Building an Android App with Python and Kivy – Part 11

Building an Android app with Python and Kivy is a great way to bring your ideas to life and reach a wider audience. In this tutorial, I will guide you through the process of setting up your development environment, creating a simple app with Kivy, and building it for Android.

1. Setting up your development environment:
   Before we start building our Android app, we need to set up our development environment. Make sure you have Python installed on your computer, as well as the Android SDK and NDK. You will also need to install the Kivy library, which is a Python framework for building multi-touch applications.

To install the Kivy library, you can use pip by running the following command in your terminal:

pip install kivy

You will also need to install the Buildozer tool, which is used to package your Python code into an Android app. You can install Buildozer by running the following command:

pip install buildozer

Once you have all the necessary tools installed, you are ready to start building your Android app.

1. Creating a simple app with Kivy:
   To create a simple app with Kivy, we will start by creating a new Python file. Open your favorite code editor and create a new file called main.py. In this file, we will write the code for our app.

Here is a simple example of an app that displays a label with the text "Hello, World!":

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

class TestApp(App):
    def build(self):
        return Label(text='Hello, World!')

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

Save this code in your main.py file and run it using the following command in your terminal:

python main.py

You should see a window pop up with the text "Hello, World!" displayed in it. This is a basic Kivy app, and now we can move on to building it for Android.

1. Building the app for Android:
   To build your app for Android, we will use the Buildozer tool that we installed earlier. First, create a new file called buildozer.spec in the same directory as your main.py file. This file contains the configuration settings for building your Android app.

Here is an example buildozer.spec file:

[app]

# (str) Title of your application
title = Test App

# (str) Package name
package.name = testapp

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

# (str) Source code where the main.py is located
source.include_exts = py,png,jpg,kv,atlas

# (list) Application requirements
requirements = kivy

# (str) Application version
version = 1.0

# (list) Permissions
android.permissions = INTERNET

Modify this file to include your app’s title, package name, package domain, and any other settings specific to your app. Once you have configured the buildozer.spec file, you can build your app for Android by running the following command in your terminal:

buildozer -v android debug

Buildozer will create an APK file for your app, which you can install on your Android device to test it. You can find the APK file in the bin directory of your project.

Congratulations! You have successfully built your first Android app using Python and Kivy. You can now continue to develop more complex apps and deploy them to the Google Play Store. I hope this tutorial was helpful, and I wish you the best of luck with your Android app development journey!