Build A Controlled Clock in Animejs | Controlled Clock In Anime.js with Source Code

In this video, we build a controlled clock in animeJs the anime clock default set on current time but you can control each parameter of the clock and increment or decrement the clock hours, minutes, seconds.

AnimeJs Examples: https://codepen.io/collection/XLebem/

#animejs #programming

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Buddha Community

How to Use Hotwire Rails

Introduction

We are back with another exciting and much-talked-about Rails tutorial on how to use Hotwire with the Rails application. This Hotwire Rails tutorial is an alternate method for building modern web applications that consume a pinch of JavaScript.

Rails 7 Hotwire is the default front-end framework shipped with Rails 7 after it was launched. It is used to represent HTML over the wire in the Rails application. Previously, we used to add a hotwire-rails gem in our gem file and then run rails hotwire: install. However, with the introduction of Rails 7, the gem got deprecated. Now, we use turbo-rails and stimulus rails directly, which work as Hotwire’s SPA-like page accelerator and Hotwire’s modest JavaScript framework.

What is Hotwire?

Hotwire is a package of different frameworks that help to build applications. It simplifies the developer’s work for writing web pages without the need to write JavaScript, and instead sending HTML code over the wire.

Introduction to The Hotwire Framework:

1. Turbo:

It uses simplified techniques to build web applications while decreasing the usage of JavaScript in the application. Turbo offers numerous handling methods for the HTML data sent over the wire and displaying the application’s data without actually loading the entire page. It helps to maintain the simplicity of web applications without destroying the single-page application experience by using the below techniques:

Turbo Frames: Turbo Frames help to load the different sections of our markup without any dependency as it divides the page into different contexts separately called frames and updates these frames individually.
Turbo Drive: Every link doesn’t have to make the entire page reload when clicked. Only the HTML contained within the tag will be displayed.
Turbo Streams: To add real-time features to the application, this technique is used. It helps to bring real-time data to the application using CRUD actions.

2. Stimulus

It represents the JavaScript framework, which is required when JS is a requirement in the application. The interaction with the HTML is possible with the help of a stimulus, as the controllers that help those interactions are written by a stimulus.

3. Strada

Not much information is available about Strada as it has not been officially released yet. However, it works with native applications, and by using HTML bridge attributes, interaction is made possible between web applications and native apps.

Simple diagrammatic representation of Hotwire Stack:

Prerequisites For Hotwire Rails Tutorial

As we are implementing the Ruby on Rails Hotwire tutorial, make sure about the following installations before you can get started.

• Ruby on Rails
• Hotwire gem
• PostgreSQL/SQLite (choose any one database)
• Turbo Rails
• Stimulus.js

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Contact Bacancy today and hire Ruby developers to start building your dream project!

Create a new Rails Project

Find the following commands to create a rails application.

mkdir ~/projects/railshotwire
cd ~/projects/railshotwire
echo "source 'https://rubygems.org'" > Gemfile
echo "gem 'rails', '~> 7.0.0'" >> Gemfile
bundle install  
bundle exec rails new . --force -d=postgresql

Now create some files for the project, up till now no usage of Rails Hotwire can be seen.
Fire the following command in your terminal.

• For creating a default controller for the application

echo "class HomeController < ApplicationController" > app/controllers/home_controller.rb
echo "end" >> app/controllers/home_controller.rb

• For creating another controller for the application

echo "class OtherController < ApplicationController" > app/controllers/other_controller.rb
echo "end" >> app/controllers/home_controller.rb

• For creating routes for the application

echo "Rails.application.routes.draw do" > config/routes.rb
echo '  get "home/index"' >> config/routes.rb
echo '  get "other/index"' >> config/routes.rb
echo '  root to: "home#index"' >> config/routes.rb
echo 'end' >> config/routes.rb

• For creating a default view for the application

mkdir app/views/home
echo '<h1>This is Rails Hotwire homepage</h1>' > app/views/home/index.html.erb
echo '<div><%= link_to "Enter to other page", other_index_path %></div>' >> app/views/home/index.html.erb

• For creating another view for the application

mkdir app/views/other
echo '<h1>This is Another page</h1>' > app/views/other/index.html.erb
echo '<div><%= link_to "Enter to home page", root_path %></div>' >> app/views/other/index.html.erb

• For creating a database and schema.rb file for the application

bin/rails db:create
bin/rails db:migrate

• For checking the application run bin/rails s and open your browser, your running application will have the below view.

Additionally, you can clone the code and browse through the project. Here’s the source code of the repository: Rails 7 Hotwire application

Now, let’s see how Hotwire Rails can work its magic with various Turbo techniques.

Hotwire Rails: Turbo Drive

Go to your localhost:3000 on your web browser and right-click on the Inspect and open a Network tab of the DevTools of the browser.

Now click on go to another page link that appears on the home page to redirect from the home page to another page. In our Network tab, we can see that this action of navigation is achieved via XHR. It appears only the part inside HTML is reloaded, here neither the CSS is reloaded nor the JS is reloaded when the navigation action is performed.

By performing this action we can see that Turbo Drive helps to represent the HTML response without loading the full page and only follows redirect and reindeer HTML responses which helps to make the application faster to access.

Hotwire Rails: Turbo Frame

This technique helps to divide the current page into different sections called frames that can be updated separately independently when new data is added from the server.
Below we discuss the different use cases of Turbo frame like inline edition, sorting, searching, and filtering of data.

Let’s perform some practical actions to see the example of these use cases.

Make changes in the app/controllers/home_controller.rb file

#CODE

class HomeController < ApplicationController
   def turbo_frame_form
   end
   
   def turbo_frame submit
      extracted_anynumber = params[:any][:anynumber]
      render :turbo_frame_form, status: :ok, locals: {anynumber: extracted_anynumber,      comment: 'turbo_frame_submit ok' }
   end
end

Add app/views/home/turbo_frame_form.html.erb file to the application and add this content inside the file.

#CODE

<section>

    <%= turbo_frame_tag 'anyframe' do %>
            
      <div>
          <h2>Frame view</h2>
          <%= form_with scope: :any, url: turbo_frame_submit_path, local: true do |form| %>
              <%= form.label :anynumber, 'Type an integer (odd or even)', 'class' => 'my-0  d-inline'  %>
              <%= form.text_field :anynumber, type: 'number', 'required' => 'true', 'value' => "#{local_assigns[:anynumber] || 0}",  'aria-describedby' => 'anynumber' %>
              <%= form.submit 'Submit this number', 'id' => 'submit-number' %>
          <% end %>
      </div>
      <div>
        <h2>Data of the view</h2>
        <pre style="font-size: .7rem;"><%= JSON.pretty_generate(local_assigns) %></pre> 
      </div>
      
    <% end %>

</section>

Make some adjustments in routes.rb

#CODE

Rails.application.routes.draw do
  get 'home/index'
  get 'other/index'

  get '/home/turbo_frame_form' => 'home#turbo_frame_form', as: 'turbo_frame_form'
  post '/home/turbo_frame_submit' => 'home#turbo_frame_submit', as: 'turbo_frame_submit'


  root to: "home#index"
end

• Next step is to change homepage view in app/views/home/index.html.erb

#CODE

<h1>This is Rails Hotwire home page</h1>
<div><%= link_to "Enter to other page", other_index_path %></div>

<%= turbo_frame_tag 'anyframe' do %>        
  <div>
      <h2>Home view</h2>
      <%= form_with scope: :any, url: turbo_frame_submit_path, local: true do |form| %>
          <%= form.label :anynumber, 'Type an integer (odd or even)', 'class' => 'my-0  d-inline'  %>
          <%= form.text_field :anynumber, type: 'number', 'required' => 'true', 'value' => "#{local_assigns[:anynumber] || 0}",  'aria-describedby' => 'anynumber' %>
          <%= form.submit 'Submit this number', 'id' => 'submit-number' %>
      <% end %>
  <div>
<% end %>

After making all the changes, restart the rails server and refresh the browser, the default view will appear on the browser.

Now in the field enter any digit, after entering the digit click on submit button, and as the submit button is clicked we can see the Turbo Frame in action in the below screen, we can observe that the frame part changed, the first title and first link didn’t move.

Hotwire Rails: Turbo Streams

Turbo Streams deliver page updates over WebSocket, SSE or in response to form submissions by only using HTML and a series of CRUD-like operations, you are free to say that either

• Update the piece of HTML while responding to all the other actions like the post, put, patch, and delete except the GET action.
• Transmit a change to all users, without reloading the browser page.

This transmit can be represented by a simple example.

• Make changes in app/controllers/other_controller.rb file of rails application

#CODE

class OtherController < ApplicationController

  def post_something
    respond_to do |format|
      format.turbo_stream {  }
    end
  end

   end

Add the below line in routes.rb file of the application

#CODE

post '/other/post_something' => 'other#post_something', as: 'post_something'

Superb! Rails will now attempt to locate the app/views/other/post_something.turbo_stream.erb template at any moment the ‘/other/post_something’ endpoint is reached.

For this, we need to add app/views/other/post_something.turbo_stream.erb template in the rails application.

#CODE

<turbo-stream action="append" target="messages">
  <template>
    <div id="message_1">This changes the existing message!</div>
  </template>
</turbo-stream>

This states that the response will try to append the template of the turbo frame with ID “messages”.

Now change the index.html.erb file in app/views/other paths with the below content.

#CODE

<h1>This is Another page</h1>
<div><%= link_to "Enter to home page", root_path %></div>

<div style="margin-top: 3rem;">
  <%= form_with scope: :any, url: post_something_path do |form| %>
      <%= form.submit 'Post any message %>
  <% end %>
  <turbo-frame id="messages">
    <div>An empty message</div>
  </turbo-frame>
</div>

• After making all the changes, restart the rails server and refresh the browser, and go to the other page.

• Once the above screen appears, click on the Post any message button

This action shows that after submitting the response, the Turbo Streams help the developer to append the message, without reloading the page.

Another use case we can test is that rather than appending the message, the developer replaces the message. For that, we need to change the content of app/views/other/post_something.turbo_stream.erb template file and change the value of the action attribute from append to replace and check the changes in the browser.

#CODE

<turbo-stream action="replace" target="messages">
  <template>
    <div id="message_1">This changes the existing message!</div>
  </template>
</turbo-stream>

When we click on Post any message button, the message that appear below that button will get replaced with the message that is mentioned in the app/views/other/post_something.turbo_stream.erb template

Stimulus

There are some cases in an application where JS is needed, therefore to cover those scenarios we require Hotwire JS tool. Hotwire has a JS tool because in some scenarios Turbo-* tools are not sufficient. But as we know that Hotwire is used to reduce the usage of JS in an application, Stimulus considers HTML as the single source of truth. Consider the case where we have to give elements on a page some JavaScript attributes, such as data controller, data-action, and data target. For that, a stimulus controller that can access elements and receive events based on those characteristics will be created.

Make a change in app/views/other/index.html.erb template file in rails application

#CODE

<h1>This is Another page</h1>
<div><%= link_to "Enter to home page", root_path %></div>

<div style="margin-top: 2rem;">
  <%= form_with scope: :any, url: post_something_path do |form| %>
      <%= form.submit 'Post something' %>
  <% end %>
  <turbo-frame id="messages">
    <div>An empty message</div>
  </turbo-frame>
</div>

<div style="margin-top: 2rem;">
  <h2>Stimulus</h2>  
  <div data-controller="hello">
    <input data-hello-target="name" type="text">
    <button data-action="click->hello#greet">
      Greet
    </button>
    <span data-hello-target="output">
    </span>
  </div>
</div>

Make changes in the hello_controller.js in path app/JavaScript/controllers and add a stimulus controller in the file, which helps to bring the HTML into life.

#CODE

import { Controller } from "@hotwired/stimulus"

export default class extends Controller {
  static targets = [ "name", "output" ]

  greet() {
    this.outputTarget.textContent =
      `Hello, ${this.nameTarget.value}!`
  }
}

Go to your browser after making the changes in the code and click on Enter to other page link which will navigate to the localhost:3000/other/index page there you can see the changes implemented by the stimulus controller that is designed to augment your HTML with just enough behavior to make it more responsive.

With just a little bit of work, Turbo and Stimulus together offer a complete answer for applications that are quick and compelling.

Using Rails 7 Hotwire helps to load the pages at a faster speed and allows you to render templates on the server, where you have access to your whole domain model. It is a productive development experience in ROR, without compromising any of the speed or responsiveness associated with SPA.

Conclusion

We hope you were satisfied with our Rails Hotwire tutorial. Write to us at service@bacancy.com for any query that you want to resolve, or if you want us to share a tutorial on your query.

For more such solutions on RoR, check out our Ruby on Rails Tutorials. We will always strive to amaze you and cater to your needs.

Original article source at: https://www.bacancytechnology.com/

#rails #ruby 

NBB: Ad-hoc CLJS Scripting on Node.js

Nbb

Not babashka. Node.js babashka!?

Ad-hoc CLJS scripting on Node.js.

Status

Experimental. Please report issues here.

Goals and features

Nbb's main goal is to make it easy to get started with ad hoc CLJS scripting on Node.js.

Additional goals and features are:

• Fast startup without relying on a custom version of Node.js.
• Small artifact (current size is around 1.2MB).
• First class macros.
• Support building small TUI apps using Reagent.
• Complement babashka with libraries from the Node.js ecosystem.

Requirements

Nbb requires Node.js v12 or newer.

How does this tool work?

CLJS code is evaluated through SCI, the same interpreter that powers babashka. Because SCI works with advanced compilation, the bundle size, especially when combined with other dependencies, is smaller than what you get with self-hosted CLJS. That makes startup faster. The trade-off is that execution is less performant and that only a subset of CLJS is available (e.g. no deftype, yet).

Usage

Install nbb from NPM:

$ npm install nbb -g

Omit -g for a local install.

Try out an expression:

$ nbb -e '(+ 1 2 3)'
6

And then install some other NPM libraries to use in the script. E.g.:

$ npm install csv-parse shelljs zx

Create a script which uses the NPM libraries:

(ns script
  (:require ["csv-parse/lib/sync$default" :as csv-parse]
            ["fs" :as fs]
            ["path" :as path]
            ["shelljs$default" :as sh]
            ["term-size$default" :as term-size]
            ["zx$default" :as zx]
            ["zx$fs" :as zxfs]
            [nbb.core :refer [*file*]]))

(prn (path/resolve "."))

(prn (term-size))

(println (count (str (fs/readFileSync *file*))))

(prn (sh/ls "."))

(prn (csv-parse "foo,bar"))

(prn (zxfs/existsSync *file*))

(zx/$ #js ["ls"])

Call the script:

$ nbb script.cljs
"/private/tmp/test-script"
#js {:columns 216, :rows 47}
510
#js ["node_modules" "package-lock.json" "package.json" "script.cljs"]
#js [#js ["foo" "bar"]]
true
$ ls
node_modules
package-lock.json
package.json
script.cljs

Macros

Nbb has first class support for macros: you can define them right inside your .cljs file, like you are used to from JVM Clojure. Consider the plet macro to make working with promises more palatable:

(defmacro plet
  [bindings & body]
  (let [binding-pairs (reverse (partition 2 bindings))
        body (cons 'do body)]
    (reduce (fn [body [sym expr]]
              (let [expr (list '.resolve 'js/Promise expr)]
                (list '.then expr (list 'clojure.core/fn (vector sym)
                                        body))))
            body
            binding-pairs)))

Using this macro we can look async code more like sync code. Consider this puppeteer example:

(-> (.launch puppeteer)
      (.then (fn [browser]
               (-> (.newPage browser)
                   (.then (fn [page]
                            (-> (.goto page "https://clojure.org")
                                (.then #(.screenshot page #js{:path "screenshot.png"}))
                                (.catch #(js/console.log %))
                                (.then #(.close browser)))))))))

Using plet this becomes:

(plet [browser (.launch puppeteer)
       page (.newPage browser)
       _ (.goto page "https://clojure.org")
       _ (-> (.screenshot page #js{:path "screenshot.png"})
             (.catch #(js/console.log %)))]
      (.close browser))

See the puppeteer example for the full code.

Since v0.0.36, nbb includes promesa which is a library to deal with promises. The above plet macro is similar to promesa.core/let.

Startup time

$ time nbb -e '(+ 1 2 3)'
6
nbb -e '(+ 1 2 3)'   0.17s  user 0.02s system 109% cpu 0.168 total

The baseline startup time for a script is about 170ms seconds on my laptop. When invoked via npx this adds another 300ms or so, so for faster startup, either use a globally installed nbb or use $(npm bin)/nbb script.cljs to bypass npx.

Dependencies

NPM dependencies

Nbb does not depend on any NPM dependencies. All NPM libraries loaded by a script are resolved relative to that script. When using the Reagent module, React is resolved in the same way as any other NPM library.

Classpath

To load .cljs files from local paths or dependencies, you can use the --classpath argument. The current dir is added to the classpath automatically. So if there is a file foo/bar.cljs relative to your current dir, then you can load it via (:require [foo.bar :as fb]). Note that nbb uses the same naming conventions for namespaces and directories as other Clojure tools: foo-bar in the namespace name becomes foo_bar in the directory name.

To load dependencies from the Clojure ecosystem, you can use the Clojure CLI or babashka to download them and produce a classpath:

$ classpath="$(clojure -A:nbb -Spath -Sdeps '{:aliases {:nbb {:replace-deps {com.github.seancorfield/honeysql {:git/tag "v2.0.0-rc5" :git/sha "01c3a55"}}}}}')"

and then feed it to the --classpath argument:

$ nbb --classpath "$classpath" -e "(require '[honey.sql :as sql]) (sql/format {:select :foo :from :bar :where [:= :baz 2]})"
["SELECT foo FROM bar WHERE baz = ?" 2]

Currently nbb only reads from directories, not jar files, so you are encouraged to use git libs. Support for .jar files will be added later.

Current file

The name of the file that is currently being executed is available via nbb.core/*file* or on the metadata of vars:

(ns foo
  (:require [nbb.core :refer [*file*]]))

(prn *file*) ;; "/private/tmp/foo.cljs"

(defn f [])
(prn (:file (meta #'f))) ;; "/private/tmp/foo.cljs"

Reagent

Nbb includes reagent.core which will be lazily loaded when required. You can use this together with ink to create a TUI application:

$ npm install ink

ink-demo.cljs:

(ns ink-demo
  (:require ["ink" :refer [render Text]]
            [reagent.core :as r]))

(defonce state (r/atom 0))

(doseq [n (range 1 11)]
  (js/setTimeout #(swap! state inc) (* n 500)))

(defn hello []
  [:> Text {:color "green"} "Hello, world! " @state])

(render (r/as-element [hello]))

Promesa

Working with callbacks and promises can become tedious. Since nbb v0.0.36 the promesa.core namespace is included with the let and do! macros. An example:

(ns prom
  (:require [promesa.core :as p]))

(defn sleep [ms]
  (js/Promise.
   (fn [resolve _]
     (js/setTimeout resolve ms))))

(defn do-stuff
  []
  (p/do!
   (println "Doing stuff which takes a while")
   (sleep 1000)
   1))

(p/let [a (do-stuff)
        b (inc a)
        c (do-stuff)
        d (+ b c)]
  (prn d))

$ nbb prom.cljs
Doing stuff which takes a while
Doing stuff which takes a while
3

Also see API docs.

Js-interop

Since nbb v0.0.75 applied-science/js-interop is available:

(ns example
  (:require [applied-science.js-interop :as j]))

(def o (j/lit {:a 1 :b 2 :c {:d 1}}))

(prn (j/select-keys o [:a :b])) ;; #js {:a 1, :b 2}
(prn (j/get-in o [:c :d])) ;; 1

Most of this library is supported in nbb, except the following:

• destructuring using :syms
• property access using .-x notation. In nbb, you must use keywords.

See the example of what is currently supported.

Examples

See the examples directory for small examples.

Also check out these projects built with nbb:

• c64core: retrocompute aesthetics twitter bot
• gallery.cljs: script to download walpapers from windowsonearth.org.
• nbb-action-example: example of a Github action built with nbb.

API

See API documentation.

Migrating to shadow-cljs

See this gist on how to convert an nbb script or project to shadow-cljs.

Build

Prequisites:

• babashka >= 0.4.0
• Clojure CLI >= 1.10.3.933
• Node.js 16.5.0 (lower version may work, but this is the one I used to build)

To build:

• Clone and cd into this repo
• bb release

Run bb tasks for more project-related tasks.

Download Details:
Author: borkdude
Download Link: Download The Source Code
Official Website: https://github.com/borkdude/nbb 
License: EPL-1.0

#node #javascript

Build A Controlled Clock in Animejs | Controlled Clock In Anime.js with Source Code

In this video, we build a controlled clock in animeJs the anime clock default set on current time but you can control each parameter of the clock and increment or decrement the clock hours, minutes, seconds.

AnimeJs Examples: https://codepen.io/collection/XLebem/

#animejs #programming

GitHub Arctic Code Vault: Overview

Are you an Arctic Code Vault Contributor or have seen someone posting about it and don’t know what it is. So let’s take a look at what is an Arctic Code Vault Contributor and who are the ones who gets this batch.

GitHub, the world’s largest open-source platform for software and programs has safely locked the data of huge value and magnitude in a coal mine in Longyearbyen’s Norwegian town in the Arctic region.

Back in November 2019, GitHub Arctic Code Vault was first announced.

The GitHub Arctic Code Vault is a data repository preserved in the Arctic

World Archive (AWA), a very-long-term archival facility 250 meters deep in the permafrost of an Arctic mountain. The archive is located in a decommissioned coal mine in the Svalbard archipelago, closer to the North Pole than the Arctic Circle.

Last year, GitHub said that it plans to capture a snapshot of every active

public repository on 02/02/2020 and preserve that data in the Arctic

Code Vault.

The project began on February 2, when the firm took a snapshot of all of

GitHub’s active public repositories to store them in the vault. They initially intended to travel to Norway and personally escort the world’s open-source technology to the Arctic but their plans were derailed by the global pandemic. Then, they had to wait until 8 Julyfor the Arctic Data Vault data to be deposited.

GitHub announced that the code was successfully deposited in the Arctic Code Vault on July 8, 2020. Over the past several months, GitHub worked

with its archive partners Piql to write the 21TB of GitHub repository data to 186 reels of piqlFilm (digital photosensitive archival film).

GitHub’s strategic software director, Julia Metcalf, has written a blog post

on the company’s website notifying the completion of GitHub’s Archive Program on July 8th. Discussing the objective of the Archive Program, Metcalf wrote “Our mission is to preserve open-source software for future generations by storing your code in an archive built to last a thousand years.”

The Arctic Code Vault is only a small part of the wider GitHub Archive

Program, however, which sees the company partner with the Long Now

Foundation, Internet Archive, Software Heritage Foundation, Microsoft

Research and others.

How the cold storage will last 1,000 years?

Svalbard has been regulated by the international Svalbard Treaty as a demilitarized zone. Home to the world’s northernmost town, it is one of the most remote and geopolitically stable human habitations on Earth.

The AWA is a joint initiative between Norwegian state-owned mining company Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani (SNSK) and very-long-term digital preservation provider Piql AS. AWA is devoted to archival storage in perpetuity. The film reels will be stored in a steel-walled container inside a sealed chamber within a decommissioned coal mine on the remote archipelago of Svalbard. The AWA already preserves historical and cultural data from Italy, Brazil, Norway, the Vatican, and many others.

What’s in the 02/02/2020 snapshot?

The 02/02/2020 snapshot archived in the GitHub Arctic Code Vault will

sweep up every active public GitHub repository, in addition to significant dormant repos.

The snapshot will include every repo with any commits between the announcement at GitHub Universe on November 13th and 02/02/2020,

every repo with at least 1 star and any commits from the year before the snapshot (02/03/2019 – 02/02/2020), and every repo with at least 250 stars.

The snapshot will consist of the HEAD of the default branch of each repository, minus any binaries larger than 100KB in size—depending on available space, repos with more stars may retain binaries. Each repository will be packaged as a single TAR file. For greater data density and integrity, most of the data will be stored QR-encoded and compressed. A human-readable index and guide will itemize the location of each repository and explain how to recover the data.

The company further shared that every reel of the archive includes a copy

of the “Guide to the GitHub Code Vault” in five languages, written with input from GitHub’s community and available at the Archive Program’s own GitHub repository.

#github #open-source #coding #open-source-contribution #contributing-to-open-source #github-arctic-code-vault #arctic-code-vault #arctic-code-vault-contributor

Build an Android application with Kivy Python framework

If you’re a Python developer thinking about getting started with mobile development, then the Kivy framework is your best bet. With Kivy, you can develop platform-independent applications that compile for iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux. In this article, we’ll cover Android specifically because it is the most used.

We’ll build a simple random number generator app that you can install on your phone and test when you are done. To follow along with this article, you should be familiar with Python. Let’s get started!

Getting started with Kivy

First, you’ll need a new directory for your app. Make sure you have Python installed on your machine and open a new Python file. You’ll need to install the Kivy module from your terminal using either of the commands below. To avoid any package conflicts, be sure you’re installing Kivy in a virtual environment:

pip install kivy 
//
pip3 install kivy 

Once you have installed Kivy, you should see a success message from your terminal that looks like the screenshots below:

Kivy installation

Successful Kivy installation

 

Next, navigate into your project folder. In the main.py file, we’ll need to import the Kivy module and specify which version we want. You can use Kivy v2.0.0, but if you have a smartphone that is older than Android 8.0, I recommend using Kivy v1.9.0. You can mess around with the different versions during the build to see the differences in features and performance.

Add the version number right after the import kivy line as follows:

kivy.require('1.9.0')

Now, we’ll create a class that will basically define our app; I’ll name mine RandomNumber. This class will inherit the app class from Kivy. Therefore, you need to import the app by adding from kivy.app import App:

class RandomNumber(App): 

In the RandomNumber class, you’ll need to add a function called build, which takes a self parameter. To actually return the UI, we’ll use the build function. For now, I have it returned as a simple label. To do so, you’ll need to import Label using the line from kivy.uix.label import Label:

import kivy
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.label import Label

class RandomNumber(App):
  def build(self):
    return Label(text="Random Number Generator")

Now, our app skeleton is complete! Before moving forward, you should create an instance of the RandomNumber class and run it in your terminal or IDE to see the interface:

import kivy from kivy.app import App from kivy.uix.label import Label class RandomNumber(App):  def build(self):    return Label(text="Random Number Generator") randomApp = RandomNumber() randomApp.run()

When you run the class instance with the text Random Number Generator, you should see a simple interface or window that looks like the screenshot below:

 

Simple interface after running the code

You won’t be able to run the text on Android until you’ve finished building the whole thing.

Outsourcing the interface

Next, we’ll need a way to outsource the interface. First, we’ll create a Kivy file in our directory that will house most of our design work. You’ll want to name this file the same name as your class using lowercase letters and a .kv extension. Kivy will automatically associate the class name and the file name, but it may not work on Android if they are exactly the same.

Inside that .kv file, you need to specify the layout for your app, including elements like the label, buttons, forms, etc. To keep this demonstration simple, I’ll add a label for the title Random Number, a label that will serve as a placeholder for the random number that is generated _, and a Generate button that calls the generate function.

My .kv file looks like the code below, but you can mess around with the different values to fit your requirements:

<boxLayout>:
    orientation: "vertical"
    Label:
        text: "Random Number"
        font_size: 30
        color: 0, 0.62, 0.96

    Label:
        text: "_"
        font_size: 30

    Button:
        text: "Generate"
        font_size: 15 

In the main.py file, you no longer need the Label import statement because the Kivy file takes care of your UI. However, you do need to import boxlayout, which you will use in the Kivy file.

In your main file, you need to add the import statement and edit your main.py file to read return BoxLayout() in the build method:

from kivy.uix.boxlayout import BoxLayout

If you run the command above, you should see a simple interface that has the random number title, the _ place holder, and the clickable generate button:

Random Number app rendered

Notice that you didn’t have to import anything for the Kivy file to work. Basically, when you run the app, it returns boxlayout by looking for a file inside the Kivy file with the same name as your class. Keep in mind, this is a simple interface, and you can make your app as robust as you want. Be sure to check out the Kv language documentation.

Generate the random number function

Now that our app is almost done, we’ll need a simple function to generate random numbers when a user clicks the generate button, then render that random number into the app interface. To do so, we’ll need to change a few things in our files.

First, we’ll import the module that we’ll use to generate a random number with import random. Then, we’ll create a function or method that calls the generated number. For this demonstration, I’ll use a range between 0 and 2000. Generating the random number is simple with the random.randint(0, 2000) command. We’ll add this into our code in a moment.

Next, we’ll create another class that will be our own version of the box layout. Our class will have to inherit the box layout class, which houses the method to generate random numbers and render them on the interface:

class MyRoot(BoxLayout):
    def __init__(self):
        super(MyRoot, self).__init__()

Within that class, we’ll create the generate method, which will not only generate random numbers but also manipulate the label that controls what is displayed as the random number in the Kivy file.

To accommodate this method, we’ll first need to make changes to the .kv file . Since the MyRoot class has inherited the box layout, you can make MyRoot the top level element in your .kv file:

<MyRoot>:
    BoxLayout:
        orientation: "vertical"
        Label:
            text: "Random Number"
            font_size: 30
            color: 0, 0.62, 0.96

        Label:
            text: "_"
            font_size: 30

        Button:
            text: "Generate"
            font_size: 15

Notice that you are still keeping all your UI specifications indented in the Box Layout. After this, you need to add an ID to the label that will hold the generated numbers, making it easy to manipulate when the generate function is called. You need to specify the relationship between the ID in this file and another in the main code at the top, just before the BoxLayout line:

<MyRoot>:
    random_label: random_label
    BoxLayout:
        orientation: "vertical"
        Label:
            text: "Random Number"
            font_size: 30
            color: 0, 0.62, 0.96

        Label:
            id: random_label
            text: "_"
            font_size: 30

        Button:
            text: "Generate"
            font_size: 15

The random_label: random_label line basically means that the label with the ID random_label will be mapped to random_label in the main.py file, meaning that any action that manipulates random_label will be mapped on the label with the specified name.

We can now create the method to generate the random number in the main file:

def generate_number(self):
    self.random_label.text = str(random.randint(0, 2000))

# notice how the class method manipulates the text attributre of the random label by a# ssigning it a new random number generate by the 'random.randint(0, 2000)' funcion. S# ince this the random number generated is an integer, typecasting is required to make # it a string otherwise you will get a typeError in your terminal when you run it.

The MyRoot class should look like the code below:

class MyRoot(BoxLayout):
    def __init__(self):
        super(MyRoot, self).__init__()

    def generate_number(self):
        self.random_label.text = str(random.randint(0, 2000))

Congratulations! You’re now done with the main file of the app. The only thing left to do is make sure that you call this function when the generate button is clicked. You need only add the line on_press: root.generate_number() to the button selection part of your .kv file:

<MyRoot>:
    random_label: random_label
    BoxLayout:
        orientation: "vertical"
        Label:
            text: "Random Number"
            font_size: 30
            color: 0, 0.62, 0.96

        Label:
            id: random_label
            text: "_"
            font_size: 30

        Button:
            text: "Generate"
            font_size: 15
            on_press: root.generate_number()

Now, you can run the app.

Compiling our app on Android

Before compiling our app on Android, I have some bad news for Windows users. You’ll need Linux or macOS to compile your Android application. However, you don’t need to have a separate Linux distribution, instead, you can use a virtual machine.

To compile and generate a full Android .apk application, we’ll use a tool called Buildozer. Let’s install Buildozer through our terminal using one of the commands below:

pip3 install buildozer
//
pip install buildozer

Now, we’ll install some of Buildozer’s required dependencies. I am on Linux Ergo, so I’ll use Linux-specific commands. You should execute these commands one by one:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y git zip unzip openjdk-13-jdk python3-pip autoconf libtool pkg-config zlib1g-dev libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev libtinfo5 cmake libffi-dev libssl-dev

pip3 install --upgrade Cython==0.29.19 virtualenv 

# add the following line at the end of your ~/.bashrc file
export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin/

After executing the specific commands, run buildozer init. You should see an output similar to the screenshot below:

Buildozer successful initialization

The command above creates a Buildozer .spec file, which you can use to make specifications to your app, including the name of the app, the icon, etc. The .spec file should look like the code block below:

[app]

# (str) Title of your application
title = My Application

# (str) Package name
package.name = myapp

# (str) Package domain (needed for android/ios packaging)
package.domain = org.test

# (str) Source code where the main.py live
source.dir = .

# (list) Source files to include (let empty to include all the files)
source.include_exts = py,png,jpg,kv,atlas

# (list) List of inclusions using pattern matching
#source.include_patterns = assets/*,images/*.png

# (list) Source files to exclude (let empty to not exclude anything)
#source.exclude_exts = spec

# (list) List of directory to exclude (let empty to not exclude anything)
#source.exclude_dirs = tests, bin

# (list) List of exclusions using pattern matching
#source.exclude_patterns = license,images/*/*.jpg

# (str) Application versioning (method 1)
version = 0.1

# (str) Application versioning (method 2)
# version.regex = __version__ = \['"\](.*)['"]
# version.filename = %(source.dir)s/main.py

# (list) Application requirements
# comma separated e.g. requirements = sqlite3,kivy
requirements = python3,kivy

# (str) Custom source folders for requirements
# Sets custom source for any requirements with recipes
# requirements.source.kivy = ../../kivy

# (list) Garden requirements
#garden_requirements =

# (str) Presplash of the application
#presplash.filename = %(source.dir)s/data/presplash.png

# (str) Icon of the application
#icon.filename = %(source.dir)s/data/icon.png

# (str) Supported orientation (one of landscape, sensorLandscape, portrait or all)
orientation = portrait

# (list) List of service to declare
#services = NAME:ENTRYPOINT_TO_PY,NAME2:ENTRYPOINT2_TO_PY

#
# OSX Specific
#

#
# author = © Copyright Info

# change the major version of python used by the app
osx.python_version = 3

# Kivy version to use
osx.kivy_version = 1.9.1

#
# Android specific
#

# (bool) Indicate if the application should be fullscreen or not
fullscreen = 0

# (string) Presplash background color (for new android toolchain)
# Supported formats are: #RRGGBB #AARRGGBB or one of the following names:
# red, blue, green, black, white, gray, cyan, magenta, yellow, lightgray,
# darkgray, grey, lightgrey, darkgrey, aqua, fuchsia, lime, maroon, navy,
# olive, purple, silver, teal.
#android.presplash_color = #FFFFFF

# (list) Permissions
#android.permissions = INTERNET

# (int) Target Android API, should be as high as possible.
#android.api = 27

# (int) Minimum API your APK will support.
#android.minapi = 21

# (int) Android SDK version to use
#android.sdk = 20

# (str) Android NDK version to use
#android.ndk = 19b

# (int) Android NDK API to use. This is the minimum API your app will support, it should usually match android.minapi.
#android.ndk_api = 21

# (bool) Use --private data storage (True) or --dir public storage (False)
#android.private_storage = True

# (str) Android NDK directory (if empty, it will be automatically downloaded.)
#android.ndk_path =

# (str) Android SDK directory (if empty, it will be automatically downloaded.)
#android.sdk_path =

# (str) ANT directory (if empty, it will be automatically downloaded.)
#android.ant_path =

# (bool) If True, then skip trying to update the Android sdk
# This can be useful to avoid excess Internet downloads or save time
# when an update is due and you just want to test/build your package
# android.skip_update = False

# (bool) If True, then automatically accept SDK license
# agreements. This is intended for automation only. If set to False,
# the default, you will be shown the license when first running
# buildozer.
# android.accept_sdk_license = False

# (str) Android entry point, default is ok for Kivy-based app
#android.entrypoint = org.renpy.android.PythonActivity

# (str) Android app theme, default is ok for Kivy-based app
# android.apptheme = "@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar"

# (list) Pattern to whitelist for the whole project
#android.whitelist =

# (str) Path to a custom whitelist file
#android.whitelist_src =

# (str) Path to a custom blacklist file
#android.blacklist_src =

# (list) List of Java .jar files to add to the libs so that pyjnius can access
# their classes. Don't add jars that you do not need, since extra jars can slow
# down the build process. Allows wildcards matching, for example:
# OUYA-ODK/libs/*.jar
#android.add_jars = foo.jar,bar.jar,path/to/more/*.jar

# (list) List of Java files to add to the android project (can be java or a
# directory containing the files)
#android.add_src =

# (list) Android AAR archives to add (currently works only with sdl2_gradle
# bootstrap)
#android.add_aars =

# (list) Gradle dependencies to add (currently works only with sdl2_gradle
# bootstrap)
#android.gradle_dependencies =

# (list) add java compile options
# this can for example be necessary when importing certain java libraries using the 'android.gradle_dependencies' option
# see https://developer.android.com/studio/write/java8-support for further information
# android.add_compile_options = "sourceCompatibility = 1.8", "targetCompatibility = 1.8"

# (list) Gradle repositories to add {can be necessary for some android.gradle_dependencies}
# please enclose in double quotes 
# e.g. android.gradle_repositories = "maven { url 'https://kotlin.bintray.com/ktor' }"
#android.add_gradle_repositories =

# (list) packaging options to add 
# see https://google.github.io/android-gradle-dsl/current/com.android.build.gradle.internal.dsl.PackagingOptions.html
# can be necessary to solve conflicts in gradle_dependencies
# please enclose in double quotes 
# e.g. android.add_packaging_options = "exclude 'META-INF/common.kotlin_module'", "exclude 'META-INF/*.kotlin_module'"
#android.add_gradle_repositories =

# (list) Java classes to add as activities to the manifest.
#android.add_activities = com.example.ExampleActivity

# (str) OUYA Console category. Should be one of GAME or APP
# If you leave this blank, OUYA support will not be enabled
#android.ouya.category = GAME

# (str) Filename of OUYA Console icon. It must be a 732x412 png image.
#android.ouya.icon.filename = %(source.dir)s/data/ouya_icon.png

# (str) XML file to include as an intent filters in <activity> tag
#android.manifest.intent_filters =

# (str) launchMode to set for the main activity
#android.manifest.launch_mode = standard

# (list) Android additional libraries to copy into libs/armeabi
#android.add_libs_armeabi = libs/android/*.so
#android.add_libs_armeabi_v7a = libs/android-v7/*.so
#android.add_libs_arm64_v8a = libs/android-v8/*.so
#android.add_libs_x86 = libs/android-x86/*.so
#android.add_libs_mips = libs/android-mips/*.so

# (bool) Indicate whether the screen should stay on
# Don't forget to add the WAKE_LOCK permission if you set this to True
#android.wakelock = False

# (list) Android application meta-data to set (key=value format)
#android.meta_data =

# (list) Android library project to add (will be added in the
# project.properties automatically.)
#android.library_references =

# (list) Android shared libraries which will be added to AndroidManifest.xml using <uses-library> tag
#android.uses_library =

# (str) Android logcat filters to use
#android.logcat_filters = *:S python:D

# (bool) Copy library instead of making a libpymodules.so
#android.copy_libs = 1

# (str) The Android arch to build for, choices: armeabi-v7a, arm64-v8a, x86, x86_64
android.arch = armeabi-v7a

# (int) overrides automatic versionCode computation (used in build.gradle)
# this is not the same as app version and should only be edited if you know what you're doing
# android.numeric_version = 1

#
# Python for android (p4a) specific
#

# (str) python-for-android fork to use, defaults to upstream (kivy)
#p4a.fork = kivy

# (str) python-for-android branch to use, defaults to master
#p4a.branch = master

# (str) python-for-android git clone directory (if empty, it will be automatically cloned from github)
#p4a.source_dir =

# (str) The directory in which python-for-android should look for your own build recipes (if any)
#p4a.local_recipes =

# (str) Filename to the hook for p4a
#p4a.hook =

# (str) Bootstrap to use for android builds
# p4a.bootstrap = sdl2

# (int) port number to specify an explicit --port= p4a argument (eg for bootstrap flask)
#p4a.port =


#
# iOS specific
#

# (str) Path to a custom kivy-ios folder
#ios.kivy_ios_dir = ../kivy-ios
# Alternately, specify the URL and branch of a git checkout:
ios.kivy_ios_url = https://github.com/kivy/kivy-ios
ios.kivy_ios_branch = master

# Another platform dependency: ios-deploy
# Uncomment to use a custom checkout
#ios.ios_deploy_dir = ../ios_deploy
# Or specify URL and branch
ios.ios_deploy_url = https://github.com/phonegap/ios-deploy
ios.ios_deploy_branch = 1.7.0

# (str) Name of the certificate to use for signing the debug version
# Get a list of available identities: buildozer ios list_identities
#ios.codesign.debug = "iPhone Developer: <lastname> <firstname> (<hexstring>)"

# (str) Name of the certificate to use for signing the release version
#ios.codesign.release = %(ios.codesign.debug)s


[buildozer]

# (int) Log level (0 = error only, 1 = info, 2 = debug (with command output))
log_level = 2

# (int) Display warning if buildozer is run as root (0 = False, 1 = True)
warn_on_root = 1

# (str) Path to build artifact storage, absolute or relative to spec file
# build_dir = ./.buildozer

# (str) Path to build output (i.e. .apk, .ipa) storage
# bin_dir = ./bin

#    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    List as sections
#
#    You can define all the "list" as [section:key].
#    Each line will be considered as a option to the list.
#    Let's take [app] / source.exclude_patterns.
#    Instead of doing:
#
#[app]
#source.exclude_patterns = license,data/audio/*.wav,data/images/original/*
#
#    This can be translated into:
#
#[app:source.exclude_patterns]
#license
#data/audio/*.wav
#data/images/original/*
#


#    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    Profiles
#
#    You can extend section / key with a profile
#    For example, you want to deploy a demo version of your application without
#    HD content. You could first change the title to add "(demo)" in the name
#    and extend the excluded directories to remove the HD content.
#
#[app@demo]
#title = My Application (demo)
#
#[app:source.exclude_patterns@demo]
#images/hd/*
#
#    Then, invoke the command line with the "demo" profile:
#
#buildozer --profile demo android debug

If you want to specify things like the icon, requirements, loading screen, etc., you should edit this file. After making all the desired edits to your application, run buildozer -v android debug from your app directory to build and compile your application. This may take a while, especially if you have a slow machine.

After the process is done, your terminal should have some logs, one confirming that the build was successful:

Android successful build

You should also have an APK version of your app in your bin directory. This is the application executable that you will install and run on your phone:

Android .apk in the bin directory

Conclusion

Congratulations! If you have followed this tutorial step by step, you should have a simple random number generator app on your phone. Play around with it and tweak some values, then rebuild. Running the rebuild will not take as much time as the first build.

As you can see, building a mobile application with Python is fairly straightforward, as long as you are familiar with the framework or module you are working with. Regardless, the logic is executed the same way.

Get familiar with the Kivy module and it’s widgets. You can never know everything all at once. You only need to find a project and get your feet wet as early as possible. Happy coding.

Link: https://blog.logrocket.com/build-android-application-kivy-python-framework/

#python