Using Kivy garden

This recipe will teach you how to use Kivy garden, which is a helpful tool to get some Kivy add-ons.

Getting ready

This recipe needs the pip system, which is a package management system used to install and manage software packages written in Python. The installation is very easy: just go to https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/installing.html and download get-pip.py. Now, in the terminal, type:

$ Python get-pip.py

This line installs pip.

How to do it…

These are the most important tasks with Kivy garden:

1. Install Kivy garden:

   $ sudo pip install kivy-garden
   

2. Install a garden package:

   $ garden install graph
   

3. Upgrade a garden package:

   $ garden install --upgrade graph
   

4. Uninstall a garden package:

   $ garden uninstall graph
   

5. List all the garden packages installed:

   $ garden list
   

There's more…

Also, we want to be able to search in the Kivy garden; for example, we can:

1. Search new packages:

   $ garden search
   

2. Search all the packages that contain graph:

   $ garden search graph
   

3. Show the following:

   $ garden --help
   

   All the garden packages are installed by default in ~/.kivy/garden.

Packing

If you want to include garden packages in your application, you can add the app to the install command. This will create a libs/garden directory in your current directory, which will be used by Kivy garden.

For example in my app, it is in the directory MyApp:

$ cd myapp
$ garden install --app graph