PYTHON FOR DESKTOP

APPLICATIONS

How to develop, pack and deliver Python applications

with TkInter and Kivy

First Edition
Copyright

Copyright © 2020 Tran Duc Loi

All right reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy
of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is
sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor
publisher, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages
caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

First released: October 2020

Revision: 20210725

Asset files used in this book are created by Tran Duc Loi.
About the Author

Tran Duc Loi aka Leo Tran is a fan of minimalism and an enthusiast Python
programmer since 2014 when he accidentally asked to join a new Python
community with some friends. Since then, he found that he has special interest
with Python.

Beside Python, he also added Javascript to his stack with React JS for frontend
and React Native for mobile development.

His style of writing is practical that’s why you’ll find his books full of
illustrations, diagrams and examples with a little of theory.
Table of Contents

PYTHON FOR DESKTOP APPLICATIONS ....................................................... 2

Copyright .................................................................................................. 3

About the Author ....................................................................................... 4

Table of Contents ....................................................................................... 5

Preface ......................................................................................................... 8

What this book covers ................................................................................ 8

What you need for this book ........................................................................ 9

Who this book is for ................................................................................... 9

How to use this book ................................................................................. 10

Conventions ............................................................................................. 10

Reader feedback ........................................................................................ 12

Downloading example code........................................................................ 12

Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................ 15

1.1. Introduction ....................................................................................... 15

PIP ........................................................................................................ 17

Wheels .................................................................................................. 17

Virtual Environment .............................................................................. 18

GIL ...................................................................................................... 20

CLI and GUI ........................................................................................... 21

1.2. Environment Setup .............................................................................23

Python and choosing the right version .....................................................23

32-bit or 64-bit? ......................................................................................24

Editor....................................................................................................24

Git ........................................................................................................ 25
 First Python application.......................................................................... 25

Second Python application ......................................................................28

Working with Virtual Environment ........................................................ 30

1.3. References ......................................................................................... 34

Chapter 2: Create a File Downloader with Tkinter ...........................................35

2.1. Create a basic GUI application with Tkinter .......................................... 36

2.2. Create a Python downloader application............................................... 43

Create a console file downloader with progress ........................................ 43

Create a GUI file downloader ...................................................................49

Exercises ...............................................................................................62

2.3. Create executable (.exe) for GUI Downloader App .................................. 63

What about other packager?................................................................... 63

Install dependencies .............................................................................. 64

Pack the GUI Downloader ...................................................................... 64

UPX or NOUPX ....................................................................................... 67

2.4. Create installer for GUI Downloader App.............................................. 70

Working with NSI file ............................................................................. 71

Run the setup ......................................................................................... 79

2.5. References ......................................................................................... 86

Chapter 3: Create a Music Player with Kivy .....................................................87

3.1. Preparing the environment ..................................................................89

3.2. Simple GUI with Kivy ......................................................................... 90

3.3. Working with .kv file ..........................................................................94

3.4. Create a music player application with Kivy...........................................99

Kivy Logger ..........................................................................................110

 3.5. Create an executable for Python Music Player ....................................... 112

3.6. References .........................................................................................118

Chapter 4: Debugging .................................................................................. 119

4.1. Remove -w option.............................................................................. 120

4.2. Use file logger ................................................................................... 122

4.3. Remember data files .......................................................................... 122

4.4. UPX and vcruntime140.dll ................................................................. 123

4.5. Use DependencyWalker (Windows only) ............................................. 123

4.6. Use another packager ........................................................................ 128

Using cx_Freeze.................................................................................... 128

4.7. References ........................................................................................ 133

Appendix 1: List of figures ........................................................................... 134

Appendix 2: List of examples ....................................................................... 137

Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

Preface

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introduction shows you some fundamental concepts of Python such as

pip, wheel, virtual environment, GIL, CLI and GUI, which tools we will use, how
to set them up.

Chapter 2, Create a File Downloader with TKInter introduces how to develop a

Python file downloader application with simple GUI using TKInter library. This
chapter also guides you how to pack your application using PyInstaller and
make a setup using NSIS.

Chapter 3, Create a Music Player with Kivy walks through how make a music
player with Kivy. We will start with a very simple Kivy application then
eventually build a more complex one. We also pack our music player up using
PyInstaller.

Chapter 4, Debugging shows you how to debug your applications if something

wrong. Useful tips and handy DependencyWalker debug tool guide. In this
chapter, you will also be introduced to cx_Freeze to build/freeze a wx_Python
application.

8
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

Please note that to keep the book briefly and to help readers focus on main target
of the book, creating desktop applications, I will not cover tests in this edition.
Depend on received feedback, I will consider to add more features in the next
editions.

What you need for this book

In this book, we’ll use:

 Python 3.7.9 64-bit

 Windows 10 64-bit
 PyInstaller 4.0
 NSIS 3.06.1
 Microsoft Visual Code 1.49.0 as main editor
 A Git client (Git-scm 2.27.0)
 Kivy 1.11.1
 cx_Freeze 6.2
 DependencyWalker 2.2 64-bit

All the packages/tools are the latest at the time of writing.

Who this book is for

This book is for any level of Python programmers.

If you have known Python before, it would be easier for you to read this book.

If you are a beginner, it still be fine for you to get start Python programming with
this book. You need to read chapter 01 and explore as much as possible to
understand some basic concepts: virtual environment, multithreading, pip,
wheels.

9
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

At any level, I recommend you to try to explore hyperlinks if available. In every

part of the book, there’re a number of links to internal and external resources to
provide more detail information.

How to use this book

This is a practical book. That means you shall need to get your hands dirty.

You need to:

1. Install the tools.

2. Clone the code from the book’s repository. All examples of a chapter will be
in a folder named of that chapter.
3. Run the examples to see how it works.
4. Dive into the code with your favourite IDE.
5. Read the notes to understand deeply, follow the links for more detail.
6. Complete the exercises if available.
7. Modify the code to adapt your purposes.

It’s not about using the examples in this book to make commercial products, they
are here for demonstration and being kept as simple as possible hence they are
not shiny enough to be in production. You need to read them to understand the
fundamental concepts and techniques.

Conventions

This book has some conventions that you should be familiar with in order to get
more from this book.

10
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

This is information box, tips and tricks. I usually explain things and answer some
common questions here. It is an interesting box.

This is source code of the examples. We need the line number as we will use line
numbers as an anchor to explain the code.

This is a command runs in PowerShell or Command line (in Windows) or

Terminal (Linux).

If there is PS in the command, we are in Windows Powershell, if not, we are in

command line.

File names, commands, folder names usually use bold format with different font
family than normal text just to emphasize them.

11
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

Reader feedback

All feedback about the content of the book should be sent to the Telegram group
at https://t.me/py4da or emailed directly to the author at [email protected].
Let us know what you think about this book – what you liked or may have
disliked.

To give any feedback about the source code, please:

 To find support interactively, chat with us at https://t.me/py4da (the

official book’s Telegram group)
 If you don’t think you can provide a patch, open a New Issue at:
https://github.com/loitd/python4desktop/issues
 If you think you can make some patch/fix the issue, fork the repository and
make a Pull Request at: https://github.com/loitd/python4desktop/pulls.
 Please don’t email me problems with source code. It should be done using
our git tool.

For more information about Github flow, please refer

to: https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-
team@latest/github/collaborating-with-issues-and-
pull-requests

Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most
out of.

Downloading example code

All the source code in the book can be found at

https://github.com/loitd/python4desktop. You should use git clone
https://github.com/loitd/python4desktop command or download directly
from the github repository.

12
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

Figure 1. Downloading source code

13
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

This page intentionally left blank

14
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1. Introduction

Python, in general, is an easy-to-learn yet powerful high level scripting

programming language. Python is not clearly fall into interpreted nor compiled
programming language, it has several implementations as follow:

15
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

def func(): …
Original .py file

Compiled by

1 3 2
PyPy, PythonNet,
CPython (official)
Jython Compiler IronPython Compiler wpython, Brython,
Compiler
Hotpy, ...

Compiled result Compiled result Compiled result

Byte code .class file Byte code .pyc file

In memory byte code
(used by JVM) (default)

Interpreted by Interpreted by Interpreted by

Dynamic Language
Runtime (DLR) on top
CPython Interpreter/
Jython Interpreter/ of Common
Cpython Virtual
Java Virtual Machine Language Runtime
Machine
(CLR)/.NET Virtual
Machine

Figure 2. Python Implementations

Notes from above illustration:

1 At the time of writing, IronPython supports Python v2.7 and not

officially support Python 3.

2 PyPi (Package Python Index) is a Python repository, should not be

confused with PyPy. At the time of writing, PyPy v7.3.1 support Python
2.7 and 3.6.

As PyPy wrote on their home page, PyPy is 4.2 times faster than CPython.

16
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

3 This is the official default implementation of Python. This book,

without explicit mentioned, follows this implementation.

PIP

pip is a package installer for Python. You can use pip to install packages from the
Python Package Index and other indexes.

By default, pip is shipped with Python installer so you don’t have to install pip
manually.

You can check your current pip version with pip --version command:

Please note that pip will be created per virtual environment as you can see in the
output above.

Wheels

Wheels are new standards of Python distribution. Please note that wheels are
supported from pip >= 1.4 and setuptools >= 0.8.

Wheels end with .whl extension. You can easily find wheels at any project’s
download tab as below:

17
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

Figure 3. A Python wheel example

Once you have wheels downloaded, you can install the package locally using:

pip install file-name-of-the-wheel.whl

Wheels are extreme helpful for some kind of packages those don’t have any
wheels available at pypi.org. There is my experience with wheels at Python and
choosing the right version at section 1.2 in this chapter.

Virtual Environment

Python virtual environment is a self-contained directory that contains a Python

installation for a particular version of Python and a number of additional
packages.

In this book, you will use a separated virtual environments for each chapter. E.g:
chapter 01 will have its own virtual environment inside chapter01 directory.

Python has a built-in virtual environment package named venv to allow you
create a virtual environment:

pip –m venv venv

18
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

The above command creates a virtual environment into a folder inside current
folder named venv.

Figure 4. Python virtual environment structure in Windows

To use the newly created virtual environment, you have to activate it using
activate command.

After activating process completed, there will be a prefix (venv) at the beginning
of command prompt to let you know that you are in a virtual environment.

To deactivate an active virtual environment, you need to use deactivate

command.

19
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

To install a package inside a virtual environment, you can use pip command as
normal. The packages will be installed at venv/Lib directory.

To delete a virtual environment, you simply delete the created virtual

environment folder (in this case venv folder).

Please note that:

 Python built-in venv package does NOT allow you to specify other Python
versions. To overcome this, you need to specify full path to Python
executable file when using the creation command. E.g:

o C:\Python36-86\python -m venv venv86

o C:\Python37-64\python -m venv venv64

 deactivate.bat currently not working in Windows Powershell.

 These above commands are used in Windows. In Linux/MacOS, you have
to use source venv/bin/activate command instead.
 The structure of venv folders are different between Windows and
Unix/MacOS environment.

GIL

GIL stands for Global Interpreter Lock, in CPython, is a mutex that protects
access to Python objects, preventing multiple threads from executing Python
bytecodes at once. This lock exists mainly because CPython memory management
is not thread-safe.

Because of GIL, Python has a bottleneck and can’t taking full advantage of
multiprocessor systems.

Because of CPython’s GIL, several implementations have been introduced to

remove GIL. Currently, Jython and IronPython are two implements that have no
GIL.

20
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

Please take a look back at the beginning of this chapter for Python
implementations.

CLI and GUI

Computers can display information and let the user give commands to it using
two methods: a command line interface (CLI) or a graphical user interface (GUI).

In a command line interface or console, the user types commands using the
keyboard to tell the computer to take an action.

In a graphical user interface, the user can use the computer mouse to click on
buttons.

Figure 5. Console or CLI example

21
Python For Desktop Applications First Edition

Figure 6. a GUI example

Those above 2 figures are examples of CLI/Console and GUI applications.

22