3. Custom Activities

When standard pickers aren’t enough, you need an Activity. An Activity is a Python class that draws its own custom layout, handles its own event loop, and summons cinput.input only when needed.

We’ll use cinput.ListView to create a custom scrolling interface embedded in our app.

Advanced Component: List View

The ListView widget is the beast powering the pick() function, but you can embed it inside your own windows to show data, settings, or tools.

import cinput
from gint import *

def run_activity():
    items = [
        {'type': 'section', 'text': 'Options', 'height': 30},
        {'type': 'item', 'text': 'Graphics', 'height': 50, 'arrow': True},
        {'type': 'item', 'text': 'Notification', 'height': 50, 'arrow': True},
        {'type': 'item', 'text': 'Gameplay', 'height': 50, 'arrow': True},
        {'type': 'item', 'text': 'Power Usage', 'height': 50, 'arrow': True},
        {'type': 'item', 'text': 'Storage', 'height': 50, 'arrow': True}
    ]

    # Set coordinates: (X, Y, W, H)
    my_list = cinput.ListView((0, 40, 320, 528-40), items)

    running = True
    while running:
        dclear(C_WHITE)

        # Draw a custom header
        drect(0, 0, 320, 40, 0x528a)
        dtext(10, 10, C_WHITE, "Activity Menu")

        my_list.draw()
        dupdate()

        cleareventflips()

        events = []
        ev = pollevent()
        while ev.type != KEYEV_NONE:
            events.append(ev)
            ev = pollevent()

        # Let ListView handle touch/scrolls!
        action = my_list.update(events)

        if action:
            # action is ('click', index, item)
            print("User tapped:", action[2]['text'])

            # Maybe launch an input box if they click an item
            if action[2]['text'] == 'Graphics':
                cinput.pick(["High", "Medium", "Low"], "Graphics Quality")

        for e in events:
             if e.type == KEYEV_DOWN and e.key == KEY_EXIT:
                  running = False

run_activity()

Interactivity the Smart Way

The physchem_mod.py app is a perfect example of an Activity. It creates a SolverActivity filled with interactive math fields. It runs a loop, and when someone clicks a math variable, it internally calls cinput.input(..., type="numeric_float"), recalculates the answer, and redraws!

The main list view:

And the SolverActivity :

Instead of writing massive monolithic scripts, break your UI down into smaller Activities and let them handle their own rendering and interaction loops.

Now, go build something awesome!