Deploying Kivy Applications

Introduction

When it comes to deploying Kivy applications, we have to take care of various things. In this tutorial, we will cover everything you need to know to deploy Kivy applications on different platforms.

Requirements

Before we proceed, make sure you have the following requirements:

• A Kivy application that you want to deploy
• Python installed on your system
• A Virtual Environment (recommended)

Building the Package

First, we need to build a package of our Kivy application that we can later use to deploy on different platforms. To do that, we can use the buildozer tool, which makes it easy to package and deploy Kivy applications.

Syntax

To build a package using buildozer, use the following syntax:

buildozer -v android debug

Example

For example, if we want to build a package for Android, we can run the following command:

buildozer -v android debug

Output

After running the above command, you will see the apk file in the bin directory, which we can use to install the application on an Android device.

Explanation

Let's break down the above command and understand what it does:

• buildozer: This is the tool that we use to build the package.
• -v: This flag is used to enable verbose output.
• android: This specifies the target platform for which we want to build the package.
• debug: This specifies the build configuration, i.e., whether we want to build a debug or release version of the application.

Deploying on Android

Now that we have built the apk package using buildozer, we can deploy it on an Android device.

Use

• First, make sure to enable "Developer Options" on your Android device.
• Next, enable "USB Debugging" in the Developer options.
• Connect your Android device to your computer using a USB cable.
• Run the following command to install the apk file on your Android device:

adb install path_to_your_apk

Important Points

• Make sure that your Android device is in "File transfer" mode.
• If you are using Linux, you may need to run the command as a superuser (sudo).

Deploying on iOS

Deploying Kivy applications on iOS is currently not supported in the open-source version of Kivy. However, there are some paid solutions available such as PyMob, which provides an integration of Kivy with Python on iOS.

Summary

In this tutorial, we learned how to build a package of Kivy application using buildozer and deploy it on different platforms such as Android. We also talked about the current limitations of deploying Kivy applications on iOS and some paid solutions available to overcome these limitations.