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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.

Please note that no underscores (_) are allowed in the section name.

Usage of the Config object

To read a configuration token from a particular section:

>>> 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.

Changing configuration with environment variables

Since 1.11.0, it is now possible to change the configuration using environment variables. They take precedence on the loaded config.ini. The format is:

KCFG_<section>_<key> = <value>

For example:

KCFG_GRAPHICS_FULLSCREEN=auto … KCFG_KIVY_LOG_LEVEL=warning …

Or in your file before any kivy import:

import os os.environ[“KCFG_KIVY_LOG_LEVEL”] = “warning”

If you don’t want to map any environment variables, you can disable the behavior:

os.environ["KIVY_NO_ENV_CONFIG"] = "1"

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:

# 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.