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Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

kivy.org

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Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#21

Post by Apocryphon »

inclemnet wrote: post #14
Apocryphon wrote: post #3

It's quite fascinating to read about mobile crossplatform projects beyond React Native/Flutter/Xamarin and the old Cordova/PhoneGap and Appcelerator Titanium efforts. There's a surprising amount of them out there- Kivy isn't even the only one in Python, there's also Beeware ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaPzlIJ57dk ) and PyMob. The question is, who actually uses these projects? The people developing them? Hobbyis…

> The question is, who actually uses these projects? The people developing them? Hobbyists? Language diehards? This is an interesting question, and one that (as Kivy developers) we wonder about ourselves. Others may have different perspectives, but mine is: * Kivy is very much community built and community driven, it has no serious financial backing (though we are grateful for the donations we do get!) and a fairly s…

Very comprehensive answer, thank you! I'm glad to hear that Kivy has larger aspirations than simply being a mobile focused cross-platform solution, and that it's got enough of a community to sustain its efforts. Cool also that it's able to leverage Python tools that the native mobile apps aren't able to hook into. It sounds like Kivy does have a small community of avid Pythonistas.

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#22

Post by inclemnet »

solarkraft wrote: post #16

I really like the Kivy project's goals and the demos I saw were super fast and nice. But when I had a look at actually building something with it I discovered that the default UI is completely raster based, which is just a weird deal breaker.

If there was one thing I could wish to be revamped about Kivy it's the default widgets. There's a core of good ones, especially those that are most commonly used, but quite a few make bad design decisions like an over-reliance on images for styling. This is often much easier to work around than is probably obvious and maybe that's part of the problem, more experienced developers likely habitually sidestep the parts that don't work well. But on the other hand, it's quite a bit of work to revamp them (including documentation and dealing somehow with breaking changes it would introduce), unfortunately that has kept us from seriously addressing it so far.

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#23

Post by tartakovsky »

inclemnet wrote: post #11
tartakovsky wrote: post #7

So, I’m not sure whether the website was made using the product, but the homepage renders overlapping text on Chrome for IPhone 11 with IOS 14

As has already been said, Kivy isn't a web framework, but we're well aware the website isn't great. Unfortunately it hasn't had much love for a long time, especially as it's quite a task to seriously change it and we're both under-resourced and Python-oriented. We've been talking about various options for a long time. It's possible we might make some moves now as Kivy 2.0 was just recently released, which was a major…

Thanks for clarifying. Good to understand I’ll take a closer look at Kivy 2.0.

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#25

Post by hardwaresofton »

Apocryphon wrote: post #3

It's quite fascinating to read about mobile crossplatform projects beyond React Native/Flutter/Xamarin and the old Cordova/PhoneGap and Appcelerator Titanium efforts. There's a surprising amount of them out there- Kivy isn't even the only one in Python, there's also Beeware ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaPzlIJ57dk ) and PyMob. The question is, who actually uses these projects? The people developing them? Hobbyis…

Nativescript is fantastic -- I maintain that it's better than React Native because React Native lacks a native JS->platform translation layer and React-land is crazy sauce, and can't really be compared with Flutter (because of how Flutter works), but I still think it's better there even because I'd pick Typescript over Dart, and I don't have to commit so hard to the ecosystem.

I've used Nativescript in production and it was wonderfully productive. I think it's biggest weak point is suffering from lack of recent support/ecosystem that hype usually brings.

The ability to use your frontend framework of choice (Angular, Vue, Svelte, Vanilla JS) is awesome, and I think can be incredibly productive for businesses (turn your frontend devs into mobile devs).

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#26

Post by tobijkl »

I love the idea of Kivy, an open-source, community-driven, cross-platform framework, but flutter delivers much nicer mobile apps, and QT a far better desktop apps. I do not think that I have ever used a cross-platform app that works as well on desktop as on mobile.

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#27

Post by mixmastamyk »

mzakharo1 wrote: post #5
mixmastamyk wrote: post #2

Kivy is awesome considering what it,s trying to do. As ambitious as flutter but without corporate support. Unfortunately the project is quite under-resourced, can anyone help? For example, stick to the basics and it works well. But do something off the beaten track like write a background service for Android and hit a bug and you're completely on your own, even if you offer to pay a core dev. I once hit another bug w…

What problems did you have with android services? Have been using them without issues (sticky services work well enough), and with python machine learning/scikit-learn, scipy,numpy, pandas, opencv this framework is one of a kind for rapid moibile development if you are doing any kind of edge data processing.

Giant tracebacks that no one could help with. I'll try again soon with 2.0.

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#28

Post by craftinator »

Apocryphon wrote: post #3

It's quite fascinating to read about mobile crossplatform projects beyond React Native/Flutter/Xamarin and the old Cordova/PhoneGap and Appcelerator Titanium efforts. There's a surprising amount of them out there- Kivy isn't even the only one in Python, there's also Beeware ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaPzlIJ57dk ) and PyMob. The question is, who actually uses these projects? The people developing them? Hobbyis…

I've been using Kivy for internal business programs for 2 years. There are some quirks and limitations, but IMO no more than you get with any other mobile stack. The big differences are that it bundles python packages with it, meaning you have access to hundreds of thousands of libraries via pip, and the design and iteration time are ridiculously low.

The downsides of Kivy are also the downsides of python; there is almost no design enforcement, no typing; if you want to do something stupid and dangerous, you're free to do so with no warnings, and you may not know it's stupid and dangerous. These are usually made up for by the large amount of time you'll have for testing, since you won't spend all the time you normally would fighting the IDE, toolchain, compiler, etc.

The part I like most about Kivy is that it's cross platform, android, ios, windows, Linux, mac, with almost no changes other than OS semantics like paths. I've built 5 large projects this year with it, mostly for custom CNC and motion control applications.

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#29

Post by Apocryphon »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #25
Apocryphon wrote: post #3

It's quite fascinating to read about mobile crossplatform projects beyond React Native/Flutter/Xamarin and the old Cordova/PhoneGap and Appcelerator Titanium efforts. There's a surprising amount of them out there- Kivy isn't even the only one in Python, there's also Beeware ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaPzlIJ57dk ) and PyMob. The question is, who actually uses these projects? The people developing them? Hobbyis…

Nativescript is fantastic -- I maintain that it's better than React Native because React Native lacks a native JS->platform translation layer and React-land is crazy sauce, and can't really be compared with Flutter (because of how Flutter works), but I still think it's better there even because I'd pick Typescript over Dart, and I don't have to commit so hard to the ecosystem. I've used Nativescript in production and…

Progress is no Facebook/Google/Microsoft, but it's good that there's someone actively working on the framework. Shame they haven't tried to market NativeScript as an alternative to React Native.

At least it's better known that other random enterprise cross-platform solutions that seem to exist only on SEO-optimized listicles of cross-platform solutions such as Codename One, RhoMobile, Kony, Framework7, - e.g. https://www.way2smile.ae/blog/cross-platform-mobile-app-deve... (Again, what companies are actually building apps with these things?)

Re: Kivy: Cross-Platform Python Framework for UI Development

#30

Post by FreezerburnV »

Apocryphon wrote: post #29
hardwaresofton wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nativescript is fantastic -- I maintain that it's better than React Native because React Native lacks a native JS->platform translation layer and React-land is crazy sauce, and can't really be compared with Flutter (because of how Flutter works), but I still think it's better there even because I'd pick Typescript over Dart, and I don't have to commit so hard to the ecosystem. I've used Nativescript in production and…

Progress is no Facebook/Google/Microsoft, but it's good that there's someone actively working on the framework. Shame they haven't tried to market NativeScript as an alternative to React Native. At least it's better known that other random enterprise cross-platform solutions that seem to exist only on SEO-optimized listicles of cross-platform solutions such as Codename One, RhoMobile, Kony, Framework7, - e.g. https:/…

Hm, CodenameOne is actually something I was planning on making use of at some point in the future. I’m (solo) working on a Swing app that I want to bring to mobile, so it seemed like a good fit to convert to it or write a branch that used it. Is it actually a dumpster fire to be wary of?
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