘bottom’.

New in version 1.8.0.

bar_pos_x is an OptionProperty, defaults to ‘bottom’.

bar_pos_y

Which side of the ScrollView the vertical scroll bar should go on. Possible values are ‘left’ and ‘right’.

New in version 1.8.0.

bar_pos_y is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘right’.

bar_width

Width of the horizontal / vertical scroll bar. The width is interpreted as a height for the horizontal bar.

New in version 1.2.0.

bar_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 2.

convert_distance_to_scroll(dx, dy)[source]

Convert a distance in pixels to a scroll distance, depending on the content size and the scrollview size.

The result will be a tuple of scroll distance that can be added to scroll_x and scroll_y

do_scroll

Allow scroll on X or Y axis.

do_scroll is a AliasProperty of (do_scroll_x + do_scroll_y)

do_scroll_x

Allow scroll on X axis.

do_scroll_x is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

do_scroll_y

Allow scroll on Y axis.

do_scroll_y is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

effect_cls

Class effect to instantiate for X and Y axis.

New in version 1.7.0.

effect_cls is an ObjectProperty and defaults to DampedScrollEffect.

Changed in version 1.8.0: If you set a string, the Factory will be used to resolve the class.

effect_x

Effect to apply for the X axis. If None is set, an instance of effect_cls will be created.

New in version 1.7.0.

effect_x is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

effect_y

Effect to apply for the Y axis. If None is set, an instance of effect_cls will be created.

New in version 1.7.0.

effect_y is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None, read-only.

hbar

Return a tuple of (position, size) of the horizontal scrolling bar.

New in version 1.2.0.

The position and size are normalized between 0-1, and represent a percentage of the current scrollview height. This property is used internally for drawing the little horizontal bar when you’re scrolling.

vbar is a AliasProperty, readonly.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

remove_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
scroll_distance

Distance to move before scrolling the ScrollView, in pixels. As soon as the distance has been traveled, the ScrollView will start to scroll, and no touch event will go to children. It is advisable that you base this value on the dpi of your target device’s screen.

scroll_distance is a NumericProperty and defaults to 20 (pixels), according to the default value in user configuration.

scroll_timeout

Timeout allowed to trigger the scroll_distance, in milliseconds. If the user has not moved scroll_distance within the timeout, the scrolling will be disabled, and the touch event will go to the children.

scroll_timeout is a NumericProperty and defaults to 55 (milliseconds) according to the default value in user configuration.

Changed in version 1.5.0: Default value changed from 250 to 55.

scroll_to(widget, padding=10, animate=True)[source]

Scrolls the viewport to ensure that the given widget is visible, optionally with padding and animation. If animate is True (the default), then the default animation parameters will be used. Otherwise, it should be a dict containing arguments to pass to Animation constructor.

New in version 1.9.1.

scroll_type

Sets the type of scrolling to use for the content of the scrollview. Available options are: [‘content’], [‘bars’], [‘bars’, ‘content’].

[‘content’] Content is scrolled by dragging or swiping the content directly.
[‘bars’] Content is scrolled by dragging or swiping the scoll bars.
[‘bars’, ‘content’] Content is scrolled by either of the above methods.

New in version 1.8.0.

scroll_type is an OptionProperty and defaults to [‘content’].

scroll_wheel_distance

Distance to move when scrolling with a mouse wheel. It is advisable that you base this value on the dpi of your target device’s screen.

New in version 1.8.0.

scroll_wheel_distance is a NumericProperty , defaults to 20 pixels.

scroll_x

X scrolling value, between 0 and 1. If 0, the content’s left side will touch the left side of the ScrollView. If 1, the content’s right side will touch the right side.

This property is controled by ScrollView only if do_scroll_x is True.

scroll_x is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

scroll_y

Y scrolling value, between 0 and 1. If 0, the content’s bottom side will touch the bottom side of the ScrollView. If 1, the content’s top side will touch the top side.

This property is controled by ScrollView only if do_scroll_y is True.

scroll_y is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

to_local(x, y, **k)[source]

Transform parent coordinates to local coordinates. See relativelayout for details on the coordinate systems.

Parameters:
relative: bool, defaults to False

Change to True if you want to translate coordinates to relative widget coordinates.
to_parent(x, y, **k)[source]

Transform local coordinates to parent coordinates. See relativelayout for details on the coordinate systems.

Parameters:
relative: bool, defaults to False

Change to True if you want to translate relative positions from a widget to its parent coordinates.
update_from_scroll(*largs)[source]

Force the reposition of the content, according to current value of scroll_x and scroll_y.

This method is automatically called when one of the scroll_x, scroll_y, pos or size properties change, or if the size of the content changes.

vbar

Return a tuple of (position, size) of the vertical scrolling bar.

New in version 1.2.0.

The position and size are normalized between 0-1, and represent a percentage of the current scrollview height. This property is used internally for drawing the little vertical bar when you’re scrolling.

vbar is a AliasProperty, readonly.

viewport_size

(internal) Size of the internal viewport. This is the size of your only child in the scrollview.

SelectableView

Deprecated since version 1.10.0: The feature has been deprecated.

This module houses the SelectableView mixin class. This is used by the ListView and it’s associated Adapters to provide selection behaviour when presenting large lists.

class kivy.uix.selectableview.SelectableView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

The SelectableView mixin is used with list items and other classes that are to be instantiated in a list view or other classes which use a selection-enabled adapter such as ListAdapter. select() and deselect() can be overridden with display code to mark items as selected or not, if desired.

deselect(*args)[source]

The list item is responsible for updating the display when being unselected, if desired.

index

The index into the underlying data list or the data item this view represents.

is_selected

A SelectableView instance carries this property which should be kept in sync with the equivalent property the data item represents.

select(*args)[source]

The list item is responsible for updating the display when being selected, if desired.

Settings

New in version 1.0.7.

This module provides a complete and extensible framework for adding a Settings interface to your application. By default, the interface uses a SettingsWithSpinner, which consists of a Spinner (top) to switch between individual settings panels (bottom). See Different panel layouts for some alternatives.

_images/settingswithspinner_kivy.jpg

A SettingsPanel represents a group of configurable options. The SettingsPanel.title property is used by Settings when a panel is added: it determines the name of the sidebar button. SettingsPanel controls a ConfigParser instance.

The panel can be automatically constructed from a JSON definition file: you describe the settings you want and corresponding sections/keys in the ConfigParser instance… and you’re done!

Settings are also integrated into the App class. Use Settings.add_kivy_panel() to configure the Kivy core settings in a panel.

Create a panel from JSON

To create a panel from a JSON-file, you need two things:

Warning

The kivy.config.ConfigParser is required. You cannot use the default ConfigParser from Python libraries.

You must create and handle the ConfigParser object. SettingsPanel will read the values from the associated ConfigParser instance. Make sure you have set default values (using setdefaults) for all the sections/keys in your JSON file!

The JSON file contains structured information to describe the available settings. Here is an example:

[
    {
        "type": "title",
        "title": "Windows"
    },
    {
        "type": "bool",
        "title": "Fullscreen",
        "desc": "Set the window in windowed or fullscreen",
        "section": "graphics",
        "key": "fullscreen"
    }
]

Each element in the root list represents a setting that the user can configure. Only the “type” key is mandatory: an instance of the associated class will be created and used for the setting - other keys are assigned to corresponding properties of that class.

Type Associated class
title SettingTitle
bool SettingBoolean
numeric SettingNumeric
options SettingOptions
string SettingString
path SettingPath

New in version 1.1.0: Added SettingPath type

In the JSON example above, the first element is of type “title”. It will create a new instance of SettingTitle and apply the rest of the key-value pairs to the properties of that class, i.e. “title”: “Windows” sets the title property of the panel to “Windows”.

To load the JSON example to a Settings instance, use the Settings.add_json_panel() method. It will automatically instantiate a SettingsPanel and add it to Settings:

from kivy.config import ConfigParser

config = ConfigParser()
config.read('myconfig.ini')

s = Settings()
s.add_json_panel('My custom panel', config, 'settings_custom.json')
s.add_json_panel('Another panel', config, 'settings_test2.json')

# then use the s as a widget...
Different panel layouts

A kivy App can automatically create and display a Settings instance. See the settings_cls documentation for details on how to choose which settings class to display.

Several pre-built settings widgets are available. All except SettingsWithNoMenu include close buttons triggering the on_close event.

You can construct your own settings panels with any layout you choose by setting Settings.interface_cls. This should be a widget that displays a json settings panel with some way to switch between panels. An instance will be automatically created by Settings.

Interface widgets may be anything you like, but must have a method add_panel that receives newly created json settings panels for the interface to display. See the documentation for InterfaceWithSidebar for more information. They may optionally dispatch an on_close event, for instance if a close button is clicked. This event is used by Settings to trigger its own on_close event.

For a complete, working example, please see kivy/examples/settings/main.py.

class kivy.uix.settings.Settings(*args, **kargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.boxlayout.BoxLayout

Settings UI. Check module documentation for more information on how to use this class.

Events:
on_config_change: ConfigParser instance, section, key, value

Fired when the section’s key-value pair of a ConfigParser changes.

on_close

Fired by the default panel when the Close button is pressed.
add_interface()[source]

(Internal) creates an instance of Settings.interface_cls, and sets it to interface. When json panels are created, they will be added to this interface which will display them to the user.

add_json_panel(title, config, filename=None, data=None)[source]

Create and add a new SettingsPanel using the configuration config with the JSON definition filename. If filename is not set, then the JSON definition is read from the data parameter instead.

Check the Create a panel from JSON section in the documentation for more information about JSON format and the usage of this function.

add_kivy_panel()[source]

Add a panel for configuring Kivy. This panel acts directly on the kivy configuration. Feel free to include or exclude it in your configuration.

See use_kivy_settings() for information on enabling/disabling the automatic kivy panel.

create_json_panel(title, config, filename=None, data=None)[source]

Create new SettingsPanel.

New in version 1.5.0.

Check the documentation of add_json_panel() for more information.

interface

(internal) Reference to the widget that will contain, organise and display the panel configuration panel widgets.

interface is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

interface_cls

The widget class that will be used to display the graphical interface for the settings panel. By default, it displays one Settings panel at a time with a sidebar to switch between them.

interface_cls is an ObjectProperty and defaults to InterfaceWithSidebar.

Changed in version 1.8.0: If you set a string, the Factory will be used to resolve the class.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
register_type(tp, cls)[source]

Register a new type that can be used in the JSON definition.

class kivy.uix.settings.SettingsPanel(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.gridlayout.GridLayout

This class is used to contruct panel settings, for use with a Settings instance or subclass.

config

A kivy.config.ConfigParser instance. See module documentation for more information.

get_value(section, key)[source]

Return the value of the section/key from the config ConfigParser instance. This function is used by SettingItem to get the value for a given section/key.

If you don’t want to use a ConfigParser instance, you might want to override this function.

settings

A Settings instance that will be used to fire the on_config_change event.

title

Title of the panel. The title will be reused by the Settings in the sidebar.

class kivy.uix.settings.SettingItem(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.floatlayout.FloatLayout

Base class for individual settings (within a panel). This class cannot be used directly; it is used for implementing the other setting classes. It builds a row with a title/description (left) and a setting control (right).

Look at SettingBoolean, SettingNumeric and SettingOptions for usage examples.

Events:
on_release

Fired when the item is touched and then released.
add_widget(*largs)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
content

(internal) Reference to the widget that contains the real setting. As soon as the content object is set, any further call to add_widget will call the content.add_widget. This is automatically set.

content is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

desc

Description of the setting, rendered on the line below the title.

desc is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

disabled

Indicate if this setting is disabled. If True, all touches on the setting item will be discarded.

disabled is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

key

Key of the token inside the section in the ConfigParser instance.

key is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

panel

(internal) Reference to the SettingsPanel for this setting. You don’t need to use it.

panel is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

section

Section of the token inside the ConfigParser instance.

section is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

selected_alpha

(internal) Float value from 0 to 1, used to animate the background when the user touches the item.

selected_alpha is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

title

Title of the setting, defaults to ‘<No title set>’.

title is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘<No title set>’.

value

Value of the token according to the ConfigParser instance. Any change to this value will trigger a Settings.on_config_change() event.

value is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

class kivy.uix.settings.SettingString(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.settings.SettingItem

Implementation of a string setting on top of a SettingItem. It is visualized with a Label widget that, when clicked, will open a Popup with a Textinput so the user can enter a custom value.

popup

(internal) Used to store the current popup when it’s shown.

popup is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

textinput

(internal) Used to store the current textinput from the popup and to listen for changes.

textinput is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

class kivy.uix.settings.SettingPath(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.settings.SettingItem

Implementation of a Path setting on top of a SettingItem. It is visualized with a Label widget that, when clicked, will open a Popup with a FileChooserListView so the user can enter a custom value.

New in version 1.1.0.

dirselect

Whether to allow selection of directories.

dirselect is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

New in version 1.10.0.

popup

(internal) Used to store the current popup when it is shown.

popup is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

show_hidden

Whether to show ‘hidden’ filenames. What that means is operating-system-dependent.

show_hidden is an BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

New in version 1.10.0.

textinput

(internal) Used to store the current textinput from the popup and to listen for changes.

textinput is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

class kivy.uix.settings.SettingBoolean(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.settings.SettingItem

Implementation of a boolean setting on top of a SettingItem. It is visualized with a Switch widget. By default, 0 and 1 are used for values: you can change them by setting values.

values

Values used to represent the state of the setting. If you want to use “yes” and “no” in your ConfigParser instance:

SettingBoolean(..., values=['no', 'yes'])

Warning

You need a minimum of two values, the index 0 will be used as False, and index 1 as True

values is a ListProperty and defaults to [‘0’, ‘1’]

class kivy.uix.settings.SettingNumeric(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.settings.SettingString

Implementation of a numeric setting on top of a SettingString. It is visualized with a Label widget that, when clicked, will open a Popup with a Textinput so the user can enter a custom value.

class kivy.uix.settings.SettingOptions(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.settings.SettingItem

Implementation of an option list on top of a SettingItem. It is visualized with a Label widget that, when clicked, will open a Popup with a list of options from which the user can select.

options

List of all availables options. This must be a list of “string” items. Otherwise, it will crash. :)

options is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

popup

(internal) Used to store the current popup when it is shown.

popup is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

class kivy.uix.settings.SettingTitle(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.label.Label

A simple title label, used to organize the settings in sections.

class kivy.uix.settings.SettingsWithSidebar(*args, **kargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.settings.Settings

A settings widget that displays settings panels with a sidebar to switch between them. This is the default behaviour of Settings, and this widget is a trivial wrapper subclass.

class kivy.uix.settings.SettingsWithSpinner(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.settings.Settings

A settings widget that displays one settings panel at a time with a spinner at the top to switch between them.

class kivy.uix.settings.SettingsWithTabbedPanel(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.settings.Settings

A settings widget that displays settings panels as pages in a TabbedPanel.

class kivy.uix.settings.SettingsWithNoMenu(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.settings.Settings

A settings widget that displays a single settings panel with no Close button. It will not accept more than one Settings panel. It is intended for use in programs with few enough settings that a full panel switcher is not useful.

Warning

This Settings panel does not provide a Close button, and so it is impossible to leave the settings screen unless you also add other behaviour or override display_settings() and close_settings().

class kivy.uix.settings.InterfaceWithSidebar(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.boxlayout.BoxLayout

The default Settings interface class. It displays a sidebar menu with names of available settings panels, which may be used to switch which one is currently displayed.

See add_panel() for information on the method you must implement if creating your own interface.

This class also dispatches an event ‘on_close’, which is triggered when the sidebar menu’s close button is released. If creating your own interface widget, it should also dispatch such an event which will automatically be caught by Settings and used to trigger its own ‘on_close’ event.

add_panel(panel, name, uid)[source]

This method is used by Settings to add new panels for possible display. Any replacement for ContentPanel must implement this method.

Parameters:
panel: SettingsPanel

It should be stored and the interface should provide a way to switch between panels.

name:

The name of the panel as a string. It may be used to represent the panel but isn’t necessarily unique.

uid:

A unique int identifying the panel. It should be used to identify and switch between panels.
content

(internal) A reference to the panel display widget (a ContentPanel).

content is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

menu

(internal) A reference to the sidebar menu widget.

menu is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

class kivy.uix.settings.ContentPanel(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.scrollview.ScrollView

A class for displaying settings panels. It displays a single settings panel at a time, taking up the full size and shape of the ContentPanel. It is used by InterfaceWithSidebar and InterfaceWithSpinner to display settings.

add_panel(panel, name, uid)[source]

This method is used by Settings to add new panels for possible display. Any replacement for ContentPanel must implement this method.

Parameters:
panel: SettingsPanel

It should be stored and displayed when requested.

name:

The name of the panel as a string. It may be used to represent the panel.

uid:

A unique int identifying the panel. It should be stored and used to identify panels when switching.
add_widget(widget)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
container

(internal) A reference to the GridLayout that contains the settings panel.

container is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

current_panel

(internal) A reference to the current settings panel.

current_panel is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

current_uid

(internal) A reference to the uid of the current settings panel.

current_uid is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

on_current_uid(*args)[source]

The uid of the currently displayed panel. Changing this will automatically change the displayed panel.

Parameters:
uid:

A panel uid. It should be used to retrieve and display a settings panel that has previously been added with add_panel().
panels

(internal) Stores a dictionary mapping settings panels to their uids.

panels is a DictProperty and defaults to {}.

remove_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
class kivy.uix.settings.MenuSidebar(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.floatlayout.FloatLayout

The menu used by InterfaceWithSidebar. It provides a sidebar with an entry for each settings panel, which the user may click to select.

add_item(name, uid)[source]

This method is used to add new panels to the menu.

Parameters:
name:

The name (a string) of the panel. It should be used to represent the panel in the menu.

uid:

The name (an int) of the panel. It should be used internally to represent the panel and used to set self.selected_uid when the panel is changed.
buttons_layout

(internal) Reference to the GridLayout that contains individual settings panel menu buttons.

buttons_layout is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

close_button

(internal) Reference to the widget’s Close button.

buttons_layout is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

on_selected_uid(*args)[source]

(internal) unselects any currently selected menu buttons, unless they represent the current panel.

selected_uid

The uid of the currently selected panel. This may be used to switch between displayed panels, e.g. by binding it to the current_uid of a ContentPanel.

selected_uid is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

Slider

_images/slider.jpg

The Slider widget looks like a scrollbar. It supports horizontal and vertical orientations, min/max values and a default value.

To create a slider from -100 to 100 starting from 25:

from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
s = Slider(min=-100, max=100, value=25)

To create a vertical slider:

from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
s = Slider(orientation='vertical')

To create a slider with a red line tracking the value:

from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
s = Slider(value_track=True, value_track_color=[1, 0, 0, 1])
class kivy.uix.slider.Slider(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.widget.Widget

Class for creating a Slider widget.

Check module documentation for more details.

background_disabled_horizontal

Background of the disabled slider used in the horizontal orientation.

New in version 1.10.0.

background_disabled_horizontal is a StringProperty and defaults to atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/sliderh_background_disabled.

background_disabled_vertical

Background of the disabled slider used in the vertical orientation.

New in version 1.10.0.

background_disabled_vertical is a StringProperty and defaults to atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/sliderv_background_disabled.

background_horizontal

Background of the slider used in the horizontal orientation.

New in version 1.10.0.

background_horizontal is a StringProperty and defaults to atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/sliderh_background.

background_vertical

Background of the slider used in the vertical orientation.

New in version 1.10.0.

background_vertical is a StringProperty and defaults to atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/sliderv_background.

background_width

Slider’s background’s width (thickness), used in both horizontal and vertical orientations.

background_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 36sp.

border_horizontal

Border used to draw the slider background in horizontal orientation.

border_horizontal is a ListProperty and defaults to [0, 18, 0, 18].

border_vertical

Border used to draw the slider background in vertical orientation.

border_horizontal is a ListProperty and defaults to [18, 0, 18, 0].

cursor_disabled_image

Path of the image used to draw the disabled slider cursor.

cursor_image is a StringProperty and defaults to atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/slider_cursor_disabled.

cursor_height

Height of the cursor image.

cursor_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to 32sp.

cursor_image

Path of the image used to draw the slider cursor.

cursor_image is a StringProperty and defaults to atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/slider_cursor.

cursor_size

Size of the cursor image.

cursor_size is a ReferenceListProperty of (cursor_width, cursor_height) properties.

cursor_width

Width of the cursor image.

cursor_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 32sp.

max

Maximum value allowed for value.

max is a NumericProperty and defaults to 100.

min

Minimum value allowed for value.

min is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

orientation

Orientation of the slider.

orientation is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘horizontal’. Can take a value of ‘vertical’ or ‘horizontal’.

padding

Padding of the slider. The padding is used for graphical representation and interaction. It prevents the cursor from going out of the bounds of the slider bounding box.

By default, padding is 16sp. The range of the slider is reduced from padding *2 on the screen. It allows drawing the default cursor of 32sp width without having the cursor go out of the widget.

padding is a NumericProperty and defaults to 16sp.

range

Range of the slider in the format (minimum value, maximum value):

>>> slider = Slider(min=10, max=80)
>>> slider.range
[10, 80]
>>> slider.range = (20, 100)
>>> slider.min
20
>>> slider.max
100

range is a ReferenceListProperty of (min, max) properties.

sensitivity

Whether the touch collides with the whole body of the widget or with the slider handle part only.

New in version 1.10.1.

sensitivity is a OptionProperty and defaults to ‘all’. Can take a value of ‘all’ or ‘handle’.

step

Step size of the slider.

New in version 1.4.0.

Determines the size of each interval or step the slider takes between min and max. If the value range can’t be evenly divisible by step the last step will be capped by slider.max

step is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

value

Current value used for the slider.

value is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

value_normalized

Normalized value inside the range (min/max) to 0-1 range:

>>> slider = Slider(value=50, min=0, max=100)
>>> slider.value
50
>>> slider.value_normalized
0.5
>>> slider.value = 0
>>> slider.value_normalized
0
>>> slider.value = 100
>>> slider.value_normalized
1

You can also use it for setting the real value without knowing the minimum and maximum:

>>> slider = Slider(min=0, max=200)
>>> slider.value_normalized = .5
>>> slider.value
100
>>> slider.value_normalized = 1.
>>> slider.value
200

value_normalized is an AliasProperty.

value_pos

Position of the internal cursor, based on the normalized value.

value_pos is an AliasProperty.

value_track

Decides if slider should draw the line indicating the space between min and value properties values.

value_track is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

value_track_color

Color of the value_line in rgba format.

value_track_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

value_track_width

Width of the track line.

value_track_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 3dp.

Spinner

New in version 1.4.0.

_images/spinner.jpg

Spinner is a widget that provides a quick way to select one value from a set. In the default state, a spinner shows its currently selected value. Touching the spinner displays a dropdown menu with all the other available values from which the user can select a new one.

Example:

from kivy.base import runTouchApp
from kivy.uix.spinner import Spinner

spinner = Spinner(
    # default value shown
    text='Home',
    # available values
    values=('Home', 'Work', 'Other', 'Custom'),
    # just for positioning in our example
    size_hint=(None, None),
    size=(100, 44),
    pos_hint={'center_x': .5, 'center_y': .5})

def show_selected_value(spinner, text):
    print('The spinner', spinner, 'have text', text)

spinner.bind(text=show_selected_value)

runTouchApp(spinner)
class kivy.uix.spinner.Spinner(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.button.Button

Spinner class, see module documentation for more information.

dropdown_cls

Class used to display the dropdown list when the Spinner is pressed.

dropdown_cls is an ObjectProperty and defaults to DropDown.

Changed in version 1.8.0: If set to a string, the Factory will be used to resolve the class name.

is_open

By default, the spinner is not open. Set to True to open it.

is_open is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

New in version 1.4.0.

option_cls

Class used to display the options within the dropdown list displayed under the Spinner. The text property of the class will be used to represent the value.

The option class requires:

  • a text property, used to display the value.
  • an on_release event, used to trigger the option when pressed/touched.
  • a size_hint_y of None.
  • the height to be set.

option_cls is an ObjectProperty and defaults to SpinnerOption.

Changed in version 1.8.0: If you set a string, the Factory will be used to resolve the class.

sync_height

Each element in a dropdown list uses a default/user-supplied height. Set to True to propagate the Spinner’s height value to each dropdown list element.

New in version 1.10.0.

sync_height is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

text_autoupdate

Indicates if the spinner’s text should be automatically updated with the first value of the values property. Setting it to True will cause the spinner to update its text property every time attr:values are changed.

New in version 1.10.0.

text_autoupdate is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

values

Values that can be selected by the user. It must be a list of strings.

values is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

class kivy.uix.spinner.SpinnerOption(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.button.Button

Special button used in the Spinner dropdown list. By default, this is just a Button with a size_hint_y of None and a height of 48dp.

Splitter

New in version 1.5.0.

_images/splitter.jpg

The Splitter is a widget that helps you re-size it’s child widget/layout by letting you re-size it via dragging the boundary or double tapping the boundary. This widget is similar to the ScrollView in that it allows only one child widget.

Usage:

splitter = Splitter(sizable_from = 'right')
splitter.add_widget(layout_or_widget_instance)
splitter.min_size = 100
splitter.max_size = 250

To change the size of the strip/border used for resizing:

splitter.strip_size = '10pt'

To change its appearance:

splitter.strip_cls = your_custom_class

You can also change the appearance of the strip_cls, which defaults to SplitterStrip, by overriding the kv rule in your app:

<SplitterStrip>:
    horizontal: True if self.parent and self.parent.sizable_from[0] in ('t', 'b') else False
    background_normal: 'path to normal horizontal image' if self.horizontal else 'path to vertical normal image'
    background_down: 'path to pressed horizontal image' if self.horizontal else 'path to vertical pressed image'
class kivy.uix.splitter.Splitter(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.boxlayout.BoxLayout

See module documentation.

Events:
on_press:

Fired when the splitter is pressed.

on_release:

Fired when the splitter is released.

Changed in version 1.6.0: Added on_press and on_release events.

add_widget(widget, index=0)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
border

Border used for the BorderImage graphics instruction.

This must be a list of four values: (bottom, right, top, left). Read the BorderImage instructions for more information about how to use it.

border is a ListProperty and defaults to (4, 4, 4, 4).

clear_widgets()[source]

Remove all (or the specified) children of this widget. If the ‘children’ argument is specified, it should be a list (or filtered list) of children of the current widget.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The children argument can be used to specify the children you want to remove.

keep_within_parent

If True, will limit the splitter to stay within its parent widget.

keep_within_parent is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

New in version 1.9.0.

max_size

Specifies the maximum size beyond which the widget is not resizable.

max_size is a NumericProperty and defaults to 500pt.

min_size

Specifies the minimum size beyond which the widget is not resizable.

min_size is a NumericProperty and defaults to 100pt.

remove_widget(widget, *largs)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
rescale_with_parent

If True, will automatically change size to take up the same proportion of the parent widget when it is resized, while staying within min_size and max_size. As long as these attributes can be satisfied, this stops the Splitter from exceeding the parent size during rescaling.

rescale_with_parent is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

New in version 1.9.0.

sizable_from

Specifies whether the widget is resizable. Options are: left, right, top or bottom

sizable_from is an OptionProperty and defaults to left.

strip_cls

Specifies the class of the resize Strip.

strip_cls is an kivy.properties.ObjectProperty and defaults to SplitterStrip, which is of type Button.

Changed in version 1.8.0: If you set a string, the Factory will be used to resolve the class.

strip_size

Specifies the size of resize strip

strp_size is a NumericProperty defaults to 10pt

Stack Layout

_images/stacklayout.gif

New in version 1.0.5.

The StackLayout arranges children vertically or horizontally, as many as the layout can fit. The size of the individual children widgets do not have to be uniform.

For example, to display widgets that get progressively larger in width:

root = StackLayout()
for i in range(25):
    btn = Button(text=str(i), width=40 + i * 5, size_hint=(None, 0.15))
    root.add_widget(btn)
_images/stacklayout_sizing.png
class kivy.uix.stacklayout.StackLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.layout.Layout

Stack layout class. See module documentation for more information.

do_layout(*largs)[source]

This function is called when a layout is called by a trigger. If you are writing a new Layout subclass, don’t call this function directly but use _trigger_layout() instead.

The function is by default called before the next frame, therefore the layout isn’t updated immediately. Anything depending on the positions of e.g. children should be scheduled for the next frame.

New in version 1.0.8.

minimum_height

Minimum height needed to contain all children. It is automatically set by the layout.

New in version 1.0.8.

minimum_height is a kivy.properties.NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

minimum_size

Minimum size needed to contain all children. It is automatically set by the layout.

New in version 1.0.8.

minimum_size is a ReferenceListProperty of (minimum_width, minimum_height) properties.

minimum_width

Minimum width needed to contain all children. It is automatically set by the layout.

New in version 1.0.8.

minimum_width is a kivy.properties.NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

orientation

Orientation of the layout.

orientation is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘lr-tb’.

Valid orientations are ‘lr-tb’, ‘tb-lr’, ‘rl-tb’, ‘tb-rl’, ‘lr-bt’, ‘bt-lr’, ‘rl-bt’ and ‘bt-rl’.

Changed in version 1.5.0: orientation now correctly handles all valid combinations of ‘lr’,’rl’,’tb’,’bt’. Before this version only ‘lr-tb’ and ‘tb-lr’ were supported, and ‘tb-lr’ was misnamed and placed widgets from bottom to top and from right to left (reversed compared to what was expected).

Note

‘lr’ means Left to Right. ‘rl’ means Right to Left. ‘tb’ means Top to Bottom. ‘bt’ means Bottom to Top.

padding

Padding between the layout box and it’s children: [padding_left, padding_top, padding_right, padding_bottom].

padding also accepts a two argument form [padding_horizontal, padding_vertical] and a single argument form [padding].

Changed in version 1.7.0: Replaced the NumericProperty with a VariableListProperty.

padding is a VariableListProperty and defaults to [0, 0, 0, 0].

spacing

Spacing between children: [spacing_horizontal, spacing_vertical].

spacing also accepts a single argument form [spacing].

spacing is a VariableListProperty and defaults to [0, 0].

Stencil View

_images/stencilview.gif

New in version 1.0.4.

StencilView limits the drawing of child widgets to the StencilView’s bounding box. Any drawing outside the bounding box will be clipped (trashed).

The StencilView uses the stencil graphics instructions under the hood. It provides an efficient way to clip the drawing area of children.

Note

As with the stencil graphics instructions, you cannot stack more than 128 stencil-aware widgets.

Note

StencilView is not a layout. Consequently, you have to manage the size and position of its children directly. You can combine (subclass both) a StencilView and a Layout in order to achieve a layout’s behavior. For example:

class BoxStencil(BoxLayout, StencilView):
    pass
class kivy.uix.stencilview.StencilView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.widget.Widget

StencilView class. See module documentation for more information.

Switch

New in version 1.0.7.

_images/switch-on.jpg _images/switch-off.jpg

The Switch widget is active or inactive, like a mechanical light switch. The user can swipe to the left/right to activate/deactivate it:

switch = Switch(active=True)

To attach a callback that listens to the activation state:

def callback(instance, value):
    print('the switch', instance, 'is', value)

switch = Switch()
switch.bind(active=callback)

By default, the representation of the widget is static. The minimum size required is 83x32 pixels (defined by the background image). The image is centered within the widget.

The entire widget is active, not just the part with graphics. As long as you swipe over the widget’s bounding box, it will work.

Note

If you want to control the state with a single touch instead of a swipe, use the ToggleButton instead.

class kivy.uix.switch.Switch(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.widget.Widget

Switch class. See module documentation for more information.

active

Indicate whether the switch is active or inactive.

active is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

active_norm_pos

(internal) Contains the normalized position of the movable element inside the switch, in the 0-1 range.

active_norm_pos is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

touch_control

(internal) Contains the touch that currently interacts with the switch.

touch_control is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

touch_distance

(internal) Contains the distance between the initial position of the touch and the current position to determine if the swipe is from the left or right.

touch_distance is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

TabbedPanel

_images/tabbed_panel.jpg

New in version 1.3.0.

The TabbedPanel widget manages different widgets in tabs, with a header area for the actual tab buttons and a content area for showing the current tab content.

The TabbedPanel provides one default tab.

Simple example
'''
TabbedPanel
============

Test of the widget TabbedPanel.
'''

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.tabbedpanel import TabbedPanel
from kivy.lang import Builder

Builder.load_string("""

<Test>:
    size_hint: .5, .5
    pos_hint: {'center_x': .5, 'center_y': .5}
    do_default_tab: False

    TabbedPanelItem:
        text: 'first tab'
        Label:
            text: 'First tab content area'
    TabbedPanelItem:
        text: 'tab2'
        BoxLayout:
            Label:
                text: 'Second tab content area'
            Button:
                text: 'Button that does nothing'
    TabbedPanelItem:
        text: 'tab3'
        RstDocument:
            text:
                '\\n'.join(("Hello world", "-----------",
                "You are in the third tab."))

""")


class Test(TabbedPanel):
    pass


class TabbedPanelApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return Test()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    TabbedPanelApp().run()

Note

A new class TabbedPanelItem has been introduced in 1.5.0 for convenience. So now one can simply add a TabbedPanelItem to a TabbedPanel and content to the TabbedPanelItem as in the example provided above.

Customize the Tabbed Panel

You can choose the position in which the tabs are displayed:

tab_pos = 'top_mid'

An individual tab is called a TabbedPanelHeader. It is a special button containing a content property. You add the TabbedPanelHeader first, and set its content property separately:

tp = TabbedPanel()
th = TabbedPanelHeader(text='Tab2')
tp.add_widget(th)

An individual tab, represented by a TabbedPanelHeader, needs its content set. This content can be any widget. It could be a layout with a deep hierarchy of widgets, or it could be an individual widget, such as a label or a button:

th.content = your_content_instance

There is one “shared” main content area active at any given time, for all the tabs. Your app is responsible for adding the content of individual tabs and for managing them, but it’s not responsible for content switching. The tabbed panel handles switching of the main content object as per user action.

There is a default tab added when the tabbed panel is instantiated. Tabs that you add individually as above, are added in addition to the default tab. Thus, depending on your needs and design, you will want to customize the default tab:

tp.default_tab_text = 'Something Specific To Your Use'

The default tab machinery requires special consideration and management. Accordingly, an on_default_tab event is provided for associating a callback:

tp.bind(default_tab = my_default_tab_callback)

It’s important to note that by default, default_tab_cls is of type TabbedPanelHeader and thus has the same properties as other tabs.

Since 1.5.0, it is now possible to disable the creation of the default_tab by setting do_default_tab to False.

Tabs and content can be removed in several ways:

tp.remove_widget(widget/tabbed_panel_header)
or
tp.clear_widgets() # to clear all the widgets in the content area
or
tp.clear_tabs() # to remove the TabbedPanelHeaders

To access the children of the tabbed panel, use content.children:

tp.content.children

To access the list of tabs:

tp.tab_list

To change the appearance of the main tabbed panel content:

background_color = (1, 0, 0, .5) #50% translucent red
border = [0, 0, 0, 0]
background_image = 'path/to/background/image'

To change the background of a individual tab, use these two properties:

tab_header_instance.background_normal = 'path/to/tab_head/img'
tab_header_instance.background_down = 'path/to/tab_head/img_pressed'

A TabbedPanelStrip contains the individual tab headers. To change the appearance of this tab strip, override the canvas of TabbedPanelStrip. For example, in the kv language:

<TabbedPanelStrip>
    canvas:
        Color:
            rgba: (0, 1, 0, 1) # green
        Rectangle:
            size: self.size
            pos: self.pos

By default the tabbed panel strip takes its background image and color from the tabbed panel’s background_image and background_color.

class kivy.uix.tabbedpanel.StripLayout(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.gridlayout.GridLayout

The main layout that is used to house the entire tabbedpanel strip including the blank areas in case the tabs don’t cover the entire width/height.

New in version 1.8.0.

background_image

Background image to be used for the Strip layout of the TabbedPanel.

background_image is a StringProperty and defaults to a transparent image.

border

Border property for the background_image.

border is a ListProperty and defaults to [4, 4, 4, 4]

class kivy.uix.tabbedpanel.TabbedPanel(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.gridlayout.GridLayout

The TabbedPanel class. See module documentation for more information.

add_widget(widget, index=0)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
background_color

Background color, in the format (r, g, b, a).

background_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

background_disabled_image

Background image of the main shared content object when disabled.

New in version 1.8.0.

background_disabled_image is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/tab’.

background_image

Background image of the main shared content object.

background_image is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/tab’.

border

Border used for BorderImage graphics instruction, used itself for background_image. Can be changed for a custom background.

It must be a list of four values: (bottom, right, top, left). Read the BorderImage instructions for more information.

border is a ListProperty and defaults to (16, 16, 16, 16)

clear_widgets(**kwargs)[source]

Remove all (or the specified) children of this widget. If the ‘children’ argument is specified, it should be a list (or filtered list) of children of the current widget.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The children argument can be used to specify the children you want to remove.

content

This is the object holding (current_tab’s content is added to this) the content of the current tab. To Listen to the changes in the content of the current tab, you should bind to current_tabs content property.

content is an ObjectProperty and defaults to ‘None’.

current_tab

Links to the currently selected or active tab.

New in version 1.4.0.

current_tab is an AliasProperty, read-only.

default_tab

Holds the default tab.

Note

For convenience, the automatically provided default tab is deleted when you change default_tab to something else. As of 1.5.0, this behaviour has been extended to every default_tab for consistency and not just the automatically provided one.

default_tab is an AliasProperty.

default_tab_cls

Specifies the class to use for the styling of the default tab.

New in version 1.4.0.

Warning

default_tab_cls should be subclassed from TabbedPanelHeader

default_tab_cls is an ObjectProperty and defaults to TabbedPanelHeader. If you set a string, the Factory will be used to resolve the class.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The Factory will resolve the class if a string is set.

default_tab_content

Holds the default tab content.

default_tab_content is an AliasProperty.

default_tab_text

Specifies the text displayed on the default tab header.

default_tab_text is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘default tab’.

do_default_tab

Specifies whether a default_tab head is provided.

New in version 1.5.0.

do_default_tab is a BooleanProperty and defaults to ‘True’.

remove_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
strip_border

Border to be used on strip_image.

New in version 1.8.0.

strip_border is a ListProperty and defaults to [4, 4, 4, 4].

strip_image

Background image of the tabbed strip.

New in version 1.8.0.

strip_image is a StringProperty and defaults to a empty image.

switch_to(header, do_scroll=False)[source]

Switch to a specific panel header.

Changed in version 1.10.0.

If used with do_scroll=True, it scrolls to the header’s tab too.

tab_height

Specifies the height of the tab header.

tab_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to 40.

tab_list

List of all the tab headers.

tab_list is an AliasProperty and is read-only.

tab_pos

Specifies the position of the tabs relative to the content. Can be one of: left_top, left_mid, left_bottom, top_left, top_mid, top_right, right_top, right_mid, right_bottom, bottom_left, bottom_mid, bottom_right.

tab_pos is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘top_left’.

tab_width

Specifies the width of the tab header.

tab_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 100.

class kivy.uix.tabbedpanel.TabbedPanelContent(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.floatlayout.FloatLayout

The TabbedPanelContent class.

class kivy.uix.tabbedpanel.TabbedPanelHeader(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.togglebutton.ToggleButton

A Base for implementing a Tabbed Panel Head. A button intended to be used as a Heading/Tab for a TabbedPanel widget.

You can use this TabbedPanelHeader widget to add a new tab to a TabbedPanel.

content

Content to be loaded when this tab header is selected.

content is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
class kivy.uix.tabbedpanel.TabbedPanelItem(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.tabbedpanel.TabbedPanelHeader

This is a convenience class that provides a header of type TabbedPanelHeader and links it with the content automatically. Thus facilitating you to simply do the following in kv language:

<TabbedPanel>:
    # ...other settings
    TabbedPanelItem:
        BoxLayout:
            Label:
                text: 'Second tab content area'
            Button:
                text: 'Button that does nothing'

New in version 1.5.0.

add_widget(widget, index=0)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
remove_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
class kivy.uix.tabbedpanel.TabbedPanelStrip(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.gridlayout.GridLayout

A strip intended to be used as background for Heading/Tab. This does not cover the blank areas in case the tabs don’t cover the entire width/height of the TabbedPanel(use StripLayout for that).

tabbed_panel

Link to the panel that the tab strip is a part of.

tabbed_panel is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None .

exception kivy.uix.tabbedpanel.TabbedPanelException[source]

Bases: Exception

The TabbedPanelException class.

Text Input

New in version 1.0.4.

_images/textinput-mono.jpg _images/textinput-multi.jpg

The TextInput widget provides a box for editable plain text.

Unicode, multiline, cursor navigation, selection and clipboard features are supported.

The TextInput uses two different coordinate systems:

  • (x, y) - coordinates in pixels, mostly used for rendering on screen.
  • (row, col) - cursor index in characters / lines, used for selection and cursor movement.
Usage example

To create a multiline TextInput (the ‘enter’ key adds a new line):

from kivy.uix.textinput import TextInput
textinput = TextInput(text='Hello world')

To create a singleline TextInput, set the TextInput.multiline property to False (the ‘enter’ key will defocus the TextInput and emit an TextInput.on_text_validate() event):

def on_enter(instance, value):
    print('User pressed enter in', instance)

textinput = TextInput(text='Hello world', multiline=False)
textinput.bind(on_text_validate=on_enter)

The textinput’s text is stored in its TextInput.text property. To run a callback when the text changes:

def on_text(instance, value):
    print('The widget', instance, 'have:', value)

textinput = TextInput()
textinput.bind(text=on_text)

You can set the focus to a Textinput, meaning that the input box will be highlighted and keyboard focus will be requested:

textinput = TextInput(focus=True)

The textinput is defocused if the ‘escape’ key is pressed, or if another widget requests the keyboard. You can bind a callback to the focus property to get notified of focus changes:

def on_focus(instance, value):
    if value:
        print('User focused', instance)
    else:
        print('User defocused', instance)

textinput = TextInput()
textinput.bind(focus=on_focus)

See FocusBehavior, from which the TextInput inherits, for more details.

Selection

The selection is automatically updated when the cursor position changes. You can get the currently selected text from the TextInput.selection_text property.

Filtering

You can control which text can be added to the TextInput by overwriting TextInput.insert_text(). Every string that is typed, pasted or inserted by any other means into the TextInput is passed through this function. By overwriting it you can reject or change unwanted characters.

For example, to write only in capitalized characters:

class CapitalInput(TextInput):

    def insert_text(self, substring, from_undo=False):
        s = substring.upper()
        return super(CapitalInput, self).insert_text(s, from_undo=from_undo)

Or to only allow floats (0 - 9 and a single period):

class FloatInput(TextInput):

    pat = re.compile('[^0-9]')
    def insert_text(self, substring, from_undo=False):
        pat = self.pat
        if '.' in self.text:
            s = re.sub(pat, '', substring)
        else:
            s = '.'.join([re.sub(pat, '', s) for s in substring.split('.', 1)])
        return super(FloatInput, self).insert_text(s, from_undo=from_undo)
Default shortcuts
Shortcuts Description
Left Move cursor to left
Right Move cursor to right
Up Move cursor to up
Down Move cursor to down
Home Move cursor at the beginning of the line
End Move cursor at the end of the line
PageUp Move cursor to 3 lines before
PageDown Move cursor to 3 lines after
Backspace Delete the selection or character before the cursor
Del Delete the selection of character after the cursor
Shift + <dir> Start a text selection. Dir can be Up, Down, Left or Right
Control + c Copy selection
Control + x Cut selection
Control + v Paste clipboard content
Control + a Select all the content
Control + z undo
Control + r redo

Note

To enable Emacs-style keyboard shortcuts, you can use EmacsBehavior.

class kivy.uix.textinput.TextInput(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.behaviors.focus.FocusBehavior, kivy.uix.widget.Widget

TextInput class. See module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_text_validate

Fired only in multiline=False mode when the user hits ‘enter’. This will also unfocus the textinput.

on_double_tap

Fired when a double tap happens in the text input. The default behavior selects the text around the cursor position. More info at on_double_tap().

on_triple_tap

Fired when a triple tap happens in the text input. The default behavior selects the line around the cursor position. More info at on_triple_tap().

on_quad_touch

Fired when four fingers are touching the text input. The default behavior selects the whole text. More info at on_quad_touch().

Warning

When changing a TextInput property that requires re-drawing, e.g. modifying the text, the updates occur on the next clock cycle and not instantly. This might cause any changes to the TextInput that occur between the modification and the next cycle to be ignored, or to use previous values. For example, after a update to the text, changing the cursor in the same clock frame will move it using the previous text and will likely end up in an incorrect position. The solution is to schedule any updates to occur on the next clock cycle using schedule_once().

Note

Selection is cancelled when TextInput is focused. If you need to show selection when TextInput is focused, you should delay (use Clock.schedule) the call to the functions for selecting text (select_all, select_text).

Changed in version 1.10.0: background_disabled_active has been removed.

Changed in version 1.9.0: TextInput now inherits from FocusBehavior. keyboard_mode, show_keyboard(), hide_keyboard(), focus(), and input_type have been removed since they are now inherited from FocusBehavior.

Changed in version 1.7.0: on_double_tap, on_triple_tap and on_quad_touch events added.

allow_copy

Decides whether to allow copying the text.

New in version 1.8.0.

allow_copy is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

auto_indent

Automatically indent multiline text.

New in version 1.7.0.

auto_indent is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

background_active

Background image of the TextInput when it’s in focus.

New in version 1.4.1.

background_active is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/textinput_active’.

background_color

Current color of the background, in (r, g, b, a) format.

New in version 1.2.0.

background_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1] (white).

background_disabled_normal

Background image of the TextInput when disabled.

New in version 1.8.0.

background_disabled_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/textinput_disabled’.

background_normal

Background image of the TextInput when it’s not in focus.

New in version 1.4.1.

background_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/textinput’.

border

Border used for BorderImage graphics instruction. Used with background_normal and background_active. Can be used for a custom background.

New in version 1.4.1.

It must be a list of four values: (bottom, right, top, left). Read the BorderImage instruction for more information about how to use it.

border is a ListProperty and defaults to (4, 4, 4, 4).

cancel_selection()[source]

Cancel current selection (if any).

copy(data='')[source]

Copy the value provided in argument data into current clipboard. If data is not of type string it will be converted to string. If no data is provided then current selection if present is copied.

New in version 1.8.0.

cursor

Tuple of (row, col) values indicating the current cursor position. You can set a new (row, col) if you want to move the cursor. The scrolling area will be automatically updated to ensure that the cursor is visible inside the viewport.

cursor is an AliasProperty.

This property is used to set whether the graphic cursor should blink or not.

Changed in version 1.10.1: cursor_blink has been refactored to enable switching the blinking on/off and the previous behavior has been moved to a private _cursor_blink property. The previous default value False has been changed to True.

cursor_blink is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

cursor_col

Current column of the cursor.

cursor_col is an AliasProperty to cursor[0], read-only.

cursor_color

Current color of the cursor, in (r, g, b, a) format.

New in version 1.9.0.

cursor_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 0, 0, 1].

cursor_index(cursor=None)[source]

Return the cursor index in the text/value.

cursor_offset()[source]

Get the cursor x offset on the current line.

cursor_pos

Current position of the cursor, in (x, y).

cursor_pos is an AliasProperty, read-only.

cursor_row

Current row of the cursor.

cursor_row is an AliasProperty to cursor[1], read-only.

cursor_width

Current width of the cursor.

New in version 1.10.0.

cursor_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to ‘1sp’.

cut()[source]

Copy current selection to clipboard then delete it from TextInput.

New in version 1.8.0.

delete_selection(from_undo=False)[source]

Delete the current text selection (if any).

disabled_foreground_color

Current color of the foreground when disabled, in (r, g, b, a) format.

New in version 1.8.0.

disabled_foreground_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [0, 0, 0, 5] (50% transparent black).

do_backspace(from_undo=False, mode='bkspc')[source]

Do backspace operation from the current cursor position. This action might do several things:

  • removing the current selection if available.
  • removing the previous char and move the cursor back.
  • do nothing, if we are at the start.
do_cursor_movement(action, control=False, alt=False)[source]

Move the cursor relative to it’s current position. Action can be one of :

  • cursor_left: move the cursor to the left
  • cursor_right: move the cursor to the right
  • cursor_up: move the cursor on the previous line
  • cursor_down: move the cursor on the next line
  • cursor_home: move the cursor at the start of the current line
  • cursor_end: move the cursor at the end of current line
  • cursor_pgup: move one “page” before
  • cursor_pgdown: move one “page” after

In addition, the behavior of certain actions can be modified:

  • control + cursor_left: move the cursor one word to the left
  • control + cursor_right: move the cursor one word to the right
  • control + cursor_up: scroll up one line
  • control + cursor_down: scroll down one line
  • control + cursor_home: go to beginning of text
  • control + cursor_end: go to end of text
  • alt + cursor_up: shift line(s) up
  • alt + cursor_down: shift line(s) down

Changed in version 1.9.1.

do_redo()[source]

Do redo operation.

New in version 1.3.0.

This action re-does any command that has been un-done by do_undo/ctrl+z. This function is automatically called when ctrl+r keys are pressed.

do_undo()[source]

Do undo operation.

New in version 1.3.0.

This action un-does any edits that have been made since the last call to reset_undo(). This function is automatically called when ctrl+z keys are pressed.

font_name

Filename of the font to use. The path can be absolute or relative. Relative paths are resolved by the resource_find() function.

Warning

Depending on your text provider, the font file may be ignored. However, you can mostly use this without problems.

If the font used lacks the glyphs for the particular language/symbols you are using, you will see ‘[]’ blank box characters instead of the actual glyphs. The solution is to use a font that has the glyphs you need to display. For example, to display unicodechar, use a font like freesans.ttf that has the glyph.

font_name is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘Roboto’. This value is taken from Config.

font_size

Font size of the text in pixels.

font_size is a NumericProperty and defaults to 15sp.

foreground_color

Current color of the foreground, in (r, g, b, a) format.

New in version 1.2.0.

foreground_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [0, 0, 0, 1] (black).

get_cursor_from_index(index)[source]

Return the (row, col) of the cursor from text index.

get_cursor_from_xy(x, y)[source]

Return the (row, col) of the cursor from an (x, y) position.

handle_image_left

Image used to display the Left handle on the TextInput for selection.

New in version 1.8.0.

handle_image_left is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/selector_left’.

handle_image_middle

Image used to display the middle handle on the TextInput for cursor positioning.

New in version 1.8.0.

handle_image_middle is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/selector_middle’.

handle_image_right

Image used to display the Right handle on the TextInput for selection.

New in version 1.8.0.

handle_image_right is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/selector_right’.

hint_text

Hint text of the widget, shown if text is ‘’.

New in version 1.6.0.

Changed in version 1.10.0: The property is now an AliasProperty and byte values are decoded to strings. The hint text will stay visible when the widget is focused.

hint_text a AliasProperty and defaults to ‘’.

hint_text_color

Current color of the hint_text text, in (r, g, b, a) format.

New in version 1.6.0.

hint_text_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1.0] (grey).

input_filter

Filters the input according to the specified mode, if not None. If None, no filtering is applied.

New in version 1.9.0.

input_filter is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None. Can be one of None, ‘int’ (string), or ‘float’ (string), or a callable. If it is ‘int’, it will only accept numbers. If it is ‘float’ it will also accept a single period. Finally, if it is a callable it will be called with two parameters; the string to be added and a bool indicating whether the string is a result of undo (True). The callable should return a new substring that will be used instead.

insert_text(substring, from_undo=False)[source]

Insert new text at the current cursor position. Override this function in order to pre-process text for input validation.

keyboard_on_key_down(window, keycode, text, modifiers)[source]

The method bound to the keyboard when the instance has focus.

When the instance becomes focused, this method is bound to the keyboard and will be called for every input press. The parameters are the same as kivy.core.window.WindowBase.on_key_down().

When overwriting the method in the derived widget, super should be called to enable tab cycling. If the derived widget wishes to use tab for its own purposes, it can call super after it has processed the character (if it does not wish to consume the tab).

Similar to other keyboard functions, it should return True if the key was consumed.

keyboard_on_key_up(window, keycode)[source]

The method bound to the keyboard when the instance has focus.

When the instance becomes focused, this method is bound to the keyboard and will be called for every input release. The parameters are the same as kivy.core.window.WindowBase.on_key_up().

When overwriting the method in the derived widget, super should be called to enable de-focusing on escape. If the derived widget wishes to use escape for its own purposes, it can call super after it has processed the character (if it does not wish to consume the escape).

See keyboard_on_key_down()

keyboard_suggestions

If True provides auto suggestions on top of keyboard. This will only work if input_type is set to text.

New in version 1.8.0.

keyboard_suggestions is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

line_height

Height of a line. This property is automatically computed from the font_name, font_size. Changing the line_height will have no impact.

Note

line_height is the height of a single line of text. Use minimum_height, which also includes padding, to get the height required to display the text properly.

line_height is a NumericProperty, read-only.

line_spacing

Space taken up between the lines.

New in version 1.8.0.

line_spacing is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

minimum_height

Minimum height of the content inside the TextInput.

New in version 1.8.0.

minimum_height is a readonly AliasProperty.

Warning

minimum_width is calculated based on width therefore code like this will lead to an infinite loop:

<FancyTextInput>:
    height: self.minimum_height
    width: self.height
multiline

If True, the widget will be able show multiple lines of text. If False, the “enter” keypress will defocus the textinput instead of adding a new line.

multiline is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

on_double_tap()[source]

This event is dispatched when a double tap happens inside TextInput. The default behavior is to select the word around the current cursor position. Override this to provide different behavior. Alternatively, you can bind to this event to provide additional functionality.

on_quad_touch()[source]

This event is dispatched when four fingers are touching inside TextInput. The default behavior is to select all text. Override this to provide different behavior. Alternatively, you can bind to this event to provide additional functionality.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_triple_tap()[source]

This event is dispatched when a triple tap happens inside TextInput. The default behavior is to select the line around current cursor position. Override this to provide different behavior. Alternatively, you can bind to this event to provide additional functionality.

padding

Padding of the text: [padding_left, padding_top, padding_right, padding_bottom].

padding also accepts a two argument form [padding_horizontal, padding_vertical] and a one argument form [padding].

Changed in version 1.7.0: Replaced AliasProperty with VariableListProperty.

padding is a VariableListProperty and defaults to [6, 6, 6, 6].

padding_x

Horizontal padding of the text: [padding_left, padding_right].

padding_x also accepts a one argument form [padding_horizontal].

padding_x is a VariableListProperty and defaults to [0, 0]. This might be changed by the current theme.

Deprecated since version 1.7.0: Use padding instead.

padding_y

Vertical padding of the text: [padding_top, padding_bottom].

padding_y also accepts a one argument form [padding_vertical].

padding_y is a VariableListProperty and defaults to [0, 0]. This might be changed by the current theme.

Deprecated since version 1.7.0: Use padding instead.

password

If True, the widget will display its characters as the character set in password_mask.

New in version 1.2.0.

password is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

password_mask

Sets the character used to mask the text when password is True.

New in version 1.10.0.

password_mask is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘*’.

paste()[source]

Insert text from system Clipboard into the TextInput at current cursor position.

New in version 1.8.0.

readonly

If True, the user will not be able to change the content of a textinput.

New in version 1.3.0.

readonly is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

replace_crlf

Automatically replace CRLF with LF.

New in version 1.9.1.

replace_crlf is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

reset_undo()[source]

Reset undo and redo lists from memory.

New in version 1.3.0.

scroll_x

X scrolling value of the viewport. The scrolling is automatically updated when the cursor is moved or text changed. If there is no user input, the scroll_x and scroll_y properties may be changed.

scroll_x is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

scroll_y

Y scrolling value of the viewport. See scroll_x for more information.

scroll_y is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

select_all()[source]

Select all of the text displayed in this TextInput.

New in version 1.4.0.

select_text(start, end)[source]

Select a portion of text displayed in this TextInput.

New in version 1.4.0.

Parameters:
start

Index of textinput.text from where to start selection

end

Index of textinput.text till which the selection should be displayed
selection_color

Current color of the selection, in (r, g, b, a) format.

Warning

The color should always have an “alpha” component less than 1 since the selection is drawn after the text.

selection_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [0.1843, 0.6549, 0.8313, .5].

selection_from

If a selection is in progress or complete, this property will represent the cursor index where the selection started.

Changed in version 1.4.0: selection_from is an AliasProperty and defaults to None, readonly.

selection_text

Current content selection.

selection_text is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’, readonly.

selection_to

If a selection is in progress or complete, this property will represent the cursor index where the selection started.

Changed in version 1.4.0: selection_to is an AliasProperty and defaults to None, readonly.

suggestion_text

Shows a suggestion text at the end of the current line. The feature is useful for text autocompletion, and it does not implement validation (accepting the suggested text on enter etc.). This can also be used by the IME to setup the current word being edited.

New in version 1.9.0.

suggestion_text is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’.

tab_width

By default, each tab will be replaced by four spaces on the text input widget. You can set a lower or higher value.

tab_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 4.

text

Text of the widget.

Creation of a simple hello world:

widget = TextInput(text='Hello world')

If you want to create the widget with an unicode string, use:

widget = TextInput(text=u'My unicode string')

text is an AliasProperty.

text_validate_unfocus

If True, the TextInput.on_text_validate() event will unfocus the widget, therefore make it stop listening to the keyboard. When disabled, the TextInput.on_text_validate() event can be fired multiple times as the result of TextInput keeping the focus enabled.

New in version 1.10.1.

text_validate_unfocus is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

use_bubble

Indicates whether the cut/copy/paste bubble is used.

New in version 1.7.0.

use_bubble is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True on mobile OS’s, False on desktop OS’s.

use_handles

Indicates whether the selection handles are displayed.

New in version 1.8.0.

use_handles is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True on mobile OS’s, False on desktop OS’s.

write_tab

Whether the tab key should move focus to the next widget or if it should enter a tab in the TextInput. If True a tab will be written, otherwise, focus will move to the next widget.

New in version 1.9.0.

write_tab is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True.

Toggle button

_images/togglebutton.jpg

The ToggleButton widget acts like a checkbox. When you touch or click it, the state toggles between ‘normal’ and ‘down’ (as opposed to a Button that is only ‘down’ as long as it is pressed).

Toggle buttons can also be grouped to make radio buttons - only one button in a group can be in a ‘down’ state. The group name can be a string or any other hashable Python object:

btn1 = ToggleButton(text='Male', group='sex',)
btn2 = ToggleButton(text='Female', group='sex', state='down')
btn3 = ToggleButton(text='Mixed', group='sex')

Only one of the buttons can be ‘down’/checked at the same time.

To configure the ToggleButton, you can use the same properties that you can use for a Button class.

class kivy.uix.togglebutton.ToggleButton(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.behaviors.togglebutton.ToggleButtonBehavior, kivy.uix.button.Button

Toggle button class, see module documentation for more information.

Tree View

_images/treeview.png

New in version 1.0.4.

TreeView is a widget used to represent a tree structure. It is currently very basic, supporting a minimal feature set.

Introduction

A TreeView is populated with TreeViewNode instances, but you cannot use a TreeViewNode directly. You must combine it with another widget, such as Label, Button or even your own widget. The TreeView always creates a default root node, based on TreeViewLabel.

TreeViewNode is a class object containing needed properties for serving as a tree node. Extend TreeViewNode to create custom node types for use with a TreeView.

For constructing your own subclass, follow the pattern of TreeViewLabel which combines a Label and a TreeViewNode, producing a TreeViewLabel for direct use in a TreeView instance.

To use the TreeViewLabel class, you could create two nodes directly attached to root:

tv = TreeView()
tv.add_node(TreeViewLabel(text='My first item'))
tv.add_node(TreeViewLabel(text='My second item'))

Or, create two nodes attached to a first:

tv = TreeView()
n1 = tv.add_node(TreeViewLabel(text='Item 1'))
tv.add_node(TreeViewLabel(text='SubItem 1'), n1)
tv.add_node(TreeViewLabel(text='SubItem 2'), n1)

If you have a large tree structure, perhaps you would need a utility function to populate the tree view:

def populate_tree_view(tree_view, parent, node):
    if parent is None:
        tree_node = tree_view.add_node(TreeViewLabel(text=node['node_id'],
                                                     is_open=True))
    else:
        tree_node = tree_view.add_node(TreeViewLabel(text=node['node_id'],
                                                     is_open=True), parent)

    for child_node in node['children']:
        populate_tree_view(tree_view, tree_node, child_node)


tree = {'node_id': '1',
        'children': [{'node_id': '1.1',
                      'children': [{'node_id': '1.1.1',
                                    'children': [{'node_id': '1.1.1.1',
                                                  'children': []}]},
                                   {'node_id': '1.1.2',
                                    'children': []},
                                   {'node_id': '1.1.3',
                                    'children': []}]},
                      {'node_id': '1.2',
                       'children': []}]}


class TreeWidget(FloatLayout):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super(TreeWidget, self).__init__(**kwargs)

        tv = TreeView(root_options=dict(text='Tree One'),
                      hide_root=False,
                      indent_level=4)

        populate_tree_view(tv, None, tree)

        self.add_widget(tv)

The root widget in the tree view is opened by default and has text set as ‘Root’. If you want to change that, you can use the TreeView.root_options property. This will pass options to the root widget:

tv = TreeView(root_options=dict(text='My root label'))
Creating Your Own Node Widget

For a button node type, combine a Button and a TreeViewNode as follows:

class TreeViewButton(Button, TreeViewNode):
    pass

You must know that, for a given node, only the size_hint_x will be honored. The allocated width for the node will depend of the current width of the TreeView and the level of the node. For example, if a node is at level 4, the width allocated will be:

treeview.width - treeview.indent_start - treeview.indent_level * node.level

You might have some trouble with that. It is the developer’s responsibility to correctly handle adapting the graphical representation nodes, if needed.

class kivy.uix.treeview.TreeView(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.widget.Widget

TreeView class. See module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_node_expand: (node, )

Fired when a node is being expanded

on_node_collapse: (node, )

Fired when a node is being collapsed
add_node(node, parent=None)[source]

Add a new node to the tree.

Parameters:
node: instance of a TreeViewNode

Node to add into the tree

parent: instance of a TreeViewNode, defaults to None

Parent node to attach the new node. If None, it is added to the root node.
Returns:

the node node.
deselect_node(*args)[source]

Deselect any selected node.

New in version 1.10.0.

get_node_at_pos(pos)[source]

Get the node at the position (x, y).

hide_root

Use this property to show/hide the initial root node. If True, the root node will be appear as a closed node.

hide_root is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

indent_level

Width used for the indentation of each level except the first level.

Computation of indent for each level of the tree is:

indent = indent_start + level * indent_level

indent_level is a NumericProperty and defaults to 16.

indent_start

Indentation width of the level 0 / root node. This is mostly the initial size to accommodate a tree icon (collapsed / expanded). See indent_level for more information about the computation of level indentation.

indent_start is a NumericProperty and defaults to 24.

iterate_all_nodes(node=None)[source]

Generator to iterate over all nodes from node and down whether expanded or not. If node is None, the generator start with root.

iterate_open_nodes(node=None)[source]

Generator to iterate over all the expended nodes starting from node and down. If node is None, the generator start with root.

To get all the open nodes:

treeview = TreeView()
# ... add nodes ...
for node in treeview.iterate_open_nodes():
    print(node)
load_func

Callback to use for asynchronous loading. If set, asynchronous loading will be automatically done. The callback must act as a Python generator function, using yield to send data back to the treeview.

The callback should be in the format:

def callback(treeview, node):
    for name in ('Item 1', 'Item 2'):
        yield TreeViewLabel(text=name)

load_func is a ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

minimum_height

Minimum height needed to contain all children.

New in version 1.0.9.

minimum_height is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

minimum_size

Minimum size needed to contain all children.

New in version 1.0.9.

minimum_size is a ReferenceListProperty of (minimum_width, minimum_height) properties.

minimum_width

Minimum width needed to contain all children.

New in version 1.0.9.

minimum_width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
remove_node(node)[source]

Removes a node from the tree.

New in version 1.0.7.

Parameters:
node: instance of a TreeViewNode

Node to remove from the tree. If node is root, it is not removed.
root

Root node.

By default, the root node widget is a TreeViewLabel with text ‘Root’. If you want to change the default options passed to the widget creation, use the root_options property:

treeview = TreeView(root_options={
    'text': 'Root directory',
    'font_size': 15})

root_options will change the properties of the TreeViewLabel instance. However, you cannot change the class used for root node yet.

root is an AliasProperty and defaults to None. It is read-only. However, the content of the widget can be changed.

root_options

Default root options to pass for root widget. See root property for more information about the usage of root_options.

root_options is an ObjectProperty and defaults to {}.

select_node(node)[source]

Select a node in the tree.

selected_node

Node selected by TreeView.select_node() or by touch.

selected_node is a AliasProperty and defaults to None. It is read-only.

toggle_node(node)[source]

Toggle the state of the node (open/collapsed).

exception kivy.uix.treeview.TreeViewException[source]

Bases: Exception

Exception for errors in the TreeView.

class kivy.uix.treeview.TreeViewLabel(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.label.Label, kivy.uix.treeview.TreeViewNode

Combines a Label and a TreeViewNode to create a TreeViewLabel that can be used as a text node in the tree.

See module documentation for more information.

class kivy.uix.treeview.TreeViewNode(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: builtins.object

TreeViewNode class, used to build a node class for a TreeView object.

color_selected

Background color of the node when the node is selected.

color_selected is a ListProperty and defaults to [.1, .1, .1, 1].

even_color

Background color of even nodes when the node is not selected.

bg_color is a ListProperty ans defaults to [.5, .5, .5, .1].

is_leaf

Boolean to indicate whether this node is a leaf or not. Used to adjust the graphical representation.

is_leaf is a BooleanProperty and defaults to True. It is automatically set to False when child is added.

is_loaded

Boolean to indicate whether this node is already loaded or not. This property is used only if the TreeView uses asynchronous loading.

is_loaded is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

is_open

Boolean to indicate whether this node is opened or not, in case there are child nodes. This is used to adjust the graphical representation.

Warning

This property is automatically set by the TreeView. You can read but not write it.

is_open is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

is_selected

Boolean to indicate whether this node is selected or not. This is used adjust the graphical representation.

Warning

This property is automatically set by the TreeView. You can read but not write it.

is_selected is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

level

Level of the node.

level is a NumericProperty and defaults to -1.

no_selection
Boolean used to indicate whether selection of the node is allowed or
not.

no_selection is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

nodes

List of nodes. The nodes list is different than the children list. A node in the nodes list represents a node on the tree. An item in the children list represents the widget associated with the node.

Warning

This property is automatically set by the TreeView. You can read but not write it.

nodes is a ListProperty and defaults to [].

odd

This property is set by the TreeView widget automatically and is read-only.

odd is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

odd_color

Background color of odd nodes when the node is not selected.

odd_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1., 1., 1., 0.].

parent_node

Parent node. This attribute is needed because the parent can be None when the node is not displayed.

New in version 1.0.7.

parent_node is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

Video

The Video widget is used to display video files and streams. Depending on your Video core provider, platform, and plugins, you will be able to play different formats. For example, the pygame video provider only supports MPEG1 on Linux and OSX. GStreamer is more versatile, and can read many video containers and codecs such as MKV, OGV, AVI, MOV, FLV (if the correct gstreamer plugins are installed). Our VideoBase implementation is used under the hood.

Video loading is asynchronous - many properties are not available until the video is loaded (when the texture is created):

def on_position_change(instance, value):
    print('The position in the video is', value)
def on_duration_change(instance, value):
    print('The duration of the video is', value)
video = Video(source='PandaSneezes.avi')
video.bind(position=on_position_change,
           duration=on_duration_change)
class kivy.uix.video.Video(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.image.Image

Video class. See module documentation for more information.

duration

Duration of the video. The duration defaults to -1, and is set to a real duration when the video is loaded.

duration is a NumericProperty and defaults to -1.

eos

Boolean, indicates whether the video has finished playing or not (reached the end of the stream).

eos is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

loaded

Boolean, indicates whether the video is loaded and ready for playback or not.

New in version 1.6.0.

loaded is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

options

Options to pass at Video core object creation.

New in version 1.0.4.

options is an kivy.properties.ObjectProperty and defaults to {}.

play

Deprecated since version 1.4.0: Use state instead.

Boolean, indicates whether the video is playing or not. You can start/stop the video by setting this property:

# start playing the video at creation
video = Video(source='movie.mkv', play=True)

# create the video, and start later
video = Video(source='movie.mkv')
# and later
video.play = True

play is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

Deprecated since version 1.4.0: Use state instead.

position

Position of the video between 0 and duration. The position defaults to -1 and is set to a real position when the video is loaded.

position is a NumericProperty and defaults to -1.

seek(percent, precise=True)[source]

Change the position to a percentage of duration.

Parameters:
percent: float or int

Position to seek, must be between 0-1.

precise: bool, defaults to True

Precise seeking is slower, but seeks to exact requested percent.

Warning

Calling seek() before the video is loaded has no effect.

New in version 1.2.0.

Changed in version 1.10.1: The precise keyword argument has been added.

state

String, indicates whether to play, pause, or stop the video:

# start playing the video at creation
video = Video(source='movie.mkv', state='play')

# create the video, and start later
video = Video(source='movie.mkv')
# and later
video.state = 'play'

state is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘stop’.

unload()[source]

Unload the video. The playback will be stopped.

New in version 1.8.0.

volume

Volume of the video, in the range 0-1. 1 means full volume, 0 means mute.

volume is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

Video player

New in version 1.2.0.

The video player widget can be used to play video and let the user control the play/pausing, volume and position. The widget cannot be customized much because of the complex assembly of numerous base widgets.

_images/videoplayer.jpg
Annotations

If you want to display text at a specific time and for a certain duration, consider annotations. An annotation file has a “.jsa” extension. The player will automatically load the associated annotation file if it exists.

An annotation file is JSON-based, providing a list of label dictionary items. The key and value must match one of the VideoPlayerAnnotation items. For example, here is a short version of a jsa file that you can find in examples/widgets/cityCC0.jsa:

[
    {"start": 0, "duration": 2,
    "text": "This is an example of annotation"},
    {"start": 2, "duration": 2,
    "bgcolor": [0.5, 0.2, 0.4, 0.5],
    "text": "You can change the background color"}
]

For our cityCC0.mpg example, the result will be:

_images/videoplayer-annotation.jpg

If you want to experiment with annotation files, test with:

python -m kivy.uix.videoplayer examples/widgets/cityCC0.mpg
Fullscreen

The video player can play the video in fullscreen, if VideoPlayer.allow_fullscreen is activated by a double-tap on the video. By default, if the video is smaller than the Window, it will be not stretched.

You can allow stretching by passing custom options to a VideoPlayer instance:

player = VideoPlayer(source='myvideo.avi', state='play',
    options={'allow_stretch': True})
End-of-stream behavior

You can specify what happens when the video has finished playing by passing an eos (end of stream) directive to the underlying VideoBase class. eos can be one of ‘stop’, ‘pause’ or ‘loop’ and defaults to ‘stop’. For example, in order to loop the video:

player = VideoPlayer(source='myvideo.avi', state='play',
    options={'eos': 'loop'})

Note

The eos property of the VideoBase class is a string specifying the end-of-stream behavior. This property differs from the eos properties of the VideoPlayer and Video classes, whose eos property is simply a boolean indicating that the end of the file has been reached.

class kivy.uix.videoplayer.VideoPlayer(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.gridlayout.GridLayout

VideoPlayer class. See module documentation for more information.

allow_fullscreen

By default, you can double-tap on the video to make it fullscreen. Set this property to False to prevent this behavior.

allow_fullscreen is a BooleanProperty defaults to True.

annotations

If set, it will be used for reading annotations box.

annotations is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’.

duration

Duration of the video. The duration defaults to -1 and is set to the real duration when the video is loaded.

duration is a NumericProperty and defaults to -1.

fullscreen

Switch to fullscreen view. This should be used with care. When activated, the widget will remove itself from its parent, remove all children from the window and will add itself to it. When fullscreen is unset, all the previous children are restored and the widget is restored to its previous parent.

Warning

The re-add operation doesn’t care about the index position of it’s children within the parent.

fullscreen is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

image_loading

Image filename used when the video is loading.

image_loading is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘data/images/image-loading.gif’.

image_overlay_play

Image filename used to show a “play” overlay when the video has not yet started.

image_overlay_play is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/player-play-overlay’.

image_pause

Image filename used for the “Pause” button.

image_pause is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/media-playback-pause’.

image_play

Image filename used for the “Play” button.

image_play is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/media-playback-start’.

image_stop

Image filename used for the “Stop” button.

image_stop is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/media-playback-stop’.

image_volumehigh

Image filename used for the volume icon when the volume is high.

image_volumehigh is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/audio-volume-high’.

image_volumelow

Image filename used for the volume icon when the volume is low.

image_volumelow is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/audio-volume-low’.

image_volumemedium

Image filename used for the volume icon when the volume is medium.

image_volumemedium is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/audio-volume-medium’.

image_volumemuted

Image filename used for the volume icon when the volume is muted.

image_volumemuted is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/audio-volume-muted’.

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
options

Optional parameters can be passed to a Video instance with this property.

options a DictProperty and defaults to {}.

play

Deprecated since version 1.4.0: Use state instead.

Boolean, indicates whether the video is playing or not. You can start/stop the video by setting this property:

# start playing the video at creation
video = VideoPlayer(source='movie.mkv', play=True)

# create the video, and start later
video = VideoPlayer(source='movie.mkv')
# and later
video.play = True

play is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

position

Position of the video between 0 and duration. The position defaults to -1 and is set to the real position when the video is loaded.

position is a NumericProperty and defaults to -1.

seek(percent, precise=True)[source]

Change the position to a percentage of duration.

Parameters:
percent: float or int

Position to seek, must be between 0-1.

precise: bool, defaults to True

Precise seeking is slower, but seeks to exact requested percent.

Warning

Calling seek() before the video is loaded has no effect.

New in version 1.2.0.

Changed in version 1.10.1: The precise keyword argument has been added.

source

Source of the video to read.

source is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’.

Changed in version 1.4.0.

state

String, indicates whether to play, pause, or stop the video:

# start playing the video at creation
video = VideoPlayer(source='movie.mkv', state='play')

# create the video, and start later
video = VideoPlayer(source='movie.mkv')
# and later
video.state = 'play'

state is an OptionProperty and defaults to ‘stop’.

thumbnail

Thumbnail of the video to show. If None, VideoPlayer will try to find the thumbnail from the source + ‘.png’.

thumbnail a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’.

Changed in version 1.4.0.

volume

Volume of the video in the range 0-1. 1 means full volume and 0 means mute.

volume is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

class kivy.uix.videoplayer.VideoPlayerAnnotation(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.label.Label

Annotation class used for creating annotation labels.

Additional keys are available:

  • bgcolor: [r, g, b, a] - background color of the text box
  • bgsource: ‘filename’ - background image used for the background text box
  • border: (n, e, s, w) - border used for the background image
duration

Duration of the annotation.

duration is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

start

Start time of the annotation.

start is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

VKeyboard

_images/vkeyboard.jpg

New in version 1.0.8.

VKeyboard is an onscreen keyboard for Kivy. Its operation is intended to be transparent to the user. Using the widget directly is NOT recommended. Read the section Request keyboard first.

Modes

This virtual keyboard has a docked and free mode:

  • docked mode (VKeyboard.docked = True) Generally used when only one person is using the computer, like a tablet or personal computer etc.
  • free mode: (VKeyboard.docked = False) Mostly for multitouch surfaces. This mode allows multiple virtual keyboards to be used on the screen.

If the docked mode changes, you need to manually call VKeyboard.setup_mode() otherwise the change will have no impact. During that call, the VKeyboard, implemented on top of a Scatter, will change the behavior of the scatter and position the keyboard near the target (if target and docked mode is set).

Layouts

The virtual keyboard is able to load a custom layout. If you create a new layout and put the JSON in <kivy_data_dir>/keyboards/<layoutid>.json, you can load it by setting VKeyboard.layout to your layoutid.

The JSON must be structured like this:

{
    "title": "Title of your layout",
    "description": "Description of your layout",
    "cols": 15,
    "rows": 5,

    ...
}

Then, you need to describe the keys in each row, for either a “normal”, “shift” or a “special” (added in version 1.9.0) mode. Keys for this row data must be named normal_<row>, shift_<row> and special_<row>. Replace row with the row number. Inside each row, you will describe the key. A key is a 4 element list in the format:

[ <text displayed on the keyboard>, <text to put when the key is pressed>,
  <text that represents the keycode>, <size of cols> ]

Here are example keys:

# f key
["f", "f", "f", 1]
# capslock
["↹", "     ", "tab", 1.5]

Finally, complete the JSON:

{
    ...
    "normal_1": [
        ["`", "`", "`", 1],    ["1", "1", "1", 1],    ["2", "2", "2", 1],
        ["3", "3", "3", 1],    ["4", "4", "4", 1],    ["5", "5", "5", 1],
        ["6", "6", "6", 1],    ["7", "7", "7", 1],    ["8", "8", "8", 1],
        ["9", "9", "9", 1],    ["0", "0", "0", 1],    ["+", "+", "+", 1],
        ["=", "=", "=", 1],    ["⌫", null, "backspace", 2]
    ],

    "shift_1": [ ... ],
    "normal_2": [ ... ],
    "special_2": [ ... ],
    ...
}
Request Keyboard

The instantiation of the virtual keyboard is controlled by the configuration. Check keyboard_mode and keyboard_layout in the Configuration object.

If you intend to create a widget that requires a keyboard, do not use the virtual keyboard directly, but prefer to use the best method available on the platform. Check the request_keyboard() method in the Window.

If you want a specific layout when you request the keyboard, you should write something like this (from 1.8.0, numeric.json can be in the same directory as your main.py):

keyboard = Window.request_keyboard(
    self._keyboard_close, self)
if keyboard.widget:
    vkeyboard = self._keyboard.widget
    vkeyboard.layout = 'numeric.json'
class kivy.uix.vkeyboard.VKeyboard(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.scatter.Scatter

VKeyboard is an onscreen keyboard with multitouch support. Its layout is entirely customizable and you can switch between available layouts using a button in the bottom right of the widget.

Events:
on_key_down: keycode, internal, modifiers

Fired when the keyboard received a key down event (key press).

on_key_up: keycode, internal, modifiers

Fired when the keyboard received a key up event (key release).
available_layouts

Dictionary of all available layouts. Keys are the layout ID, and the value is the JSON (translated into a Python object).

available_layouts is a DictProperty and defaults to {}.

background

Filename of the background image.

background is a StringProperty and defaults to atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/vkeyboard_background.

background_border

Background image border. Used for controlling the border property of the background.

background_border is a ListProperty and defaults to [16, 16, 16, 16]

background_color

Background color, in the format (r, g, b, a). If a background is set, the color will be combined with the background texture.

background_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

background_disabled

Filename of the background image when the vkeyboard is disabled.

New in version 1.8.0.

background_disabled is a StringProperty and defaults to atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/vkeyboard__disabled_background.

callback

Callback can be set to a function that will be called if the VKeyboard is closed by the user.

target is an ObjectProperty instance and defaults to None.

collide_margin(x, y)[source]

Do a collision test, and return True if the (x, y) is inside the vkeyboard margin.

docked

Indicate whether the VKeyboard is docked on the screen or not. If you change it, you must manually call setup_mode() otherwise it will have no impact. If the VKeyboard is created by the Window, the docked mode will be automatically set by the configuration, using the keyboard_mode token in [kivy] section.

docked is a BooleanProperty and defaults to False.

font_size

font_size, specifies the size of the text on the virtual keyboard keys. It should be kept within limits to ensure the text does not extend beyond the bounds of the key or become too small to read.

New in version 1.10.0.

font_size is a NumericProperty and defaults to 20.

key_background_color

Key background color, in the format (r, g, b, a). If a key background is set, the color will be combined with the key background texture.

key_background_color is a ListProperty and defaults to [1, 1, 1, 1].

key_background_down

Filename of the key background image for use when a touch is active on the widget.

key_background_down is a StringProperty and defaults to atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/vkeyboard_key_down.

key_background_normal

Filename of the key background image for use when no touches are active on the widget.

key_background_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/vkeyboard_key_normal.

key_border

Key image border. Used for controlling the border property of the key.

key_border is a ListProperty and defaults to [16, 16, 16, 16]

key_disabled_background_normal

Filename of the key background image for use when no touches are active on the widget and vkeyboard is disabled.

New in version 1.8.0.

key_disabled_background_normal is a StringProperty and defaults to atlas://data/images/defaulttheme/vkeyboard_disabled_key_normal.

key_margin

Key margin, used to create space between keys. The margin is composed of four values, in pixels:

key_margin = [top, right, bottom, left]

key_margin is a ListProperty and defaults to [2, 2, 2, 2]

layout

Layout to use for the VKeyboard. By default, it will be the layout set in the configuration, according to the keyboard_layout in [kivy] section.

Changed in version 1.8.0: If layout is a .json filename, it will loaded and added to the available_layouts.

layout is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

layout_path

Path from which layouts are read.

layout is a StringProperty and defaults to <kivy_data_dir>/keyboards/

margin_hint

Margin hint, used as spacing between keyboard background and keys content. The margin is composed of four values, between 0 and 1:

margin_hint = [top, right, bottom, left]

The margin hints will be multiplied by width and height, according to their position.

margin_hint is a ListProperty and defaults to [.05, .06, .05, .06]

on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

refresh(force=False)[source]

(internal) Recreate the entire widget and graphics according to the selected layout.

setup_mode(*largs)[source]

Call this method when you want to readjust the keyboard according to options: docked or not, with attached target or not:

Feel free to overload these methods to create new positioning behavior.

setup_mode_dock(*largs)[source]

Setup the keyboard in docked mode.

Dock mode will reset the rotation, disable translation, rotation and scale. Scale and position will be automatically adjusted to attach the keyboard to the bottom of the screen.

Note

Don’t call this method directly, use setup_mode() instead.

setup_mode_free()[source]

Setup the keyboard in free mode.

Free mode is designed to let the user control the position and orientation of the keyboard. The only real usage is for a multiuser environment, but you might found other ways to use it. If a target is set, it will place the vkeyboard under the target.

Note

Don’t call this method directly, use setup_mode() instead.

target

Target widget associated with the VKeyboard. If set, it will be used to send keyboard events. If the VKeyboard mode is “free”, it will also be used to set the initial position.

target is an ObjectProperty instance and defaults to None.

Widget class

The Widget class is the base class required for creating Widgets. This widget class was designed with a couple of principles in mind:

  • Event Driven

    Widget interaction is built on top of events that occur. If a property changes, the widget can respond to the change in the ‘on_<propname>’ callback. If nothing changes, nothing will be done. That’s the main goal of the Property class.

  • Separation Of Concerns (the widget and its graphical representation)

    Widgets don’t have a draw() method. This is done on purpose: The idea is to allow you to create your own graphical representation outside the widget class. Obviously you can still use all the available properties to do that, so that your representation properly reflects the widget’s current state. Every widget has its own Canvas that you can use to draw. This separation allows Kivy to run your application in a very efficient manner.

  • Bounding Box / Collision

    Often you want to know if a certain point is within the bounds of your widget. An example would be a button widget where you only want to trigger an action when the button itself is actually touched. For this, you can use the collide_point() method, which will return True if the point you pass to it is inside the axis-aligned bounding box defined by the widget’s position and size. If a simple AABB is not sufficient, you can override the method to perform the collision checks with more complex shapes, e.g. a polygon. You can also check if a widget collides with another widget with collide_widget().

We also have some default values and behaviors that you should be aware of:

  • A Widget is not a Layout: it will not change the position or the size of its children. If you want control over positioning or sizing, use a Layout.
  • The default size of a widget is (100, 100). This is only changed if the parent is a Layout. For example, if you add a Label inside a Button, the label will not inherit the button’s size or position because the button is not a Layout: it’s just another Widget.
  • The default size_hint is (1, 1). If the parent is a Layout, then the widget size will be the parent layout’s size.
  • on_touch_down(), on_touch_move(), on_touch_up() don’t do any sort of collisions. If you want to know if the touch is inside your widget, use collide_point().
Using Properties

When you read the documentation, all properties are described in the format:

<name> is a <property class> and defaults to <default value>.

e.g.

text is a StringProperty and defaults to ‘’.

If you want to be notified when the pos attribute changes, i.e. when the widget moves, you can bind your own callback function like this:

def callback_pos(instance, value):
    print('The widget', instance, 'moved to', value)

wid = Widget()
wid.bind(pos=callback_pos)

Read more about Properties.

Basic drawing

Widgets support a range of drawing instructions that you can use to customize the look of your widgets and layouts. For example, to draw a background image for your widget, you can do the following:

def redraw(self, args):
    self.bg_rect.size = self.size
    self.bg_rect.pos = self.pos

widget = Widget()
with widget.canvas:
    widget.bg_rect = Rectangle(source="cover.jpg", pos=self.pos, size=self.size)
widget.bind(pos=redraw, size=redraw)

To draw a background in kv:

Widget:
    canvas:
        Rectangle:
            source: "cover.jpg"
            size: self.size
            pos: self.pos

These examples only scratch the surface. Please see the kivy.graphics documentation for more information.

Widget touch event bubbling

When you catch touch events between multiple widgets, you often need to be aware of the order in which these events are propagated. In Kivy, events bubble up from the first child upwards through the other children. If a widget has children, the event is passed through its children before being passed on to the widget after it.

As the on_touch_up() method inserts widgets at index 0 by default, this means the event goes from the most recently added widget back to the first one added. Consider the following:

box = BoxLayout()
box.add_widget(Label(text="a"))
box.add_widget(Label(text="b"))
box.add_widget(Label(text="c"))

The label with text “c” gets the event first, “b” second and “a” last. You can reverse this order by manually specifying the index:

box = BoxLayout()
box.add_widget(Label(text="a"), index=0)
box.add_widget(Label(text="b"), index=1)
box.add_widget(Label(text="c"), index=2)

Now the order would be “a”, “b” then “c”. One thing to keep in mind when using kv is that declaring a widget uses the add_widget() method for insertion. Hence, using

BoxLayout:
    MyLabel:
        text: "a"
    MyLabel:
        text: "b"
    MyLabel:
        text: "c"

would result in the event order “c”, “b” then “a” as “c” was actually the last added widget. It thus has index 0, “b” index 1 and “a” index 2. Effectively, the child order is the reverse of its listed order.

This ordering is the same for the on_touch_move() and on_touch_up() events.

In order to stop this event bubbling, a method can return True. This tells Kivy the event has been handled and the event propagation stops. For example:

class MyWidget(Widget):
    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        If <some_condition>:
            # Do stuff here and kill the event
            return True
        else:
            return super(MyWidget, self).on_touch_down(touch)

This approach gives you good control over exactly how events are dispatched and managed. Sometimes, however, you may wish to let the event be completely propagated before taking action. You can use the Clock to help you here:

class MyWidget(Label):
    def on_touch_down(self, touch, after=False):
        if after:
            print "Fired after the event has been dispatched!"
        else:
            Clock.schedule_once(lambda dt: self.on_touch_down(touch, True))
            return super(MyWidget, self).on_touch_down(touch)
Usage of Widget.center, Widget.right, and Widget.top

A common mistake when using one of the computed properties such as Widget.right is to use it to make a widget follow its parent with a KV rule such as right: self.parent.right. Consider, for example:

FloatLayout:
    id: layout
    width: 100
    Widget:
        id: wid
        right: layout.right

The (mistaken) expectation is that this rule ensures that wid’s right will always be whatever layout’s right is - that is wid.right and layout.right will always be identical. In actual fact, this rule only says that “whenever layout’s right changes, wid’s right will be set to that value”. The difference being that as long as layout.right doesn’t change, wid.right could be anything, even a value that will make them different.

Specifically, for the KV code above, consider the following example:

>>> print(layout.right, wid.right)
(100, 100)
>>> wid.x = 200
>>> print(layout.right, wid.right)
(100, 300)

As can be seen, initially they are in sync, however, when we change wid.x they go out of sync because layout.right is not changed and the rule is not triggered.

The proper way to make the widget follow its parent’s right is to use Widget.pos_hint. If instead of right: layout.right we did pos_hint: {‘right’: 1}, then the widgets right will always be set to be at the parent’s right at each layout update.

class kivy.uix.widget.Widget(**kwargs)[source]

Bases: kivy.uix.widget.WidgetBase

Widget class. See module documentation for more information.

Events:
on_touch_down:

Fired when a new touch event occurs

on_touch_move:

Fired when an existing touch moves

on_touch_up:

Fired when an existing touch disappears

Warning

Adding a __del__ method to a class derived from Widget with Python prior to 3.4 will disable automatic garbage collection for instances of that class. This is because the Widget class creates reference cycles, thereby preventing garbage collection.

Changed in version 1.0.9: Everything related to event properties has been moved to the EventDispatcher. Event properties can now be used when contructing a simple class without subclassing Widget.

Changed in version 1.5.0: The constructor now accepts on_* arguments to automatically bind callbacks to properties or events, as in the Kv language.

add_widget(widget, index=0, canvas=None)[source]

Add a new widget as a child of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to add to our list of children.

index: int, defaults to 0

Index to insert the widget in the list. Notice that the default of 0 means the widget is inserted at the beginning of the list and will thus be drawn on top of other sibling widgets. For a full discussion of the index and widget hierarchy, please see the Widgets Programming Guide.

New in version 1.0.5.

canvas: str, defaults to None

Canvas to add widget’s canvas to. Can be ‘before’, ‘after’ or None for the default canvas.

New in version 1.9.0.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> from kivy.uix.slider import Slider
>>> root = Widget()
>>> root.add_widget(Button())
>>> slider = Slider()
>>> root.add_widget(slider)
canvas = None

Canvas of the widget.

The canvas is a graphics object that contains all the drawing instructions for the graphical representation of the widget.

There are no general properties for the Widget class, such as background color, to keep the design simple and lean. Some derived classes, such as Button, do add such convenience properties but generally the developer is responsible for implementing the graphics representation for a custom widget from the ground up. See the derived widget classes for patterns to follow and extend.

See Canvas for more information about the usage.

center

Center position of the widget.

center is a ReferenceListProperty of (center_x, center_y) properties.

center_x

X center position of the widget.

center_x is an AliasProperty of (x + width / 2.).

center_y

Y center position of the widget.

center_y is an AliasProperty of (y + height / 2.).

children

List of children of this widget.

children is a ListProperty and defaults to an empty list.

Use add_widget() and remove_widget() for manipulating the children list. Don’t manipulate the children list directly unless you know what you are doing.

clear_widgets(children=None)[source]

Remove all (or the specified) children of this widget. If the ‘children’ argument is specified, it should be a list (or filtered list) of children of the current widget.

Changed in version 1.8.0: The children argument can be used to specify the children you want to remove.

cls

Class of the widget, used for styling.

collide_point(x, y)[source]

Check if a point (x, y) is inside the widget’s axis aligned bounding box.

Parameters:
x: numeric

x position of the point (in parent coordinates)

y: numeric

y position of the point (in parent coordinates)
Returns:

A bool. True if the point is inside the bounding box, False otherwise.

 
>>> Widget(pos=(10, 10), size=(50, 50)).collide_point(40, 40)
True
collide_widget(wid)[source]

Check if another widget collides with this widget. This function performs an axis-aligned bounding box intersection test by default.

Parameters:
wid: Widget class

Widget to test collision with.
Returns:

bool. True if the other widget collides with this widget, False otherwise.

 
>>> wid = Widget(size=(50, 50))
>>> wid2 = Widget(size=(50, 50), pos=(25, 25))
>>> wid.collide_widget(wid2)
True
>>> wid2.pos = (55, 55)
>>> wid.collide_widget(wid2)
False
disabled

Indicates whether this widget can interact with input or not.

disabled is an AliasProperty and defaults to False.

Note

  1. Child Widgets, when added to a disabled widget, will be disabled automatically.
  2. Disabling/enabling a parent disables/enables all of its children.

New in version 1.8.0.

Changed in version 1.10.1: disabled was changed from a BooleanProperty to an AliasProperty to allow access to its previous state when a parent’s disabled state is changed.

export_to_png(filename, *args)[source]

Saves an image of the widget and its children in png format at the specified filename. Works by removing the widget canvas from its parent, rendering to an Fbo, and calling save().

Note

The image includes only this widget and its children. If you want to include widgets elsewhere in the tree, you must call export_to_png() from their common parent, or use screenshot() to capture the whole window.

Note

The image will be saved in png format, you should include the extension in your filename.

New in version 1.9.0.

get_parent_window()[source]

Return the parent window.

Returns:Instance of the parent window. Can be a WindowBase or Widget.
get_root_window()[source]

Return the root window.

Returns:Instance of the root window. Can be a WindowBase or Widget.
get_window_matrix(x=0, y=0)[source]

Calculate the transformation matrix to convert between window and widget coordinates.

Parameters:
x: float, defaults to 0

Translates the matrix on the x axis.

y: float, defaults to 0

Translates the matrix on the y axis.
height

Height of the widget.

height is a NumericProperty and defaults to 100.

Warning

Keep in mind that the height property is subject to layout logic and that this has not yet happened at the time of the widget’s __init__ method.

id

Identifier of the widget in the tree.

id is a StringProperty and defaults to None.

Note

The id is not the same as id in the kv language. For the latter, see ids and Kivy Language: ids.

Warning

The id property has been deprecated and will be removed completely in future versions.

ids

This is a dictionary of ids defined in your kv language. This will only be populated if you use ids in your kv language code.

New in version 1.7.0.

ids is a DictProperty and defaults to an empty dict {}.

The ids are populated for each root level widget definition. For example:

# in kv
<MyWidget@Widget>:
    id: my_widget
    Label:
        id: label_widget
        Widget:
            id: inner_widget
            Label:
                id: inner_label
    TextInput:
        id: text_input
    OtherWidget:
        id: other_widget


<OtherWidget@Widget>
    id: other_widget
    Label:
        id: other_label
        TextInput:
            id: other_textinput

Then, in python:

>>> widget = MyWidget()
>>> print(widget.ids)
{'other_widget': <weakproxy at 041CFED0 to OtherWidget at 041BEC38>,
'inner_widget': <weakproxy at 04137EA0 to Widget at 04138228>,
'inner_label': <weakproxy at 04143540 to Label at 04138260>,
'label_widget': <weakproxy at 04137B70 to Label at 040F97A0>,
'text_input': <weakproxy at 041BB5D0 to TextInput at 041BEC00>}
>>> print(widget.ids['other_widget'].ids)
{'other_textinput': <weakproxy at 041DBB40 to TextInput at 041BEF48>,
'other_label': <weakproxy at 041DB570 to Label at 041BEEA0>}
>>> print(widget.ids['label_widget'].ids)
{}
on_touch_down(touch)[source]

Receive a touch down event.

Parameters:
touch: MotionEvent class

Touch received. The touch is in parent coordinates. See relativelayout for a discussion on coordinate systems.
Returns:

bool If True, the dispatching of the touch event will stop. If False, the event will continue to be dispatched to the rest of the widget tree.
on_touch_move(touch)[source]

Receive a touch move event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

on_touch_up(touch)[source]

Receive a touch up event. The touch is in parent coordinates.

See on_touch_down() for more information.

opacity

Opacity of the widget and all its children.

New in version 1.4.1.

The opacity attribute controls the opacity of the widget and its children. Be careful, it’s a cumulative attribute: the value is multiplied by the current global opacity and the result is applied to the current context color.

For example, if the parent has an opacity of 0.5 and a child has an opacity of 0.2, the real opacity of the child will be 0.5 * 0.2 = 0.1.

Then, the opacity is applied by the shader as:

frag_color = color * vec4(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, opacity);

opacity is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.0.

parent

Parent of this widget. The parent of a widget is set when the widget is added to another widget and unset when the widget is removed from its parent.

parent is an ObjectProperty and defaults to None.

pos

Position of the widget.

pos is a ReferenceListProperty of (x, y) properties.

pos_hint

Position hint. This property allows you to set the position of the widget inside its parent layout, in percent (similar to size_hint).

For example, if you want to set the top of the widget to be at 90% height of its parent layout, you can write:

widget = Widget(pos_hint={'top': 0.9})

The keys ‘x’, ‘right’ and ‘center_x’ will use the parent width. The keys ‘y’, ‘top’ and ‘center_y’ will use the parent height.

See Float Layout for further reference.

Note

pos_hint is not used by all layouts. Check the documentation of the layout in question to see if it supports pos_hint.

pos_hint is an ObjectProperty containing a dict.

proxy_ref

Return a proxy reference to the widget, i.e. without creating a reference to the widget. See weakref.proxy for more information.

New in version 1.7.2.

remove_widget(widget)[source]

Remove a widget from the children of this widget.

Parameters:
widget: Widget

Widget to remove from our children list.

 
>>> from kivy.uix.button import Button
>>> root = Widget()
>>> button = Button()
>>> root.add_widget(button)
>>> root.remove_widget(button)
right

Right position of the widget.

right is an AliasProperty of (x + width).

size

Size of the widget.

size is a ReferenceListProperty of (width, height) properties.

size_hint

Size hint.

size_hint is a ReferenceListProperty of (size_hint_x, size_hint_y) properties.

See size_hint_x for more information.

size_hint_max

Maximum size when using size_hint.

size_hint_max is a ReferenceListProperty of (size_hint_max_x, size_hint_max_y) properties.

New in version 1.10.0.

size_hint_max_x

When not None, the x-direction maximum size (in pixels, like width) when size_hint_x is also not None.

Similar to size_hint_min_x, except that it sets the maximum width.

size_hint_max_x is a NumericProperty and defaults to None.

New in version 1.10.0.

size_hint_max_y

When not None, the y-direction maximum size (in pixels, like height) when size_hint_y is also not None.

Similar to size_hint_min_y, except that it sets the maximum height.

size_hint_max_y is a NumericProperty and defaults to None.

New in version 1.10.0.

size_hint_min

Minimum size when using size_hint.

size_hint_min is a ReferenceListProperty of (size_hint_min_x, size_hint_min_y) properties.

New in version 1.10.0.

size_hint_min_x

When not None, the x-direction minimum size (in pixels, like width) when size_hint_x is also not None.

When size_hint_x is not None, it is the minimum width that the widget will be set due to the size_hint_x. I.e. when a smaller size would be set, size_hint_min_x is the value used instead for the widget width. When None, or when size_hint_x is None, size_hint_min_x doesn’t do anything.

Only the Layout and Window classes make use of the hint.

size_hint_min_x is a NumericProperty and defaults to None.

New in version 1.10.0.

size_hint_min_y

When not None, the y-direction minimum size (in pixels, like height) when size_hint_y is also not None.

When size_hint_y is not None, it is the minimum height that the widget will be set due to the size_hint_y. I.e. when a smaller size would be set, size_hint_min_y is the value used instead for the widget height. When None, or when size_hint_y is None, size_hint_min_y doesn’t do anything.

Only the Layout and Window classes make use of the hint.

size_hint_min_y is a NumericProperty and defaults to None.

New in version 1.10.0.

size_hint_x

x size hint. Represents how much space the widget should use in the direction of the x axis relative to its parent’s width. Only the Layout and Window classes make use of the hint.

The size_hint is used by layouts for two purposes:

  • When the layout considers widgets on their own rather than in relation to its other children, the size_hint_x is a direct proportion of the parent width, normally between 0.0 and 1.0. For instance, a widget with size_hint_x=0.5 in a vertical BoxLayout will take up half the BoxLayout’s width, or a widget in a FloatLayout with size_hint_x=0.2 will take up 20% of the FloatLayout width. If the size_hint is greater than 1, the widget will be wider than the parent.
  • When multiple widgets can share a row of a layout, such as in a horizontal BoxLayout, their widths will be their size_hint_x as a fraction of the sum of widget size_hints. For instance, if the size_hint_xs are (0.5, 1.0, 0.5), the first widget will have a width of 25% of the parent width.

size_hint_x is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

size_hint_y

y size hint.

size_hint_y is a NumericProperty and defaults to 1.

See size_hint_x for more information, but with widths and heights swapped.

to_local(x, y, relative=False)[source]

Transform parent coordinates to local coordinates. See relativelayout for details on the coordinate systems.

Parameters:
relative: bool, defaults to False

Change to True if you want to translate coordinates to relative widget coordinates.
to_parent(x, y, relative=False)[source]

Transform local coordinates to parent coordinates. See relativelayout for details on the coordinate systems.

Parameters:
relative: bool, defaults to False

Change to True if you want to translate relative positions from a widget to its parent coordinates.
to_widget(x, y, relative=False)[source]

Convert the given coordinate from window to local widget coordinates. See relativelayout for details on the coordinate systems.

to_window(x, y, initial=True, relative=False)[source]

Transform local coordinates to window coordinates. See relativelayout for details on the coordinate systems.

top

Top position of the widget.

top is an AliasProperty of (y + height).

walk(restrict=False, loopback=False)[source]

Iterator that walks the widget tree starting with this widget and goes forward returning widgets in the order in which layouts display them.

Parameters:
restrict: bool, defaults to False

If True, it will only iterate through the widget and its children (or children of its children etc.). Defaults to False.

loopback: bool, defaults to False

If True, when the last widget in the tree is reached, it’ll loop back to the uppermost root and start walking until we hit this widget again. Naturally, it can only loop back when restrict is False. Defaults to False.
Returns:

A generator that walks the tree, returning widgets in the forward layout order.

For example, given a tree with the following structure:

GridLayout:
    Button
    BoxLayout:
        id: box
        Widget
        Button
    Widget

walking this tree:

>>> # Call walk on box with loopback True, and restrict False
>>> [type(widget) for widget in box.walk(loopback=True)]
[<class 'BoxLayout'>, <class 'Widget'>, <class 'Button'>,
    <class 'Widget'>, <class 'GridLayout'>, <class 'Button'>]
>>> # Now with loopback False, and restrict False
>>> [type(widget) for widget in box.walk()]
[<class 'BoxLayout'>, <class 'Widget'>, <class 'Button'>,
    <class 'Widget'>]
>>> # Now with restrict True
>>> [type(widget) for widget in box.walk(restrict=True)]
[<class 'BoxLayout'>, <class 'Widget'>, <class 'Button'>]

New in version 1.9.0.

walk_reverse(loopback=False)[source]

Iterator that walks the widget tree backwards starting with the widget before this, and going backwards returning widgets in the reverse order in which layouts display them.

This walks in the opposite direction of walk(), so a list of the tree generated with walk() will be in reverse order compared to the list generated with this, provided loopback is True.

Parameters:
loopback: bool, defaults to False

If True, when the uppermost root in the tree is reached, it’ll loop back to the last widget and start walking back until after we hit widget again. Defaults to False.
Returns:

A generator that walks the tree, returning widgets in the reverse layout order.

For example, given a tree with the following structure:

GridLayout:
    Button
    BoxLayout:
        id: box
        Widget
        Button
    Widget

walking this tree:

>>> # Call walk on box with loopback True
>>> [type(widget) for widget in box.walk_reverse(loopback=True)]
[<class 'Button'>, <class 'GridLayout'>, <class 'Widget'>,
    <class 'Button'>, <class 'Widget'>, <class 'BoxLayout'>]
>>> # Now with loopback False
>>> [type(widget) for widget in box.walk_reverse()]
[<class 'Button'>, <class 'GridLayout'>]
>>> forward = [w for w in box.walk(loopback=True)]
>>> backward = [w for w in box.walk_reverse(loopback=True)]
>>> forward == backward[::-1]
True

New in version 1.9.0.

width

Width of the widget.

width is a NumericProperty and defaults to 100.

Warning

Keep in mind that the width property is subject to layout logic and that this has not yet happened at the time of the widget’s __init__ method.

x

X position of the widget.

x is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

y

Y position of the widget.

y is a NumericProperty and defaults to 0.

exception kivy.uix.widget.WidgetException[source]

Bases: Exception

Fired when the widget gets an exception.

Appendix

The appendix contains licensing information and an enumeration of all the different modules, classes, functions and variables available in Kivy.

License

Kivy is released and distributed under the terms of the MIT license starting version 1.7.2. Older versions are still under the LGPLv3.

You should have received a copy of the MIT license alongside your Kivy distribution. See the LICENSE file in the Kivy root folder. An online version of the license can be found at:

In a nutshell, the license allows you to use Kivy in your own projects regardless of whether they are open source, closed source, commercial or free. Even if the license doesn’t require it, we would really appreciate when you make changes to the Kivy sourcecode itself, share those changes with us!

For a list of authors, please see the file AUTHORS that accompanies the Kivy source code distribution (next to LICENSE).

Kivy – Copyright 2010-2018, The Kivy Authors.