Open Mindset app

A 💯% Python application using the KivyMD framework, integrating Artificial Intelligence features. The goal is to have a single Python codebase that can be built and deployed on all major native platforms: Android, iOS, macOS, Linux and Windows.

• Deployed on Apple Store here!

Some of the goals:

• KivyMD app skeleton pattern including classique UI elements (navbar menu, top navbar, responsive, material design...)
• learn and demonstrate best programming practices in a 💯% Python development environment
• experiment with a lot of AI-related stuff
  • OpenAI ChatGPT API
  • Stability AI text to image API
  • plus more AI useful examples in a mobile/native app context
• document recipes for building artifacts of specific native OS
• have concrete examples of broadcasting events and react to these events through an MVC pattern
• and much more as we experiment with nice AI and existing technologies and other open-source libraries...

• Some screen captures of the implemented features

Platform	About screen	Chat session	Settings
Android
iOS
Linux
Windows
macOS

Table of content

• Open Mindset app
  • Table of content
  • Getting Started
    • Startup & hot reload
    • Simulating a mobile device on desktop
  • Utilities
    • Preview list of Material Design implemented icons
    • DB Browser for SQLite
    • Snippet to see the layout border of any widget
  • Managing development environment
    • Python on MacOS with brew
    • Certify installation
    • Virtual environment
    • Dependency libraries (update, freeze them or install from)
      • References
  • Build for Android
    • Building for Android on Linux Ubuntu
      • References
    • Building for Android on macOS
      • Reference
  • Building for iOS (seperate file in docs)
  • About Kivy framework
  • About the app name

Getting Started

You may have some OS core dependencies to install (dll on Windows, system lib on Ubuntu, etc.) so follow the official Kivy install instructions depending on your operating system(s):

• Kivy Framework
• KivyMD

Example: for Ubuntu you have to set the following environnement variable

 export USE_X11=1

and install the listed OS libraries

Other users can start here 👇

Then you can install the Open Mindset app dependencies as follow. First create and activate your virtual environment:

 python -m venv venv
 . venv/bin/activate

Use pip-tools to generate requirements.txt file from requirements.in:

 python -m pip install pip-tools
 pip-compile requirements.in

Update the virtual environment dependencies:

pip-sync

👉 Missing packages for Mac OS install 👈

pip install pygame
pip install kivy==2.2.1

Startup & Hot Reload

Normal startup

python main.py

With hot-reload enabled

DEBUG=1 python main.py

Know issue in DEBUG mode:

• Pressing the space bar from the query textinput field of the chat session triggers an unexpected hot reload event.

Simulating a mobile device on desktop

Normal startup

MOBILE_SIMULATION=1 python main.py

Combined with hot-reload

DEBUG=1 MOBILE_SIMULATION=1 python main.py

Utilities

Preview list of Material Design implemented icons

python scripts/icons/main.py

DB Browser for SQLite

This native Python app makes usage of SQLite3 as it's persistence mechanism (preferences, chat session...). Although you can visualize raw data using command lines like sqlite3 chat_sessions.db we recommand using the DB Browser for SQLite which is a high quality, visual, open source tool to create, design, and edit database files compatible with SQLite.

Snippet to see the layout border of any widget

Inside the .kivy file just add this:

    canvas.before:
        Color:
            rgba: 0, 1, 0, 1
        Line:
            width: 1
            rectangle: self.x, self.y, self.width, self.height

Managing development environment

Python on MacOS with brew

Some usefull brew commands

brew update
brew config
brew leaves | xargs brew desc --eval-all
brew cleanup

brew install cython
echo 'export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/cython/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc

Then change your .zshrc aliases as explained here

Certify installation

python ./scripts/certificates/install_certifi.py

Build for Android

Building for Android on Linux Ubuntu

First install the following dependencies:

• https://kivy.org/doc/stable/installation/installation-linux.html#id1

Then install these python dependencies:

pip-compile
pip-sync

If pip-sync fails you may have to use the classic way once requirements.txt is generated by pip-compile:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Ensure both kivy and kivymd are up to date (see below reference for more detail)

pip install https://github.com/kivy/kivy/archive/master.zip
pip install https://github.com/kivymd/KivyMD/archive/master.zip

buildozer android clean
buildozer android debug deploy run

References

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/76644946/704681

Building for Android on macOS

python ~/Library/Python/3.8/lib/python/site-packages/buildozer init
python ~/Library/Python/3.8/lib/python/site-packages/buildozer android debug deploy run

python ~/Library/Python/3.11/lib/python/site-packages/buildozer init
python ~/Library/Python/3.11/lib/python/site-packages/buildozer android debug deploy run

• Ugly workaround for ssl issue: code /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/lib/python3.10/ssl.py

• sdkmanager path does not exist, sdkmanager is not installed

Reference

• https://kivy.org/doc/stable/guide/packaging-android.html

Building for iOS

See seperate iOS build instructions here.

About Kivy framework

Why is Kivy not popular?

Basically runs on donation from people like you and me and some organisations and this is unlike other frameworks that are (or were) backed by giants like Google (Flutter) or Facebook (React Native). So, Kivy might lack marketing funds, making it less popular among other frameworks but it's still a preferred choice in Python ecosystem.

About the app name

By definition:

An open mindset is a tendency to be receptive to new ideas and information. Having an open mindset means being objective when approaching new things, listening to other points of view, and being willing to admit what you don't know.

I decided to give it that name since this is my life philosophy and I was looking for a real project to learn Python language.

Official related websites

• Kivy Framework
• KivyMD