Disable kivy button using .kv file

Last Updated : 12 Jul, 2025

In this article, we will learn how to disable a button in kivy using .kv file, there are some places where we need to disable the buttons. Let's see how to do that.

Kivy Tutorial – Learn Kivy with Examples.

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.But to disable the button we have a property name :

disabled that must be true

this property will help in disabling the button i.e. button will be there but is of no use as it is disabled no functionality of button will work. In this article we have used Relative Layout to set the position of both working and disabled button relative.

Note: disabled property was introduced in version 1.8.0. If you want to use it you need to actualize your framework.

Basic Approach to disable a button

1) import kivy
2) import kivyApp
3) import Widget
4) import Button
5) Set minimum version(optional)
6) Create widget class:
          1) Arrange a callback
          2) Define Callback function
7) create App class
8) create .kv file (name same as the app class):
        1) create Widget
        2) Create Button
        3) Specify requirements
        4) Disable button true if required
9) return Layout/widget/Class(according to requirement)
10) Run an instance of the class

Code to implement the Approach to disable button

Python3

## Sample Python application demonstrating the 
## How to disable button in Kivy using .kv file 

################################################### 
# import modules 

import kivy 

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

# This layout allows you to set relative coordinates for children. 
from kivy.uix.relativelayout import RelativeLayout 

# To change the kivy default settings 
# we use this module config 
from kivy.config import Config 
    
# 0 being off 1 being on as in true / false 
# you can use 0 or 1 && True or False 
Config.set('graphics', 'resizable', True) 


# creating the root widget used in .kv file 
class RelativeLayout(RelativeLayout): 
    pass

# creating the App class in which name 
#.kv file is to be named Btn.kv 
class BtnApp(App): 
    # defining build() 
    def build(self): 
        # returning the instance of root class 
        return RelativeLayout() 

# run the app 
if __name__ == "__main__": 
    BtnApp().run()

.kv file implementation of the approach

Python3

#.kv file implementation of RelativeLayout 

<RelativeLayout>: 

    # creating the Disabled button 
    Button: 
        
        text:"B1"

        background_color: 0.1, 0.5, 0.6, 1
    
        # positioned at 0 % in x axis and 0 % in y axis 
        # from bottom left, i.e x, y = 0, 0 from bottom left: 
        pos_hint: {"x":0.2, "y":.4}
        size_hint: 0.3, 0.2

        # Disabling button
        disabled: True

        # working button
    Button: 
        text:"B2"
        background_color: 1, 0, 0, 1
        pos_hint: {"x":.6, "y":.4}
        size_hint: 0.3, 0.2