Communications of the ACM
Python Puts Its Print on Multitouch Apps With Kivy
The open source library Kivy can be used for native development of user interfaces.
Credit: InfoWorld
Kivy, an open source library based on the Python programming language, can be used for native development of user interfaces, including multitouch applications for Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.
"It's Python scripting on top of OpenGL to create [user interfaces (UIs)] and process touch and other inputs," says Android application developer and Kivy contributor Brian Knapp. "OpenGL is cross platform, so Kivy can be used to write cross-platform UIs."
Version 1.8.1 of Kivy is now available under a Massachusetts Institute of Technology license.
"Kivy is used to develop native applications," Knapp notes. "The distinction is that we don't use HTML/CSS/JavaScript and other Web technologies."
For multitouch development, drawing items on the screen works the same on Android and iOS but is not tethered to Web application programming interfaces, JavaScript, and "uncontrollable browser behavior," Knapp notes.
Kivy features a multitouch mouse simulator, and can natively use inputs, protocols, and devices such as WM Touch, WM Pen, Mac OS X Trackpad, and Linux Kernel HID. Kivy also highlights graphics-processing unit acceleration and has a widget toolkit. It already has been used in several commercial iOS and Android applications.
From InfoWorld
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