Develop Reference

How to get input box content in kivy application

I'm writing a kivy app that lets the user enter and store content, but I've searched the web and can't find a solution
This is the python program
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.graphics import Line, Color
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
from kivy.properties import ObjectProperty
from kivy.config import Config
Config.set('graphics', 'resizable', False)
from kivy.core.window import Window
Window.size = (450, 800)
class DrawCanvasWidget(Widget):
def __init__(self,**kwargs):
super().__init__(**kwargs)
class PaintApp(App):
def build(self):
self.draw_canvas_widget = DrawCanvasWidget()
return self.draw_canvas_widget # 返回root控件
if __name__ == "__main__":
PaintApp().run()
This is the kv program
<DrawCanvasWidget>
orientation: "vertical"
canvas.before:
Color:
rgba: [1,1,1,1]
Rectangle:
pos: self.pos
size: self.size
TextInput:
multiline:False
font_size:20
pos:75,450
size:300,40
allow_copy:False
cursor_color:[0,1,0,1]
Button:
text:'ok'
bold:10
size_hint:None,None
size:100,50
pos:180,380
I want to let the user save the content of the input box after pressing the button

This is the basic idea. Create a function in the draw canvas widget and pass the text of the text input by using the id tag.
<DrawCanvasWidget>
orientation: "vertical"
canvas.before:
Color:
rgba: [1,1,1,1]
Rectangle:
pos: self.pos
size: self.size
TextInput:
id: text_input
multiline:False
font_size:20
pos:75,450
size:300,40
allow_copy:False
cursor_color:[0,1,0,1]
Button:
text:'ok'
bold:10
size_hint:None,None
size:100,50
pos:180,380
on_release: root.submit(text_input.text)
class DrawCanvasWidget(Widget):
def __init__(self,**kwargs):
super().__init__(**kwargs)
def submit(self, text_input):
print(text_input)
# Should print whatever is in the textinput to the terminal
# Here you can save it to your database or do anything with the input.

Kivy - how do I figure out the path to Widget in .kv file

in my python code I was able to draw a line in the Widget defined in the .kv file, by using self.canvas.before.
Then, in .kv, I moved the Widget inside the TabbedPanelItem and it does not work correctly anymore.
self.canvas.before is not the correct path, what should I use instead? What is the correct path?
In general, how do I figure out the hierarchy? Those object in .kv file are created by the builder (if my understanding is correct), how do I figure out how to bind the python code to the object created by the builder.
Thank you for any help.
main.py:
class SampBoxLayout(BoxLayout):
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
super(SampBoxLayout, self).__init__(**kwargs)
with self.canvas.before:
self.myline=Line(points=(100,100,400,500), close=False, width=2)
main.kv
SampBoxLayout:
<SampBoxLayout>:
orientation: "vertical"
padding: 0
spacing: 0
TabbedPanel:
do_default_tab: False
TabbedPanelItem:
text: "noc_clk"
BoxLayout:
orientation: "vertical"
Widget:
height: "440dp"
size_hint_y: None
canvas:
Color:
rgba: 0, 0, 0, 0.5
TabbedPanel:
do_default_tab: False
TabbedPanelItem:
text: "Node0"
BoxLayout:
orientation: "horizontal"

Actually, your app still works correctly even after adding a kv file. The line is being drawn on the canvas of SampBoxLayout, but it is not visible because each widget has an opacity of 1.0 i.e. not transparent. The example below, to show the line drawn, I added opacity = 0.5 under TabbedPanel.
Hierarchy / Path
Kv language » Rule context
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
Value Expressions, on_property Expressions, ids, and 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
Binding Python code to object created in kv file
Method 1
Declare an ObjectProperty at class level and hook it up to the id of the object created in kv file. This is the best practice method.
main.py
from kivy.properties import ObjectProperty
class SampBoxLayout(BoxLayout):
tp = ObjectProperty(None)
main.kv
<SampBoxLayout>:
tp: tp
orientation: "vertical"
padding: 0
spacing: 0
TabbedPanel:
id: tp
opacity: 0.5
Method 2
Adding id to the object created in kv file and using self.ids.id-name or self.ids['id-name']
Best Practice & Speed
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.
Example
main.py
from kivy.base import runTouchApp
from kivy.uix.boxlayout import BoxLayout
from kivy.graphics import Line
from kivy.lang import Builder
class SampBoxLayout(BoxLayout):
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
super(SampBoxLayout, self).__init__(**kwargs)
with self.canvas.before:
self.myline=Line(points=(100, 100, 400, 500), close=False, width=2)
if __name__ == "__main__":
runTouchApp(Builder.load_file('main.kv'))
main.kv
SampBoxLayout:
<SampBoxLayout>:
orientation: "vertical"
padding: 0
spacing: 0
TabbedPanel:
opacity: 0.5
do_default_tab: False
TabbedPanelItem:
text: "noc_clk"
BoxLayout:
orientation: "vertical"
Widget:
height: "440dp"
size_hint_y: None
canvas:
Color:
rgba: 0, 0, 0, 0.5
TabbedPanel:
do_default_tab: False
TabbedPanelItem:
text: "Node0"
BoxLayout:
orientation: "horizontal"
Output

How to Periodically Update Parent (Screen) Class UI from Child (BoxLayout) Class (Python with Kivy)

Goal:
Periodic update of parent (screen) class / UI from child (boxlayout) class. Theconf2.dat is occasionally updated (from various other screens), and I want the UI to update every 5 seconds or so by re-running this class.
Latest code update:
In the __init__ function, I have Clock.schedule_interval(self.create_button, 1), which should cause the create_button function to rerun every second.
At the top of the create_button function, I have self.box_share.clear_widgets(), which should clear all the widgets so they can be repopulated (per the instructions outlined further down the create_button function).
Action:
I run the code
I navigate to NoTags screen by clicking the button with text title 'updating sequence'
I make changes to buttons that were dynamically created under scrollview by clicking on them. They successfully change color. This information is written to the conf2.dat file.
I navigate to SequenceScreen screen by first clicking 'home' button, then clicking 'sequence display' button. This SequenceScreen screen is the screen I wish to have updated to reflect the changes made to conf2.dat file.
Result:
UI associated withSequenceScreen(Screen) class still does not update per changes made from UI associated with NoTags(Screen) class.
However, when I restart the app altogether, I find the SequenceScreen UI successfully updated.
Suspicion:
I'm just one line of code away from getting this UI to update properly.
Python Code:
from kivy.app import App
# kivy.require("1.10.0")
from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.uix.screenmanager import ScreenManager, Screen, FadeTransition
from kivy.uix.textinput import TextInput
from kivy.uix.gridlayout import GridLayout
from kivy.uix.boxlayout import BoxLayout
from kivy.uix.button import Button
from kivy.uix.label import Label
from kivy.properties import NumericProperty
from kivy.clock import Clock
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
from kivy.uix.scrollview import ScrollView
#from kivy.base import runTouchApp
from kivy.properties import StringProperty, ObjectProperty, NumericProperty
from kivy.storage.dictstore import DictStore
import pickle
import datetime, threading
import time
from kivy.clock import mainthread
class BackHomeWidget(Widget):
pass
class SequenceBoxLayout_NoEdits(BoxLayout):
box_share = ObjectProperty()
config_file = DictStore('conf2.dat')
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
super(SequenceBoxLayout_NoEdits, self).__init__(**kwargs)
self.orientation = "vertical"
Clock.schedule_interval(self.create_button, 1)
def create_button(self, *args):
self.box_share.clear_widgets()
top_button_share = 1.1
color = (.4, .4, .4, 1)
for i in range(25):
top_button_share -= .4
id_ = "part" + str(i + 1)
if self.config_file.exists(id_):
btn_color = self.config_file[id_]["background_color"]
else:
self.config_file.put(id_, background_color=color)
btn_color = color
button_share = Button(background_normal='',
background_color=btn_color,
id=id_,
pos_hint={"x": 0, "top": top_button_share},
size_hint_y=None,
height=60,
font_size = 30,
text= str(i+1)
self.box_share.add_widget(button_share)
#Clock.schedule_interval(self.parent.ids.updatedisplay.create_button(self, *args) , 1)
#self.parent.ids.updatedisplay.create_button(self, *args)
class SequenceBoxLayout_NoTag(BoxLayout):
box_share = ObjectProperty()
config_file = DictStore('conf2.dat')
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
super(SequenceBoxLayout_NoTag, self).__init__(**kwargs)
self.orientation = "vertical"
Clock.schedule_once(self.create_button)
def create_button(self, *args):
df = pd.read_excel("Test.xlsx","Sheet1")
parts = df['parts'].values.tolist()
top_button_share = 1.1
color = (.4, .4, .4, 1)
for i in range(len(parts)):
top_button_share -= .4
id_ = "part" + str(i + 1)
if self.config_file.exists(id_):
btn_color = self.config_file[id_]["background_color"]
else:
self.config_file.put(id_, background_color=color)
btn_color = color
button_share = Button(background_normal='',
background_color=btn_color,
id=id_,
pos_hint={"x": 0, "top": top_button_share},
size_hint_y=None,
height=60,
font_size = 30,
text= str(i+1)+ ". " + str(parts[i]))
if self.parent.name == 'notags':
button_share.bind(on_press=self.update_buttons_notag)
self.box_share.add_widget(button_share)
def update_buttons_notag(self, button):
button.background_color = 0.86,0.54,0.04,1
self.config_file.put(button.id, background_color=(0.86,0.54,0.04,1))
class MainScreen(Screen):
pass
class AnotherScreen(Screen):
pass
class SequenceScreen(Screen):
pass
class NoTags(Screen):
pass
class ScreenManagement(ScreenManager):
pass
presentation = Builder.load_file("updatelistexample.kv")
class MainApp(App):
def build(self):
return presentation
if __name__ == "__main__":
MainApp().run()
KV Code:
#: import FadeTransition kivy.uix.screenmanager.FadeTransition
ScreenManagement:
transition: FadeTransition()
MainScreen:
AnotherScreen:
NoTags:
SequenceScreen:
<SmallNavButton#Button>:
font_size: 32
size: 125, 50
color: 0,1,0,1
<BigButton#Button>:
font_size: 40
size_hint: 0.5, 0.15
color: 0,1,0,1
<BackHomeWidget>:
SmallNavButton:
on_release: app.root.current = "main"
text: "Home"
pos: root.x, root.top - self.height
<MainScreen>:
name: "main"
FloatLayout:
BigButton:
on_release: app.root.current = "notags"
text: "updating sequence"
pos_hint: {"x":0.25, "top": 0.4}
BigButton:
on_release: app.root.current = "sequence"
text: "sequence display"
pos_hint: {"x":0.25, "top": 0.7}
<AnotherScreen>:
name: "newgarage"
<NoTags>:
name: "notags"
SequenceBoxLayout_NoTag:
BackHomeWidget:
FloatLayout:
BigButton:
text: "Select Parts w/o Tags"
pos_hint: {"x":0.5, "top": 0.6}
background_normal: ''
background_color: (0.4,0.4,0.4,1)
<SequenceBoxLayout_NoEdits>:
box_share: box_share
ScrollView:
GridLayout:
id: box_share
cols: 1
size_hint_y: None
size_hint_x: 0.5
spacing: 5
padding: 130
height: self.minimum_height
canvas:
Color:
rgb: 0, 0, 0
Rectangle:
pos: self.pos
size: self.size
<SequenceBoxLayout_NoTag>:
box_share: box_share
ScrollView:
GridLayout:
id: box_share
cols: 1
size_hint_y: None
size_hint_x: 0.5
spacing: 5
padding: 130
height: self.minimum_height
canvas:
Color:
rgb: 0, 0, 0
Rectangle:
pos: self.pos
size: self.size
<SequenceScreen>:
name: "sequence"
SequenceBoxLayout_NoEdits:
id: updatedisplay
BackHomeWidget:

Credit:
Based on advice provided by #Tshirtman in the comments thread of the posted question...
Summary:
The problem with the code had to do with the fact that I had two different DictStore pointing to the same file, which was tripping up the communication between both classes.
The solution was to instead use only one DictStore and define that variable in the App class, then reference that particular variable in the child classes [using App.get_running_app()], like so:
Define config_file in App class:
class MainApp(App):
config_file = DictStore('conf2.dat')
def build(self):
return presentation
Reference App variable in child classes:
class SequenceBoxLayout_NoEdits(BoxLayout):
...
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
super(SequenceBoxLayout_NoEdits, self).__init__(**kwargs)
self.orientation = "vertical"
Clock.schedule_interval(self.create_button, 1)
def create_button(self, *args):
self.box_share.clear_widgets()
app = App.get_running_app()
...
for i in range(len(parts)):
...
if app.config_file.exists(id_):
btn_color = app.config_file[id_]["background_color"]
else:
app.config_file.put(id_, background_color=color)
...
...
class SequenceBoxLayout_NoTag(BoxLayout):
...
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
super(SequenceBoxLayout_NoTag, self).__init__(**kwargs)
self.orientation = "vertical"
Clock.schedule_once(self.create_button)
def create_button(self, *args):
...
app = App.get_running_app()
...
for i in range(len(parts)):
...
if app.config_file.exists(id_):
btn_color = app.config_file[id_]["background_color"]
else:
app.config_file.put(id_, background_color=color)
...
...
def update_buttons_notag(self, button):
app = App.get_running_app()
...
app.config_file.put(button.id, background_color=(0.86,0.54,0.04,1))

Clock has a schedule_interval method, which works much like the schedule_once one, but will be called every n seconds instead of just once after n seconds.
So you could certainly just change that call in __init__ and start the create_button by calling self.box_share.clear_widgets() to remove widgets from the previous call before re-creating them.
This might be a bit wasteful, if you find yourself recreating a lot of widgets even if nothing changed, so you could add some logic to first check if the data didn't change, or even if it did, just reuse the old buttons if possible.
box = self.box_share
old_buttons = box.children[:]
box.clear_widgets()
# [your logic about computing the list of parts]
for i, p in enumerate(parts): # this is much better than doing range(len(parts))
# [the logic to get the content of the button]
if old_buttons: # check there are still buttons in the list of old buttons
btn = old_buttons.pop()
else:
btn = Button(
background_normal='',
background_color=btn_color,
pos_hint={"x": 0, "top": top_button_share},
# etc, all the things that are common to all your buttons
# but really, hardcoding them like this is a bit painful,
# you should use a subclass of button so you can style it
# in a kv rule so it would apply to all of them directly
)
btn.id=id_
btn.text = "{}. {}".format(i+1, p)
btn.pos_hint["top"] = top_button_share
# re-apply any other property that might have changed for this part
box.add_widget(btn)
But this logic is quite a common one, actually, and there are other things you can do to improve things in even more situations, though that's quite some work.
Thankfully, you are not the first one to need such thing, and we have been blessed with the wonderful RecycleView, which automates all of this and more, you just need to feed it a data directory, and it'll create the necessary widgets to fill the visible part of the scrollview if there is enough widgets to warrant scrolling, and automatically update when data changes, and when you scroll to see different parts of the list. I encourage you to check it, yourself. but the end result would certainly be something like.
<PartButton#Button>:
id_: None
part: ''
text: '{}. {}'.format(self.id, self.part)
<SequencedBoxLayout#Recycleview>:
parts: self.get_parts()
viewclass: 'PartButton'
data:
[
{
id_: i,
part: part
} for i, p in enumerate(self.parts or [])
]
RecycleBoxLayout:

Read the text from Textinput dynamically when text changed in text box?

I'm new to kivy , I'm trying to write an application using kivy in python, I got struck at one point where i have to read text from textinput whenever it is changed and based on that i want to implement my button's functionality - I have gone through all the documentation but i couldn't figure out how to do it - Can any body tell me how can I resolve this or am I missing something?
from __future__ import print_function
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.uix.boxlayout import BoxLayout
from kivy.core.image import Image
from kivy.uix.floatlayout import FloatLayout
from kivy.graphics import *
from kivy.uix.anchorlayout import AnchorLayout
from kivy.uix.button import Button
from kivy.uix.label import Label
from kivy.uix.textinput import TextInput
from kivy.uix.popup import Popup
from kivy.properties import ObjectProperty
import walascan
from kivy.clock import Clock
import os
kv = """
<KartScan>:
IntroScreen:
<IntroScreen#Screen>:
orientation: 'horizontal'
name: 'introscreen'
canvas.before:
Rectangle:
pos: self.pos
size: self.size
source: 'index.png'
AnchorLayout:
anchor_x: 'center'
anchor_y: 'center'
BoxLayout:
orientation:'horizontal'
size_hint: .5, .1
canvas:
Color:
rgb: 1, 1, 1
Rectangle:
pos: self.pos
size: self.size
spacing: 20
pos_hint: {'center_x':.8, 'center_y': .8}
AnchorLayout:
anchor_x: 'left'
size_hint_x: .5
TextInput:
id: waybill
width: 20
text: "Enter Waybill No."
multiline: False
height: self.minimum_height
size_hint_y: None
font_size: 30
focus: True
on_text_validate: app.on_waybill()
AnchorLayout:
anchor_x: 'right'
size_hint_x: None
Button:
size_hint: None, None
height: 50
width: self.texture_size[0]
padding: 10, 10
text: "Add"
on_press:app.buttonClicked()
on_release: root.current = 'mainpage'
AnchorLayout:
anchor_x: 'right'
size_hint_x: None
Button:
size_hint: None, None
height: 50
width: self.texture_size[0]
padding: 10, 10
text: "Compare"
on_press:app.buttonClicked()
on_release: root.current = 'mainpage'
"""
Builder.load_string(kv)
waybill = TextInput(text="Enter Waybill No.", multiline=False)
class KartScan(FloatLayout):
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
super(KartScan, self).__init__(**kwargs)
self.register_event_type('on_text_validate')
def on_text(self, *args):
print('new value is ', waybill.text)
def on_text_validate(self):
pass
def on_focus(self, obj, focused):
if not focused:
self.dispatch('on_text_validate')
class KartScanApp(App):
def build(self):
return KartScan()
def buttonClicked(self):
popup = Popup(title='Result',
content=Label(text=self.on_waybill()),
size_hint=(None, None), size=(100, 100))
popup.bind()
popup.open()
def getwlbtstate(self):
return walascan.mainAntennas()
def on_waybill(self):
waybill.bind(text=KartScan.on_text_validate)
# popup = Popup(title='Result',
# content=Label(text=waybill.text),
# size_hint=(None, None), size=(100, 100))
# popup.bind()
# popup.open()
return waybill.text
if __name__ == '__main__':
KartScanApp().run()

kv file
TextInput:
on_text: print(self.text)
You could use on_text to call a function when the text changes. I think it sometimes even triggers when no change has occured.

TextInput has a text property, and in kivy, all properties have associated on_xxx events, that you can bind to to react to them, so when reading the doc, even if it's not explicitly mentionned for them, everytime you see something is defined as a Property (or any subclass of it, like StringPropertyNumericProperty,ObjectProperty,AliasProperty`).
TextInput:
on_text: do_something(self.text)
or in python
t = TextInput(text='', on_text=do_something)
or
t = TextInput(text='')
t.bind(on_text=do_something)

Kivy: Modifying a child widget of another separate class

im currently looking into kivy to start with crossplatform development. i have a bit of python experience (but basic) and now wanted to code a little game in kivy to get into. i probably wont finish this but i like learning stuff while doing it with something im intrested in.
Anyway my "App" is supposed to be seperated in two seperate "screens" the top one is only used for displaying stuff and the all interactive stuff is controlled from the bottom "screen".
Now i want to display some text in old school way by getting it written letter by letter to the screen.
This is working fine but for some reason the Label widget is only updated on screen if i call the "print_something" function from the top screen, if i call it from the bottom screen the function is indeed called but the Label widget wont change on screen.
Am i doing something wrong?
Here is a stripped version of the code:
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.properties import ObjectProperty
from kivy.core.window import Window
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
from kivy.clock import Clock
Builder.load_string('''
<MainUI>:
orientation: 'vertical'
# 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.
<Screen1>:
print_txt: print_txt
layout: layout
RelativeLayout:
id: layout
pos: 0, 400
size: 480, 400
Button:
pos: 0, 200
size_hint: (1, 0.2)
text: "Test Print"
on_press: root.print_something('TEST PRINT FROM SCREEN1')
AnchorLayout:
anchor_x: 'center'
anchor_y: 'bottom'
Label:
id: print_txt
padding_x: 10
markup: True
text_size: self.size
halign: 'left'
valign: 'top'
size_hint: (1, 0.2)
text: ""
<Screen2>:
btn1: btn1
RelativeLayout:
pos: 0, 0
size: 480, 400
Button:
id: btn1
pos_hint: {'x': .15, 'center_y': .5}
size_hint: (0.7, 0.5)
text: "Test Print"
on_press: root.print_text()
''')
class Screen1(Widget):
print_txt = ObjectProperty(None)
layout = ObjectProperty(None)
def print_something(self, string):
print 'Function called...'
self.print_txt.text = ''
counter = [0]
string_len = len(string)
def print_step(dt):
if counter[0] == string_len:
return False
else:
self.print_txt.text += string[counter[0]]
counter[0] = counter[0] + 1
Clock.schedule_interval(print_step, 2.0/60.0)
print 'Function End..'
class Screen2(Widget):
btn1 = ObjectProperty(None)
def __init__(self):
super(Screen2, self).__init__()
def print_text(self):
print 'Trying to print Text from Screen2 to Screen1'
target = Screen1()
target.print_something('TEST PRINT FROM SCREEN2')
class MainUI(Widget):
def __init__(self):
super(MainUI, self).__init__()
self.screen1 = Screen1()
self.add_widget(self.screen1)
self.add_widget(Screen2())
class MainApp(App):
def build(self):
Window.size = (480, 800)
return MainUI()
if __name__ == '__main__':
MainApp().run()

Your Screen2 print_text method creates a new Screen1 instance, which is modified but not displayed anywhere so you don't see anything change.
You could change the call to instead something like
on_press: root.parent.screen1.print_text()
...to access the print_text function of the Screen1 instance that you actually want to update.