Python Kivy GUI Tutorial #23: Implementing an Image Viewer with FileChooserIconView and FileChooserListView

In this tutorial, we will demonstrate how to create an image viewer using Kivy’s FileChooserIconView and FileChooserListView. The FileChooserIconView and FileChooserListView are widgets that allow users to select files from their local file system easily. We will use these widgets to allow users to select images from their system and display them in our application.

Let’s start by creating a new Python file and importing the necessary modules:

from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.gridlayout import GridLayout
from kivy.uix.image import Image
from kivy.uix.boxlayout import BoxLayout
from kivy.uix.button import Button
from kivy.uix.label import Label
from kivy.uix.filechooser import FileChooserIconView, FileChooserListView

Next, let’s create a class for our application and define the layout and functionality of our image viewer:

class ImageViewer(App):

    def build(self):
        layout = GridLayout(rows=2)

        # Create the file chooser icon view
        self.file_chooser_icon_view = FileChooserIconView()
        self.file_chooser_icon_view.filters = ["*.png", "*.jpg", "*.jpeg"] # Only show image files

        # Create the file chooser list view
        self.file_chooser_list_view = FileChooserListView()
        self.file_chooser_list_view.filters = ["*.png", "*.jpg", "*.jpeg"] # Only show image files

        # Add the file chooser widgets to the layout
        layout.add_widget(Label(text="Select an image:"))
        layout.add_widget(self.file_chooser_icon_view)
        layout.add_widget(self.file_chooser_list_view)

        return layout

    # Callback function when a file is selected
    def on_selection(self, selection):
        file_path = selection[0]
        image = Image(source=file_path)

        self.root.add_widget(image)

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

In this code, we have created a class ImageViewer that subclasses App. In the build method, we have defined a GridLayout with 2 rows. We have created FileChooserIconView and FileChooserListView widgets and set their filters to only show image files. We have added these widgets to the layout.

Next, we have defined a callback function on_selection that will be called when a file is selected in the file chooser. We create an Image widget with the selected file path and add it to the root widget (the GridLayout).

To run the application, save the above code in a file named image_viewer.py and run it using the following command:

python image_viewer.py

You will see a window with the file chooser widgets displayed. You can select an image from your file system and it will be displayed in the application.

This is a simple example of how to create an image viewer using FileChooserIconView and FileChooserListView widgets in Kivy. You can customize the layout and functionality as needed for your application.