API

10/19/18About 13 min

API

webview.active_window

webview.active_window()

Get an instance of the currently active window

webview.create_window

webview.create_window(title, url=None, html=None, js_api=None, width=800, height=600,
                      x=None, y=None, screen=None, resizable=True, fullscreen=False,
                      min_size=(200, 100), hidden=False, frameless=False,
                      easy_drag=True, shadow=False, focus=True, minimized=False, maximized=False, menu=[],
                      on_top=False, confirm_close=False, background_color='#FFFFFF',
                      transparent=False, text_select=False, zoomable=False,
                      draggable=False, vibrancy=False, server=http.BottleServer, server_args={},
                      localization=None)

Create a new pywebview window and returns its instance. Can be used to create multiple windows (except Android). Window is not shown until the GUI loop is started. If the function is invoked during the GUI loop, the window is displayed immediately.

title - Window title
url - URL to load. If the URL does not have a protocol prefix, it is resolved as a path relative to the application entry point. Alternatively a WSGI server object can be passed to start a local web server.
html - HTML code to load. If both URL and HTML are specified, HTML takes precedence.
js_api - Expose a python object to the Javascript domain of the current pywebview window. Methods of the js_api object can be invoked from Javascript by calling window.pywebview.api.<methodname>(<parameters>) functions. Exposed function return a promise that return once function returns. Only basic Python objects (like int, str, dict, ...) can be returned to Javascript.
width - Window width. Default is 800px.
height - Window height. Default is 600px.
x - Window x coordinate. Default is centered.
y - Window y coordinate. Default is centered.
screen - Screen to display window on. screen is a screen instance returned by webview.screens.
resizable - Whether window can be resized. Default is True
fullscreen - Start in fullscreen mode. Default is False
min_size - a (width, height) tuple that specifies a minimum window size. Default is 200x100
hidden - Create a window hidden by default. Default is False
frameless - Create a frameless window. Default is False.
easy_drag - Easy drag mode for frameless windows. Window can be moved by dragging any point. Default is True. Note that easy_drag has no effect with normal windows. To control dragging on an element basis, see drag area for details.
shadow - Add window shadow. Default is False. Windows only.
focus - Create a non-focusable window if False. Default is True.
minimized - Display window minimized
maximized - Display window maximized
menu - A list of Menu objects to create a window specific menu. This menu overrides the application menu specified in webview.start. Not supported on GTK.
on_top - Set window to be always on top of other windows. Default is False.
confirm_close - Whether to display a window close confirmation dialog. Default is False
background_color - Background color of the window displayed before WebView is loaded. Specified as a hex color. Default is white.
transparent - Create a transparent window. Not supported on Windows. Default is False. Note that this setting does not hide or make window chrome transparent. To hide window chrome set frameless to True.
text_select - Enables document text selection. Default is False. To control text selection on per element basis, use user-select CSS property.
zoomable - Enable document zooming. Default is False
draggable - Enable image and link object dragging. Default is False server=http.BottleServer, server_args
vibrancy - Enable window vibrancy. Default is False. macOS only.
server - A custom WSGI server instance for this window. Defaults to BottleServer.
server_args - Dictionary of arguments to pass through to the server instantiation
localization - pass a localization dictionary for per window localization.

webview.start

webview.start(func=None, args=None, localization={}, gui=None, debug=False,
              http_server=False, http_port=None, user_agent=None, private_mode=True,
              storage_path=None, menu=[], server=http.BottleServer, ssl=False,
              server_args={}, icon=None):

Start a GUI loop and display previously created windows. This function must be called from a main thread.

func - function to invoke upon starting the GUI loop.
args - function arguments. Can be either a single value or a tuple of values.
localization - a dictionary with localized strings. Default strings and their keys are defined in localization.py
gui - force a specific GUI. Allowed values are cef, qt or gtk depending on a platform. See Web Engine for details.
debug - enable debug mode. See Debugging for details.
http_server - enable built-in HTTP server for absolute local paths. For relative paths HTTP server is started automatically and cannot be disabled. For each window, a separate HTTP server is spawned. This option is ignored for non-local URLs.
http_port - specify a port number for the HTTP server. By default port is randomized.
user_agent - change user agent string.
private_mode - Control whether cookies and other persistant objects are stored between session. By default private mode is on and nothing is stored between sessions.
storage_path - An optional location on hard drive where to store persistant objects like cookies and local storage. By default ~/.pywebview is used on *nix systems and %APPDATA%\pywebview on Windows.
menu - Pass a list of Menu objects to create an application menu. See this example for usage details.
server - A custom WSGI server instance. Defaults to BottleServer.
ssl - If using the default BottleServer (and for now the GTK backend), will use SSL encryption between the webview and the internal server. You need to have cryptography pip dependency installed in order to use ssl. It is not installed by default.
server_args - Dictionary of arguments to pass through to the server instantiation
icon - path to application icon. Available only for GTK / QT. For other platforms icon should be specified via a bundler.

Examples

webview.screens

webview.screens

Return a list of available displays (as Screen objects) with the primary display as the first element of the list.

Examples

Simple window

webview.settings

webview.settings = {
  'ALLOW_DOWNLOADS': False,
  'ALLOW_FILE_URLS': True,
  'DRAG_REGION_SELECTOR': 'pywebview-drag-region',
  'DRAG_REGION_DIRECT_TARGET_ONLY': False,
  'OPEN_EXTERNAL_LINKS_IN_BROWSER': True,
  'OPEN_DEVTOOLS_IN_DEBUG': True,
  'IGNORE_SSL_ERRORS': False,
  'REMOTE_DEBUGGING_PORT': None,
  'SHOW_DEFAULT_MENUS': True
}

Additional options that override default behaviour of pywebview to address popular feature requests.

ALLOW_DOWNLOADS Allow file downloads. Disabled by default.
ALLOW_FILE_URLS Enable file:// urls. Disabled by default.
DRAG_REGION_SELECTOR CSS selector for a drag region in easy drag mode. Default selector is .pywebview-drag-region.
DRAG_REGION_DIRECT_TARGET_ONLY When set to True, only elements that directly match the drag region selector are draggable. When False, child elements of a drag region are also draggable. Default is False.
IGNORE_SSL_ERRORS Ignore SSL errors. Disabled by default.
OPEN_EXTERNAL_LINKS_IN_BROWSER. Open target=_blank link in an external browser. Enabled by default.
OPEN_DEVTOOLS_IN_DEBUG Open devtools automatically in debug mode. Enabled by default.
REMOTE_DEBUGGING_PORT Enable remote debugging when using edgechromium. Disabled by default.* SHOW_DEFAULT_MENUS Show default menu on Cocoa. Enabled by default.
SHOW_DEFAULT_MENUS Show default menus on Cocoa. Enabled by default.
WEBVIEW2_RUNTIME_PATH Path to WebView2 runtime. You can use relative paths, which will be resolved relative to the application entry point with support of path resolution for most bundlers. If not set, the system installed runtime is used if present.

Examples

File downloads

webview.token

webview.token

A CSRF token property unique to the session. The same token is exposed as window.pywebview.token. See Security for usage details.

webview.dom

webview.dom.DOMEventHandler

DOMEventHandler(callback, prevent_default=False, stop_propagation=False, stop_immediate_propagation=False, debounce=0)

A container for an event handler used to control propagation or default behaviour of the event. If debounce is greater than zero, Python event handler is debounced by a specified number of milliseconds. This can be useful for events like dragover and mouseover that generate a constant stream of events resulting in poor performance.

Examples

element.events.click += DOMEventHandler(on_click, prevent_default=True, stop_propagation=True, stop_immediate_propagation=True)
element.events.mouseover += DOMEventHandler(on_click, debounce=500)

webview.dom.ManipulationMode

Enum that sets the position of a manipulated DOM element. Possible values are:

LastChild - element is inserted as a last child of the target
FirstChild - element is inserted as a firt child of the target
Before - element is inserted before the target
After - element is inserted after the target
Replace - element is inserted replacing the target

Used by element.append, element.copy, element.move and window.dom.create_element functions.

webview.Element

element.attributes

Get or modify element's attributes. attributes is a PropsDict dict-like object that implements most of dict functions. To add an attribute, you can simply assign a value to a key in attributes. Similarly, to remove an attribute, you can set its value to None.

Examples

element.attributes['id'] = 'container-id' # set element's id
element.attributes['data-flag'] = '1337'
element.attributes['id'] = None # remove element's id
del element.attributes['data-flag'] # remove element's data-flag attribute

element.classes

element.classes

Get or set element's classes. classes is a ClassList list-like object that implements a subset of list functions like append, remove and clear. Additionally it has a toggle function for toggling a class.

Examples

element.classes = ['container', 'red', 'dotted'] # overwrite element's classes
element.classes.remove('red') # remove red class
element.classes.add('blue') # add blue class
element.classes.toggle('dotted')

element.append

element.append(html, mode=webview.dom.ManipulationMode.LastChild)

Insert HTML content to the element as a last child. To control the position of the new element, use the mode parameter. See Manipulation mode for possible values.

element.blur

element.blur()

Blur element.

element.children

element.children

Get element's children elements. Returns a list of Element objects.

element.copy

element.copy(target=None, mode=webview.dom.ManipulationMode.LastChild, id=None)

Create a new copy of the element. target can be either another Element or a DOM selector string. If target is omitted, a copy is created in the current element's parent. To control the position of the new element, use the mode parameter. See Manipulation mode for possible values. The id parameter is stripped from the copy. Optionally you can set the id of the copy by specifying the id parameter.

element.empty

element.empty()

Empty element by removing all its children.

element.events

element.events

A container object of element's all DOM events, ie events.click, event.keydown. This container is dynamically populated and its contents depend on the events a node has. To subscribe to a DOM event, use the += syntax, e.g. element.events.click += callback. Similarly to remove an event listener use -=, eg. element.events.click -= callback. Callback can be either a function or an instance of DOMEventHandler if you need to control propagation of the event.

element.focus

element.focus()

Focus element.

element.focused

element.focused

Get whether the element is focused.

element.hide

element.hide()

Hide element by setting display: none.

element.id

element.id

Get or set element's id. None if id is not set.

element.move

element.move(target, mode=webview.dom.ManipulationMode.LastChild)

Move element to the target that can be either another Element or a DOM selector string. To control the position of the new element, use the mode parameter. See Manipulation mode for possible values.

Examples

DOM Manipulation

element.next

element.next

Get element's next sibling. None if no sibling is present.

element.off

element.off(event, callback)

Remove an event listener. Identical to element.event.event_name -= callback.

Examples

# these two are identical
element.off('click', callback_func)
element.events.click -= callback_func

DOM Events

element.on

element.on(event, callback)

Add an event listener to a DOM event. Callback can be either a function or an instance of DOMEventHandler if you need to control propagation of the event. Identical to element.event.event_name += callback.

Examples

# these two are identical
element.on('click', callback_func)
element.events.click += callback_func

DOM Events

element.parent

element.parent

Get element's parent Element or None if root element is reached.

element.previous

element.previous

Get element's previous sibling. None if no sibling is present.

element.remove

element.remove()

Remove element from DOM. Element object is not destroyed, but marked as removed. Trying to access any properties or invoke any functions of the element will result in a warning.

DOM Manipulation

element.show

element.show()

Show hidden element. If element was hidden with element.hide(), a previous display value is restored. Otherwise display: block is set.

DOM Manipulation

element.style

Get or modify element's styles. style is a PropsDict dict-like object that implements most of dict functions. To add a style declraration, you can simply assign a value to a key in attributes. Similarly, to reset a declaration, you can set its value to None.

Examples

element.style['width'] = '100px' # set element's width to 100px
element.style['display'] = 'flex' # set element's display property to flex
element.style['width'] = None # reset width to auto
del element.attributes['display'] # reset display property to block

element.tabindex

element.tabindex

Get or set element's tabindex.

element.tag

element.tag

Get element's tag name.

element.text

element.text

Get or set element's text content.

element.toggle

element.toggle()

Toggle element's visibility.

element.value

element.value

Get or set element's value. Applicable only to input elements that have a value.

element.visible

element.visible

Get whether the element is visible.

Used to create an application menu. See this example for usage details.

Menu(title, items=[]). Instantiate to create a menu that can be either top level menu or a nested menu. title is the title of the menu and items is a list of actions, separators or other menus. If title is "__app__", then the menu is treated as an application menu on macOS and ignored on other platforms.

MenuAction(title, function) Instantiate to create a menu item. title is the name of the item and function is a callback that should be called when menu action is clicked.

MenuSeparator() Instantiate to create a menu separator.