Roku Developer Program

[newchannel]

I want to temporarily host my images in the package to replace the (3) Red TED images, the text categories and the text beneath the (3) Red TED images.
I made several attempts but the same Red TED's and text and categories have not changed on my tv screen.

I currently have a folder titled:

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\Roku\roku_sdk_v29\examples\source\videoplayer\images

and in this folder are the images that are main channel images, side images that are showing my own logo on the tv screen.

Can I place my replacement images for the (3) Red TED's into this same folder? If so, where on the category.brs do I need to reference these images? I see the connUrlPrefix but not sure how to re-write it to reference the folder with my images.

To change the category titles and text beneath the (3) Red TEDS, I edited them in the folder titled:

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\Roku\roku_sdk_v29\examples\source\videoplayer\xml

but they have not changed on the tv screen most likely because I have not edited the categoryfeed.brs

In the folder :

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\Roku\roku_sdk_v29\examples\source\videoplayer\source

for the categoryFeed.brs I see this original information as:

InitCategoryFeedConnection() As Object

conn = CreateObject("roAssociativeArray")

conn.UrlPrefix = "http://rokudev.roku.com/rokudev/examples/videoplayer/xml"
conn.UrlCategoryFeed = conn.UrlPrefix + "/categories.xml"

conn.Timer = CreateObject("roTimespan")

conn.LoadCategoryFeed = load_category_feed
conn.GetCategoryNames = get_category_names

print "created feed connection for " + conn.UrlCategoryFeed
return conn

End Function

How do I write the url to point to the images and what else have I left out or my not have correct in order to change the (3) Red TEDS?

Thank you in advance, again!

[bandal]

Look at the manifest file and the appMain.brs to point to the 8 images. The rest of the images in videoplayer can be replaced with your images and renamed to what you want. If the xml file is used you can replace the image names there that point to where they are on your website. The manifest and appMain should contain 8 images unless you have a small channel. The rest of the channel images that you make or create can be on your website server in its images directory that you can declare in the xml file by name. Hope that makes sense.
When I zip up the videoplayer I have my 8 images within the zip file. I edit my categories.xml file and show the path to my images I want for each show. I edit the categories.xml and any categoryleaf xml's to point to my images. I use for example

<category title="Romance" description="Romantic Movies" sd_img=
"http://www.xxxxx.org/Rokudev/video/images/romance.jpg" hd_img="http://www.xxxxx.org/Rokudev/video/images/romance.jpg">
<categoryLeaf title="Romantic Movies" description="" feed="http://www.xxxxx.org/Rokudev/video/xml/romancemovies.xml"/>

and my sub category of romancemovies.xml file:
<item sdImg="http://www.xxxxx.org/Rokudev/video/images/angen_sd.jpg"
hdImg="http://www.xxxxx.org/Rokudev/video/images/angen_hd.jpg">
.
.

In the categoryFeed.brs I have
Function InitCategoryFeedConnection() As Object

conn = CreateObject("roAssociativeArray")

conn.UrlPrefix = "http://www.xxxxx.org/Rokudev/video/xml"
conn.UrlCategoryFeed = conn.UrlPrefix + "/categories.xml"

That should get you going. Remember to ftp the new images to your images directory and the xml files to your xml directory on your website server.

[newchannel]

My Manifest shows I have these four images:

mm_icon_focus_hd
mm_icon_side_hd
mm_icon_focus_sd
mm_icon_side_sd

My images folder shows (8) images that I made ie: center focus HD and SD, the main menu HD and SD, overhang background HD and SD, over hang logo HD and SD. Should I edit the Manifest and add the other four images?

Into this same folder I placed my own images that I want to use to replace the (3) Red TEDS.

After doing a test upload to the Roku device, I saw that my main images were showing on the tv. But trying to copy that same procedure to replace the (3) Red TEDS is where I made the mistake. It's apparently more detailed than just making three new images, putting them into the images folder and trying to upload to the device the way I did for the other images.

If I am understanding correctly, I should have the images I want to use to replace the (3) Red TEDS uploaded to my own server to store and note what the url is of that file. Then use that url from my own server in place of the url that is in the category.xml and also change the categoryFeed.brs

conn.UrlPrefix = "http://rokudev.roku.com/rokudev/examples/videoplayer/xml"
conn.UrlCategoryFeed = conn.UrlPrefix + "/categories.xml"

conn.Timer

I did edit the title and subtitle in the Manifest and have that showing my information,

If I am correct, then I can do this and have my images stored, the code will then have the new url address for the images and upload to the device the videplayer files ie: xml, source, images, manifest

Hopefully, I have this right and it will show my new images and text for categories.

The appmain.brs, I have not edited anything there as yet. I edited the category.xml and see I need to edit the url in the categoryFeed.brs and made changes in the manifest as mentioned above to change the title and subtitle.

If I can get to the next step and get the (3) Red TEDS changed. Trying to understand the flow of what to edit first, second and so on would be a big help. I guess people that have built one or more channels have a certain flow that they take. I just have to find my trail. I have only done a little bit of html. My focus is video and not coding but going to see how far I can get with it.

I think it's not knowing when or which files to change gets confusing. Even after reading the SDK several times. But each time I do read the SDK I see I am more familiar with some of it. I just feel confused on getting the (3) Red TEDS changed and it's probably so simple that I'm making it much harder than it needs to be.

Thanks again for the help.

[bandal]

When i was doing the same, I noticed that my images and text would not change too. I uploaded the zip file and all looked ok in the files and my images were all there. The way I got it to work after side loading was to power off and on the Roku and the new graphics and text were shown. But, that could be a later side effect to watch for in the future.

But, regarding the 3 RED Teds, they won't change until the xml path is changed to your server and image file in categories.xml. You still should change the appMain.brs image files with your images and keep the size the same as the original images.
You may have the your custom images in the images directory with the images from appMain and the manifest file, but you won't see your custom artwork or movie images until that xml path is correct. The reference to pkg:/images/Overhang_Background_SD.png as an example means that the images will show due to the root directory within the videoplayer app that was zipped up. But, what if you had 100+ images and tried to zip up and sideload, the Roku would not have enough space to hold all the source files and images together and fail to sideload. So the zipped file must stay as small as possible and keep all other images and xml content on your website server.
The other images will be a full path name in the xml files on your website server. Once they are you will see them. Otherwise, you just see the path Roku used for the example coming from their site and their images

[destruk]

Most all images on roku are cached on the roku. Other files could be cached as well (I haven't had to investigate caching of other files before). You can get around this by adding a timestamp to the url to force it to always load a fresh copy instead of the cached one. What I've been toying with lately is adding a file CRC to the request - the file CRC needs to be updated whenever the file changes on the server - the CRC is used in the roku request in the xml, the CRC is generated server-side using a polling routine of the files on the server to automate at set intervals or a manual update script, but that way it would only download a new file when the crc changed. I think that is the best of both worlds for functionality. The chances of two different files with the same exact filename having the same CRC is small enough to not worry about too.

What I'd like to see at some point - on a wishlist type of thing - is for each object roku downloads to have something like a "use cached" property - it could be tied into the xml for download once, download new every time, and clear from cache manually option - but until that happens we're stuck with all these other hacks to get it done. They have purge cached images for the roimagecanvas but I don't think there is a similar option for anything else without rebooting the roku.

[newchannel]

Well, no more (3) Red TEDS. They are officially gone.

The XML and images were uploaded to my server. The videoplayer example files were zipped and then uploaded to the Roku device. On my server, I tweaked the category titles/descriptions in my category.xml and put in the XML url into the categoryFeed.brs source file.

I then edited the categories.xml leaf's titles to make them my own. Now to see how to expand and make more leafs, as well as adding url's of the video files. after I complete the encoding of my videos. And, I need to begin researching how to place graphic display ads under some of my categories and how to play video ads at the beginning of my video content. There's a ton of work ahead.

Thanks for help and postings.

[bandal]

Good to hear it is working. To add more leafs just copy & Paste a leaf and edit the line to match the xml file called. Copy a xml that exists and change the name of the xml.

[newchannel]

I too am glad it is working.

Meanwhile, my hard drive crashed and unfortunately my main computer is in the shop till Tuesday. So no building till then. Thinking it might be something going on thorough the internet at the other office location where I had taken the computer. I don't know enough about that myself but it's worth looking into because I believe my email was hacked into, also.

The day before, I had uploaded the xml and images to the server so I am glad about that. But all of the sdk files that I was referring too were lost.

Anyway, once over this hump I can begin building again.