Category: android

I’ve just released Pyonic interpreter 1.1. As usual, you can get it from Google Play for Python 2.7 or Python 3.5, or download the APKs directly from Github (where the source code is also available).

The major feature in this release is autocompletion support via the excellent jedi library, as is used by many editors and IDEs. Pyonic now automatically gives a list of autocompletion options as you write Python code, any of which can be selected by tapping it. There’s also a new help button, which when pressed shows the call signature and docstring of the Python object reference currently under the cursor.

As a further bonus, I’ve reduced the size of the Python 3 APK by a further ~25%, it’s now around 11MB. This is probably still a little larger than it needs to be, but is much better than the massive 19MB version that I first published! I’ll continue to try to improve this with tweaks in python-for-android’s Python 3 build process.

For the next release, I intend to go back to improving Pyonic’s process handling, and from there to add support for pip installation of new modules and file editing. The latter of these will also benefit from the new autocompletion integration.

I’ve just released Pyonic interpreter 1.1. As usual, you can get it from Google Play for Python 2.7 or Python 3.5, or download the APKs directly from Github (where the source code is also available).

The major feature in this release is autocompletion support via the excellent jedi library, as is used by many editors and IDEs. Pyonic now automatically gives a list of autocompletion options as you write Python code, any of which can be selected by tapping it. There’s also a new help button, which when pressed shows the call signature and docstring of the Python object reference currently under the cursor.

As a further bonus, I’ve reduced the size of the Python 3 APK by a further ~25%, it’s now around 11MB. This is probably still a little larger than it needs to be, but is much better than the massive 19MB version that I first published! I’ll continue to try to improve this with tweaks in python-for-android’s Python 3 build process.

For the next release, I intend to go back to improving Pyonic’s process handling, and from there to add support for pip installation of new modules and file editing. The latter of these will also benefit from the new autocompletion integration.

I’ve just released Pyonic interpreter 1.0. You can get it from Google Play for Python 2.7 or Python 3.5, or download the APKs directly from Github (update: changed to v1.0.1 following a small bugfix).

The primary change in this release is that both APKs are about 25% smaller than before, thanks to optimisations in the Python distributions that I’ve added to python-for-android - in particular, making sure Python files are shipped as .pyo files (which may also speed things up a bit) and stripping unneeded symbols from object files with Python 3. Both of these were things python-for-android has been missing for a while, so it’s nice to get them working and immediately see the benefits.

I’ve also been working on some backend improvements in Pyonic and python-for-android in order to support multiple interpreter processes. This will be convenient for using pip and running Python code from files, but isn’t ready yet and so hasn’t made it into this release.

I’ve just released Pyonic interpreter 1.0. You can get it from Google Play for Python 2.7 or Python 3.5, or download the APKs directly from Github (update: changed to v1.0.1 following a small bugfix).

The primary change in this release is that both APKs are about 25% smaller than before, thanks to optimisations in the Python distributions that I’ve added to python-for-android - in particular, making sure Python files are shipped as .pyo files (which may also speed things up a bit) and stripping unneeded symbols from object files with Python 3. Both of these were things python-for-android has been missing for a while, so it’s nice to get them working and immediately see the benefits.

I’ve also been working on some backend improvements in Pyonic and python-for-android in order to support multiple interpreter processes. This will be convenient for using pip and running Python code from files, but isn’t ready yet and so hasn’t made it into this release.

Pyonic interpreter 0.7 has just been released. There are now two versions on Google Play, one for Python 2.7 and one for Python 3.5. The APKs are also available directly from Github. Other features in this release include a new settings screen and improved gui arrangement.

The app is written in Python using Kivy, and uses exactly the same code under both Python versions. This code is open source and available online on Github.

This release includes most of the short term improvements I had planned, since supporting Python 3 didn’t raise any major issues. I expect that development will now focus on adding a few more usability tweaks, then working with the Python packaging to add features like pip installs for new modules, code editing (rather than just the interpreter interface), and support for GUI creation via Kivy.

Pyonic interpreter 0.7 has just been released. There are now two versions on Google Play, one for Python 2.7 and one for Python 3.5. The APKs are also available directly from Github. Other features in this release include a new settings screen and improved gui arrangement.

The app is written in Python using Kivy, and uses exactly the same code under both Python versions. This code is open source and available online on Github.

This release includes most of the short term improvements I had planned, since supporting Python 3 didn’t raise any major issues. I expect that development will now focus on adding a few more usability tweaks, then working with the Python packaging to add features like pip installs for new modules, code editing (rather than just the interpreter interface), and support for GUI creation via Kivy.

I’ve just released a new app, Pyonic Python 2 interpreter. Pyonic interpreter is a Python interpreter app for Android, providing a convenient interface adapted to mobile devices. The app itself is written entirely in Python using Kivy.

I put this together because I’ve always thought it would be nice to have a Python interpreter app that is itself written in Python, and in principle Kivy and python-for-android provide all the necessary components. In practice this worked even better than I expected, Kivy handled almost everything perfectly - I actually underestimated its maturity here! As part of the project, I’ve tried to round a number of corners that Kivy apps sometimes can to have, so that the interpreter (hopefully) behaves nicely in all situations. Within the interpreter, all of the standard library is available, and it’s possible to interrupt execution (equivalent to the normal ctrl+c behaviour) or to restart the interpreter process. No external modules are included yet except those necessary for the app to run, but I’ll probably include some major ones like numpy in a future release, and in the long term the aim is to support pip installs of new modules.

This has also been a great stimulus for working on python-for-android; I’ve fixed a number of bugs, added several new features, and improved documentation in several places, just thanks to needing these things in a real app.

On a technical level, Pyonic interpreter runs under Python 2, consisting of the app itself and a background Service running a second instance of the interpreter. I’ll be working on Python 3 support in the near future, in fact I originally wrote the app using Python 3 but switched to Python 2 partly due to incompatibilities in Kivy’s osc library (which should be easily fixed or avoided by just using a better communication library) and partly the more well-tested nature of python-for-android’s Python 2 build.

The interpreter works by passing submitted Python code to the background Python process where it is parsed as ast and compiled in ‘exec’ or ‘single’ mode as appropriate to replicate the output printing behaviour of the normal Python interpreter. Doing things this way is a little awkward and feels like reinventing the wheel, although I’m not sure how to better achieve the same thing. An alternative might be to just call the python binary in a subprocess and manipulate its stdin/stdout - I’ll be looking into this option, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for message passing and may need some small changes in python-for-android, assuming also that android doesn’t impose any important limits on subprocessing.

In the short term future, I expect to work first on releasing an improved version that adds a number of useful settings options (sneak peek in the image below), followed by working on a Python 3 version, and then to investigate some of these technical questions. I’d like to look into iOS support, as everything should work almost the same way there, but I don’t have the hardware or developer mempership for iOS development; if anyone would like to try it, let me know. Longer term, Pyonic interpreter is an experimental step towards creating a larger suite of mobile Python tools, in tandem with using this experience to improve python-for-android. There are many features to be added directly to the interpreter, but I’d also like to add surrounding tools including a full code editor, the ability to use pip to install other modules locally, and GUI support via additional Kivy activities.

I’ve just released a new app, Pyonic Python 2 interpreter. Pyonic interpreter is a Python interpreter app for Android, providing a convenient interface adapted to mobile devices. The app itself is written entirely in Python using Kivy.

I put this together because I’ve always thought it would be nice to have a Python interpreter app that is itself written in Python, and in principle Kivy and python-for-android provide all the necessary components. In practice this worked even better than I expected, Kivy handled almost everything perfectly - I actually underestimated its maturity here! As part of the project, I’ve tried to round a number of corners that Kivy apps sometimes can to have, so that the interpreter (hopefully) behaves nicely in all situations. Within the interpreter, all of the standard library is available, and it’s possible to interrupt execution (equivalent to the normal ctrl+c behaviour) or to restart the interpreter process. No external modules are included yet except those necessary for the app to run, but I’ll probably include some major ones like numpy in a future release, and in the long term the aim is to support pip installs of new modules.

This has also been a great stimulus for working on python-for-android; I’ve fixed a number of bugs, added several new features, and improved documentation in several places, just thanks to needing these things in a real app.

On a technical level, Pyonic interpreter runs under Python 2, consisting of the app itself and a background Service running a second instance of the interpreter. I’ll be working on Python 3 support in the near future, in fact I originally wrote the app using Python 3 but switched to Python 2 partly due to incompatibilities in Kivy’s osc library (which should be easily fixed or avoided by just using a better communication library) and partly the more well-tested nature of python-for-android’s Python 2 build.

The interpreter works by passing submitted Python code to the background Python process where it is parsed as ast and compiled in ‘exec’ or ‘single’ mode as appropriate to replicate the output printing behaviour of the normal Python interpreter. Doing things this way is a little awkward and feels like reinventing the wheel, although I’m not sure how to better achieve the same thing. An alternative might be to just call the python binary in a subprocess and manipulate its stdin/stdout - I’ll be looking into this option, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for message passing and may need some small changes in python-for-android, assuming also that android doesn’t impose any important limits on subprocessing.

In the short term future, I expect to work first on releasing an improved version that adds a number of useful settings options (sneak peek in the image below), followed by working on a Python 3 version, and then to investigate some of these technical questions. I’d like to look into iOS support, as everything should work almost the same way there, but I don’t have the hardware or developer mempership for iOS development; if anyone would like to try it, let me know. Longer term, Pyonic interpreter is an experimental step towards creating a larger suite of mobile Python tools, in tandem with using this experience to improve python-for-android. There are many features to be added directly to the interpreter, but I’d also like to add surrounding tools including a full code editor, the ability to use pip to install other modules locally, and GUI support via additional Kivy activities.