kivy/doc/sources/philosophy.rst

.. _philosophy:

Philosophy
==========

In case you are wondering what Kivy is all about and what sets it apart from
other solutions, this document is for you.


Why bother?
-----------

Why would you want to use Kivy? After all, there are many great toolkits
(or frameworks, or platforms) available out there -- for free. You have Qt and
Flash, to name just two good choices for application development. Many of
these numerous solutions already support Multi-Touch, so what is it that makes
Kivy special and worth using?


Fresh
~~~~~
Kivy is made for today and tomorrow. Novel input methods such as Multi-Touch
have become increasingly important. We created Kivy from scratch, specifically
for this kind of interaction. That means we were able to rethink many things in
terms of human computer interaction, whereas older (not to mean 'outdated',
rather 'well-established') toolkits carry their legacy, which is often a burden.
We're not trying to force this new approach to using a computer into the corset
of existing models (say single-pointer mouse interaction).
We want to let it flourish and let you explore the possibilities.
*This* is what really sets Kivy apart.


Fast
~~~~

Kivy is fast. This applies to both *application development* and *application
execution* speeds. We have optimized Kivy in many ways. We implement
time-critical functionality on the *C level* to leverage the power of existing
compilers. More importantly, we also use *intelligent algorithms* to minimize
costly operations. We also use the *GPU* wherever it makes sense in our
context. The computational power of today's graphics cards surpasses that of
today's CPUs by far for some tasks and algorithms, especially drawing.  That's
why we try to let the GPU do as much of the work as possible, thus increasing
performance considerably.


Flexible
~~~~~~~~

Kivy is flexible. This means it can be run on *a variety of different devices*,
including Android powered smartphones and tablets. We support *all major
operating systems* (Windows, Linux, OS X). Being flexible also means that Kivy's
fast-paced development allows it to *adapt to new technologies quickly*.
More than once have we added support for new external devices and software
protocols, sometimes even before they were released. Lastly, Kivy is also
flexible in that it is possible to use it in combination with a great number of
different third-party solutions. For example, on Windows we support WM_TOUCH,
which means that any device that has Windows 7 Pen & Touch drivers will *just
work* with Kivy. On OS X you can use Apple's Multi-Touch capable devices, such
as trackpads and mice. On Linux, you can use HID kernel input events.
In addition to that, we support TUIO (Tangible User Interface Objects) and a
number of other input sources.


Focused
~~~~~~~

Kivy is focused. You can write a simple application with a few lines of code.
Kivy programs are created using the *Python* programming language, which is
incredibly versatile and powerful, yet easy to use. In addition, we created our
own description language, the *Kivy Language*, for creating sophisticated user
interfaces. This language allows you to set up, connect and arrange your
application elements quickly. We feel that allowing you to focus on the
essence of your application is more important than forcing you to fiddle with
compiler settings. We took that burden off your shoulders.


Funded
~~~~~~

Kivy is actively developed by professionals in their field. Kivy is a
community-influenced, professionally developed and commercially backed
solution. Some of our core developers develop Kivy for a living.
Kivy is here to stay. It's not a small, vanishing student project.


Free
~~~~
Kivy is free to use. You don't have to pay for it. You don't even have to pay
for it if you're making money out of selling an application that uses Kivy.