Encoding problem on 'utf-8' kv file on Windows

I’m developing a multi-platform app for Linux and Windows 7. All my files were first written on Linux and encoded as utf-8, but when I open this same project on Windows the kv file is read using the cp1252 encoding. The same thing does not seems to happen to my .py files maybe because I’m using python3.

As a consequence the Unicode characters written on the kv file won’t render correctly on the Kivy app. The string 'Título' will show as TÃ-tulo.

My settings are: Kivy=1.9.1, Python=3.4.4, Windows 7 x64 Home Premium.

Also my python was installed using Anaconda, but this is probably unrelated.

To reproduce the problem:

Write a kv file encoded with utf-8:

# test.kv
<myButton@Button>:
    text: 'Título'

On python interpreter or .py script:

import kivy
from kivy.lang import Builder
from kivy.uix.button import Button

Builder.load_file('test.kv')
class myButton(Button):
    pass

print( myButton().text == 'Título' ) # False
print( myButton().text.encode('cp1252').decode() == 'Título' ) # True

The multi-platform workaround I found was this:

# test.kv
<myButton@Button>:
    text: str(b'T\xc3\xadtulo'.decode())

[VinGarcia]

Yes @ChristianTremblay, this is only a Windows bug. This is actually because windows default encoding is cp1252, causing Kivy to read the .kv file as if encoded that way. Maybe the solution proposed by @KeyWeeUsr really helps, I haven’t tried that, but might be cleaner than the other workaround proposed.

I agree, a good solution would be to to allow encode specification on the .kv file like the way we can do in python:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
<MyWidget>:
    # ...

[leoserpa14]

Ok, I know this is not ideal but if none of these options are working for you, you can set your desired string to a variable in the main app class in your .py file, which has utf-8 encoding, and then access it in your .kv file. #.py class MainApp(App): struser = ('Nome de usuário')

#.kv Label: text: app.struser

worked for me