Roku Developer Program

[Rek]

Does anyone know of a way to automate publishing of a Roku channel? I've built a toolchain that performs some custom build steps and outputs either a .zip or .pkg file. I often do builds which I upload to a private channel for testing, and I find it cumbersome to login and navigate the website each time. I'd love to add another option to my build script which performs the upload.

I investigated using mechanize, however it doesn't execute javascript (which much of the site relies on).

Has anyone tackled this successfully?

[Rek]

"Rek" wrote:
Does anyone know of a way to automate publishing of a Roku channel? I've built a toolchain that performs some custom build steps and outputs either a .zip or .pkg file. I often do builds which I upload to a private channel for testing, and I find it cumbersome to login and navigate the website each time. I'd love to add another option to my build script which performs the upload.

I investigated using mechanize, however it doesn't execute javascript (which much of the site relies on).

Has anyone tackled this successfully?

I'm going to take the lack of replies as a resounding "no".

@Roku*: If there is not currently a logged request for an API which would make this possible, then I request one 🙂

[Komag]

But it's only been one day!

But probably you're right. 😛

[Rek]

"Komag" wrote:
But it's only been one day!

But probably you're right. 😛

One day and 30+ thread views... I figured there's a good chance that you, enterr, endless, squirrel, and belltown would've likely seen it

[TheEndless]

I can't think of a single good reason to do this, and about a million good reasons not to. How often are you publishing updates to channels that you need to automate it, and is it often enough to risk writing a script that could do it accidentally? Sounds very dangerous to me...

[Rek]

"TheEndless" wrote:
I can't think of a single good reason to do this, and about a million good reasons not to. How often are you publishing updates to channels that you need to automate it, and is it often enough to risk writing a script that could do it accidentally? Sounds very dangerous to me...

I agree that it has the potential to do damage if misused. It wouldn't be for publishing to production. Only myself and a few coworkers have access to the private channel.

Google has an API in place for play store which allows this already. I believe the iOS app store does too.

[EnTerr]

Hmmm, publishing an app is like a sharpshooting contest - and you are asking to be allowed to bring in a machine gun!

Next thing you know, some XP enthusiast will figure that is a great opportunity to do continuous deployment and start peppering RokuCo's backend with buckshot. That is beyond annoying - it is expensive. There is a good chance Co's file storage does not even delete old packages, keeping them in perpetuity.

[EnTerr]

Your q. made me thinking and here is an idea: use side-loading for yourself and your colleagues.

With a twist: at start, channel checks and if roAppInfo.IsDev() then POST roAppInfo.GetVersion() to a web service at a shared server - and then continues executing as usual.

That staging server will be the one hosting latest version of your app. When it gets tickled by a Roku, it will check if the submitted version# is older than the one it has - and if so, it will retaliate by POST uploading the new pkg at the client IP (which causes app to re-start). Else it will keep truce.

[destruk]

Ah, but running your own 'channel store' - even for a single channel, is against the developer agreement.

[EnTerr]

"destruk" wrote:
Ah, but running your own 'channel store' - even for a single channel, is against the developer agreement.

Not a channel store. Have you read the opening recitations of said agreement - or did you have unrelated pet-peeve you thought you'd bring to the thread? 😉

“Channel Store” means a storefront of channel applications that Roku makes available to End Users in a
defined territory, which storefront is provided by the Player as an on-screen menu that permits End Users
in the applicable territory to browse and install said channel applications on their Player.

You can stop at the 3rd word of the definition - "storefront". No "storefront" => not a "channel store". There are other reasons, if you continue reading but one is enough.