How to run kivy application via python3 under OS X

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1. Brief:

  • Kivy is a framework which enable you to write cross platform app via python, and buildozer is a tool to package your code. Their documentation really sucks, this is why I wrote this to save you tons of time.
  • Kivy provides a bundle package for OS X, which you can use a executable file named kivy to run your code instead of the native python one. But if you prefer the pythonic way (as I do), You could use this tested solution as a reference.
  • Tested for Kivy 1.9.1, OS X Sierra 10.12.1 and Python 3.5, for python part, I tested 3.5.0, 3.5.1, 3.5.2;
  • Couldn’t make it via python 3.4.5
  • For the future version: If you can’t make it running under some specific python version, just try to adopt the python version in the Kivy Mac Bundle. This is how I solve it.

2. Step by step:

  • install Homebrew (a package manager for macOS) using the following command if you haven’t
    • /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
  • Install all the dependencies that Kivy needs via Homebrew
    • brew install sdl2 sdl2_image sdl2_ttf sdl2_mixer gstreamer
  • Install Cython
    • [Recommend] pip install cython
    • the official version may say install a specific version of cython, but if you can’t make it work just install the latest
  • Install Kivy
    • [Recommend] via the Pip [Release]:
      • USE_OSX_FRAMEWORKS=0 pip install kivy
    • via the Github [Development]:
      • USE_OSX_FRAMEWORKS=0 pip install https://github.com/kivy/kivy/archive/master.zip
  • Running!
    • python3 your_app.py

3. A tested Hello world for those who needs:

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import kivy
kivy.require('1.9.1') # replace with your current kivy version

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

class MyApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return Label(text='Hello world')

if __name__ == '__main__':
    MyApp().run()

Thanks for reading!

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