I've actually, wonderfully, found what I was looking for, by accident, with the following setup:

button.present('popover')
button.action ⇒ view.present()
view::button_item.action ⇒ view.alpha = 0 ⇒ clean, transparent view to the console log

without the initial popover button, setting view.alpha = 0 results in a black, opaque screen.
seems the popover enables something specific for transparency…

here's a working example:

import ui
import time

view = ui.View()
view.frame = (0, 0, 240, 240)
view.flex = 'WH'
view.background_color = 'white'

def alphaaction(sender):
	print(view.alpha)
	if view.alpha == 1.0:
		view.alpha = 0.0
		sender.tint_color = 'red'
	else:
		view.alpha = 1.0
		sender.tint_color = 'black'

alphabutton = ui.ButtonItem()
alphabutton.action = alphaaction
alphabutton.title = 'alpha'
alphabutton.tint_color = 'black'
view.right_button_items = [alphabutton]

button = ui.Button()
button.action = lambda x: view.present()
button.frame = (0,0,40,40)
button.background_color = '#9cd8a1'


if False:
	view.present() # => black screen
else:
	button.present('popover') # => transparent screen

@ui.in_background
def run():
	k = 0
	while True:
		print("### test", k, "###")
		k += 1
		time.sleep(0.5)
		
run()

cheers, I found the beta signup form :)

and I'm not worried about exiting the loop

There are issues with commenting/uncommenting in python files with unicode characters. I obtained the following crash after a tablet hard reset, opening pythonista, and trying to uncomment the 3 highlighted lines via the keyboard shortcut (cmd+/). I do use quite a few unicode chars in my script, such as 𐄙, 𐄚, 𐄛, 𐄜, Ω, and have noticed from some time that it messes up commenting/uncommenting blocks of code, but this is the first actual crash I encounter.

(I don't know how else to attach some pics here)

yep, that worked :D I put it on attach

@on_main_thread
def attach(self):

now that Overlay is awesome for a quick settings screen :)

@dgelessus awesome scripts :D
@JonB the above main body I placed in overlay.py and simply ran the file ( after correcting the name issue )

Fatal Python error: Aborted

Current thread 0x000000016e117000 (most recent call first):

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Objective-C exception details:

NSInternalInconsistencyException: Only run on the main thread!

Stack trace:

0   CoreFoundation                      0x000000018316fd50 <redacted> + 148
1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x0000000182684528 objc_exception_throw + 56
2   CoreFoundation                      0x000000018316fc0c <redacted> + 0
3   Foundation                          0x0000000183afec90 <redacted> + 88
4   UIFoundation                        0x000000018d64a70c <redacted> + 1008
5   UIFoundation                        0x000000018d64a194 <redacted> + 1672
6   UIFoundation                        0x000000018d656de8 <redacted> + 168
7   UIFoundation                        0x000000018d647494 <redacted> + 4628
8   UIFoundation                        0x000000018d647f30 <redacted> + 196
9   UIFoundation                        0x000000018d648640 <redacted> + 340
10  UIFoundation                        0x000000018d6513b0 <redacted> + 2180
11  UIFoundation                        0x000000018d67aed0 <redacted> + 332
12  UIFoundation                        0x000000018d6a0528 <redacted> + 160
13  UIKit                               0x000000018d1cd658 <redacted> + 524
14  UIKit                               0x000000018c5c4eac <redacted> + 248
15  UIKit                               0x000000018c57c000 <redacted> + 1256
16  QuartzCore                          0x000000018714d0b4 <redacted> + 184
17  QuartzCore                          0x0000000187151194 <redacted> + 332
18  QuartzCore                          0x00000001870bff24 <redacted> + 336
19  QuartzCore                          0x00000001870e6340 <redacted> + 540
20  QuartzCore                          0x00000001870e7180 <redacted> + 92
21  CoreFoundation                      0x00000001831178b8 <redacted> + 32
22  CoreFoundation                      0x0000000183115270 <redacted> + 412
23  CoreFoundation                      0x00000001830362f8 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 468
24  Foundation                          0x0000000183a5e6e4 <redacted> + 304
25  Foundation                          0x0000000183a7dafc <redacted> + 96
26  Py3Kit                              0x0000000102687508 -[PYK3Interpreter setupInterpreterThreadRunLoop] + 252
27  Foundation                          0x0000000183b5f860 <redacted> + 996
28  libsystem_pthread.dylib             0x0000000182d9c32c <redacted> + 308
29  libsystem_pthread.dylib             0x0000000182d9c1f8 <redacted> + 0
30  libsystem_pthread.dylib             0x0000000182d9ac38 thread_start + 4

End of exception details.

That Overlay class is quite nice :) I'll keep it around for later, but it does have some quirks:

for one, the below crashes when trying to set the .text:

if __name__=='__main__':
	view = ui.View()
	view.frame = (0, 0, 240, 240)
	view.flex = 'WH'
	view.background_color = 'white'
	valuefield = ui.TextField()
	valuefield.frame = (120, 34, 120, 34)
	valuefield.text = "ana" # ⇒ crashes Pythonista
	view.add_subview(valuefield)
	o=Overlay(content=view,parent=AppWindows.root())

cheers, I found the beta signup form :)

and I'm not worried about exiting the loop

go through the whole Examples folder and run everything - that's how I got started :)

that update_interval looks much cleaner :) but I don't have access to the beta, didn't know there was one.

on the other hand I needed the full console because I don't have the screen real-estate for an in-view text box - and then there's the amount of logs I go through when I do check the console…

hiding the view temporarily to check the logs was just what I was looking for :)

I've actually, wonderfully, found what I was looking for, by accident, with the following setup:

button.present('popover')
button.action ⇒ view.present()
view::button_item.action ⇒ view.alpha = 0 ⇒ clean, transparent view to the console log

without the initial popover button, setting view.alpha = 0 results in a black, opaque screen.
seems the popover enables something specific for transparency…

here's a working example:

import ui
import time

view = ui.View()
view.frame = (0, 0, 240, 240)
view.flex = 'WH'
view.background_color = 'white'

def alphaaction(sender):
	print(view.alpha)
	if view.alpha == 1.0:
		view.alpha = 0.0
		sender.tint_color = 'red'
	else:
		view.alpha = 1.0
		sender.tint_color = 'black'

alphabutton = ui.ButtonItem()
alphabutton.action = alphaaction
alphabutton.title = 'alpha'
alphabutton.tint_color = 'black'
view.right_button_items = [alphabutton]

button = ui.Button()
button.action = lambda x: view.present()
button.frame = (0,0,40,40)
button.background_color = '#9cd8a1'


if False:
	view.present() # => black screen
else:
	button.present('popover') # => transparent screen

@ui.in_background
def run():
	k = 0
	while True:
		print("### test", k, "###")
		k += 1
		time.sleep(0.5)
		
run()

Hi, how can I present a view fullscreen and also check the console from time to time ?

I've tried view.present('panel') to get the view in a separate tab alongside the console tab, but the trouble with this is that I write to the console constantly (every second or so), and Pythonista keeps changing my tab to the console one at each print - How do I get rid of that behavior, it's annoying as hell

I've also tried presenting normally, and changing the view's alpha from a ButtonItem action to see the underneath console, but I get a black screen instead, so how could I make the presented view actually transparent ?

right now I'm stuck with the following setup: a small button presented as 'sheet', that when clicked presents the fullscreen view - when I need to check the console logs I close the view and then I re-present it from the sheeted button...