Nano-GUI¶

Nano-GUI by Peter Hinch — lightweight GUI for memory-constrained MicroPython boards.

pydisplay does not vendor Nano-GUI in the git repo. You install Peter Hinch's gui tree locally (see below) and wire the display through pydisplay's color_setup.py and displaybuf.py.

Requirements¶

Component	Location	Notes
`board_config.py`	`board_configs/` or `src/lib/`	pydisplay display and touch setup
`color_setup.py`	`src/add_ons/`	Ships with pydisplay — creates `ssd` via DisplayBuffer
`gui/`	`src/add_ons/gui/`	Upstream — copy from micropython-nano-gui
`lib.path`	`src/lib/path.py`	Dev clone — puts `add_ons/` on `sys.path` so `import gui` works

Peter Hinch's drivers/ tree is for bare-metal MCU displays. With pydisplay you use color_setup.ssd instead; you do not need drivers/ for the pydisplay examples.

Install the `gui` package¶

Full clone (development)¶

From the pydisplay repo root, copy only the gui directory into add_ons/:

curl -sL https://github.com/peterhinch/micropython-nano-gui/archive/refs/heads/master.tar.gz \
  | tar xz --strip-components=2 -C src/add_ons micropython-nano-gui-master/gui

src/add_ons/gui/ is listed in .gitignore — it is a local upstream checkout, not part of the pydisplay tree.

Expected layout:

src/add_ons/
├── color_setup.py      # pydisplay — wires board_config → DisplayBuffer
├── displaybuf.py
└── gui/                # Peter Hinch — not in git
    ├── core/
    ├── fonts/
    ├── widgets/
    └── demos/

Because path.py adds add_ons/ to sys.path, imports match upstream Nano-GUI:

from color_setup import ssd
from gui.core.colors import RED, BLUE, GREEN
from gui.core.nanogui import refresh

MicroPython device (MIP)¶

On hardware, install Nano-GUI into the same directory as color_setup.py (typically ./add_ons or /lib):

import mip
mip.install("github:peterhinch/micropython-nano-gui", target="./add_ons")
mip.install("github:PyDevices/pydisplay/packages/add_ons.json", target="./add_ons")

Adjust target= so gui/ and color_setup.py sit in the same path root.

Example¶

src/examples/nano_gui_simpletest.py — hardware verification script from the upstream Nano-GUI docs.

Run from a full clone:

cd pydisplay/src
micropython -i lib/path.py examples/nano_gui_simpletest.py

Desktop CPython / MicroPython unix also work when board_config provides an SDL or PG display.

Tagged # multimer types: all in the examples catalog.

Platform¶

MicroPython and CPython (via pydisplay displaybuf + desktop board_config). Not CircuitPython or PyScript.