Python | Working with buttons in Kivy

Last Updated : 18 Jul, 2024

Kivy is a platform-independent GUI tool in Python as it can be run on Android, IOS, Linux Windows, etc. Kivy provides you the functionality to write the code for once and run it on different platforms. It is basically used to develop the Android application, but it does not mean that it can not be used on desktop applications.

Kivy Tutorial - Learn Kivy with Examples.

Now in this article, we will learn how to build a button in Kivy, just like the button we use in calculators and many more places, adding functionality to the button, and styling of the button.
The Button is a Label with associated actions that are triggered when the button is pressed (or released after a click/touch). We can add functions behind the button and style the button.

Basic Approach to follow while creating button :

-> import kivy
-> import kivy App
-> import button
-> set minimum version(optional)
-> Extend the class
-> Add and return a button
-> Run an instance of the class

Code #1: How to create a button in Kivy.

Python3

# import kivy module
import kivy

# this restrict the kivy version i.e
# below this kivy version you cannot
# use the app or software
kivy.require("1.9.1")

# base Class of your App inherits from the App class.
# app:always refers to the instance of your application
from kivy.app import App

# creates the button in kivy
# if not imported shows the error
from kivy.uix.button import Button

# class in which we are creating the button
class ButtonApp(App):
    
    def build(self):
        
        btn = Button(text ="Push Me !")
        return btn

# creating the object root for ButtonApp() class 
root = ButtonApp()

# run function runs the whole program
# i.e run() method which calls the
# target function passed to the constructor.
root.run()

Output:

In the above output, the button will cover the whole window as we have not given any specific size or done any styling in the button so by default it shows button size equal to window size.

Code #2: Styling The Button

Python

def build(self):
        # use a (r, g, b, a) tuple
        btn = Button(text ="Push Me !",
                   font_size ="20sp",
                   background_color =(1, 1, 1, 1),
                   color =(1, 1, 1, 1), 
                   size =(32, 32),
                   size_hint=(None, None),
                   pos =(300, 250))

        return btn

Output:

These are just similar to the HTML, CSS effects. By this, we fix the position of a button at the center of the window, text size, colour and anything you want.

Code #3 Adding Functionality behind the button.

One of the common problems is how to add functionality to the button. So to add functionality we use
bind() function it binds the function to the button. bind() creates an event that is send to callback().
One of the most common problems for new Kivy users is misunderstanding how the bind method works, especially amongst newer Python users who haven’t fully formed their intuition about function calls.
The thing is that the bind method doesn’t know about the existence of a function or its arguments, it only receives the result of this function call. As in the given code when the button is pressed it prints that "button pressed" def in the function callback.
In the given code inside bind() we use on_press because when button press it tells the function that button is pressed then the bind uses its functionality.

Python

# import kivy module
import kivy

# this restrict the kivy version i.e
# below this kivy version you cannot
# use the app or software
kivy.require("1.9.1")

# base Class of your App inherits from the App class.
# app:always refers to the instance of your application
from kivy.app import App

# creates the button in kivy
# if not imported shows the error
from kivy.uix.button import Button

# class in which we are creating the button
class ButtonApp(App):
    
    def build(self):
        # use a (r, g, b, a) tuple
        btn = Button(text ="Push Me !",
                   font_size ="20sp",
                   background_color =(1, 1, 1, 1),
                   color =(1, 1, 1, 1),
                   size =(32, 32),
                   size_hint=(None, None),
                   pos =(300, 250))

        # bind() use to bind the button to function callback
        btn.bind(on_press = self.callback)
        return btn

    # callback function tells when button pressed
    def callback(self, event):
        print("button pressed")
        print('Yoooo !!!!!!!!!!!')
        

# creating the object root for ButtonApp() class 
root = ButtonApp()

# run function runs the whole program
# i.e run() method which calls the target
# function passed to the constructor.
root.run()

Output:

Video output:

Button using KivyMD:

KivyMD is an extension of the Kivy framework. KivyMD is a collection of Material Design widgets for use with Kivy, a GUI framework for making mobile applications.

Below is an example of MDRectangularFlatButton

MDRectangleFlatButton has the following parameters:

text- the text we want to put on the button
pos_hint- a dictionary having the position with respect to x-axis and y-axis
on_release- it is a function that has the properties that we want to call on clicking the button

Python

from kivymd.app import MDApp
from kivymd.uix.screen import Screen
from kivymd.uix.button import MDRectangleFlatButton

class Demo(MDApp):

    def build(self):
        screen = Screen()
        
        btn= MDRectangleFlatButton(text="Submit",pos_hint={'center_x':0.5,'center_y':0.3},on_release=self.btnfunc)
           screen.add_widget(btn) 
        # adding widgets to screen
    
        return screen
    def btnfunc(self,obj):
        print("button is pressed!!")
   
if __name__=="__main__":
    Demo().run()