Move search items more to the top - kivy

Question

I have the following code snippet displaying a popup Window.
class SearchBar(TextInput):
articles = ListProperty()
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
super().__init__(**kwargs)
self.bind(text=self.on_text)
self.bind(articles=self.on_articles)
def on_text(self, *args):
WikiSearcher().get_search_results(self.text, self)
def on_articles(self, *args):
self.parent.parent.children[0].update_recommendations(self.articles)
class SearchItem(ButtonBehavior, Label):
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
super().__init__(**kwargs)
self.url = ''
def on_release(self):
print (self.url)
class Recommendations(BoxLayout):
def update_recommendations(self, recommendations: list):
for (search_item, recommendation) in zip(reversed(self.children), recommendations):
search_item.text = recommendation
try:
search_item.url = wikipedia.page(recommendation).url
except:
search_item.url = 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/' + recommendation.replace(" ", "_")
Builder.load_string('''
<SearchItem>:
font_size: self.height * 0.4
canvas.before:
Color:
rgba: [0.8, 0.8, 0.8, 1] if self.state == 'normal' else [30/255, 139/255, 195/255, 1]
Rectangle:
#pos: self.pos
#size: self.size[0], self.size[1]
size: root.size[0], root.size[1]
pos: self.pos[0], self.pos[1]
Color:
rgba: 0, 0, 0, 1
Line:
rectangle: self.x, self.y, self.width, self.height
color: 0, 0, 0, 1
<Urlpup>:
size_hint: 1, 1
auto_dismiss: False
title: 'Enter URL or keywords'
BoxLayout:
canvas.before:
Color:
rgba: 1, 1, 1, 1
Rectangle:
size: self.size
pos: self.pos
orientation: 'vertical'
padding: self.width * 0.1
spacing: self.height * 0.1
BoxLayout:
orientation: 'horizontal'
Spinner:
id: spinner
size_hint: 0.5, 0.4
pos_hint: { 'top' : 1 }
text: 'en'
values: 'en', 'fr', 'de', 'it'
SearchBar:
id: url_input
size_hint: 1, 0.4
pos_hint: { 'center_x' : 0.5, 'top' : 1 }
multiline: False
font_size: self.height*0.8
Button:
text: 'OK'
size_hint: 0.5, 0.4
pos_hint: { 'top' : 1 }
on_press: root.dismiss()
on_release: app.create_new_article(url_input.text)
Recommendations:
id: recommendations
orientation: 'vertical'
SearchItem
SearchItem
SearchItem
SearchItem
''')
class Urlpup(Popup):
pass
Here is a picture of the popup Window
You can see that the SearchItems are not tightly below the SearchBar, where I'm struggling to position it. Can you fix it? On the picture there are 4 SearchItems but I plan to have 10 Searchitems so it should work for 10 SearchItems or be flexible when I decide to change the number of SearchItems

Answer 1

The BoxLayout tries to distribute its available space equally among its children, unless you tell it otherwise. So, your top level BoxLayout in the Urlpup class evenly divides its space between the BoxLayout containing the TextInput and the Recommendations widget. You can reduce the space between those two widgets by limiting the space given to the horizontal BoxLayout. You can do that by specifying a height for that BoxLayout, like this:
BoxLayout:
size_hint_y: None
height: 50
orientation: 'horizontal'
Spinner:
id: spinner
size_hint: 0.5, 1
pos_hint: { 'top' : 1 }
text: 'en'
values: 'en', 'fr', 'de', 'it'
SearchBar:
id: url_input
size_hint: 1, 1
pos_hint: { 'center_x' : 0.5, 'top' : 1 }
multiline: False
font_size: self.height*0.8
Button:
text: 'OK'
size_hint: 0.5, 1
pos_hint: { 'top' : 1 }
on_press: root.dismiss()
on_release: app.create_new_article(url_input.text)
Note that the children of this BoxLayout all have a size_hint_y of 1.0, so they will all be the height that is specified for their container.
The Recommendations widget gets the remaining vertical space (minus the spacing). You can move the Recommendations even closer by reducing the spacing.