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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.