Roku Developer Program

[Banta67]

Hello,
I am slowly putting together a sample app using the provided VIDEOPLAYER source.

My question is, how do I dynamically change the poster display based on what content is selected?

For example.

Say I have three categories from my home page..
Television | Comedies | Documentaries

Now, I would like to drill into the category Television and have the Poster Screen Change as approriate.

For Example (Selected[PosterScreenType])..
Television[flat-category]>Sitcoms[flat-category]>All In the Family[arced-portrait]>Season2[flat-episodic]

Now Selecting COMEDIES From the home page may present a diffent set of poster screens as drilled down.

So the question is, how, using the VideoPlayer example, can I change the poster screens based on content type. Examples?
Ideally I would just be able to flag inside the XML feed what type of poster screen should be displayed for any given feed type.
But, I must have missed something because I dont understand how to change it.

Any help in the right direction is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Banta

[RokuKevin]

You can make these changes by pointing to xml feeds on your own server. The only brightscript change necessary is to change the urls of the xml feeds that you will modify.

Then just edit the xml feeds to change the category labels and content for your posters.

--Kevin

[Banta67]

Ah that is music to my ears! And soon to my eyes. I was hoping that this is something that could be specified in the XML.

Looking at the first record of a supplied XML example (creativity.xml), there is the following,,,

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<feed>
	<!-- resultLength indicates the total number of results for this feed -->
	<resultLength>3</resultLength>
	<!-- endIndix  indicates the number of results for this *paged* section of the feed -->
	<endIndex>3</endIndex>
	<item sdImg="http://rokudev.roku.com/rokudev/examples/videoplayer/images/ElizabethGilbert.jpg" hdImg="http://rokudev.roku.com/rokudev/examples/videoplayer/images/ElizabethGilbert.jpg">
		<title>Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity</title>
		<contentId>10051</contentId>
		<contentType>Talk</contentType>
		<contentQuality>SD</contentQuality>
		<media>
			<streamFormat>mp4</streamFormat>
			<streamQuality>SD</streamQuality>
			<streamBitrate>1500</streamBitrate>
			<streamUrl>http://video.ted.com/talks/podcast/ElizabethGilbert_2009_480.mp4</streamUrl>
		</media>
		<synopsis>Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses -- and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person 'being' a genius, all of us 'have' a genius. It's a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.</synopsis>
		<genres>Creativity</genres>
		<runtime>1172</runtime>
	</item>

How would I modify code to show different poster types?(Flat Category, Arced Landscape, ETC)?
Please provide a quick example.

Is there a document or cheatsheet that shows all of the parameters that I can modify through the XML input?
Thank you so much!
Banta

[nowhereman]

"Banta67" wrote:
Ah that is music to my ears! And soon to my eyes. I was hoping that this is something that could be specified in the XML.

Looking at the first record of a supplied XML example (creativity.xml), there is the following,,,

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<feed>
	<!-- resultLength indicates the total number of results for this feed -->
	<resultLength>3</resultLength>
	<!-- endIndix  indicates the number of results for this *paged* section of the feed -->
	<endIndex>3</endIndex>
	<item sdImg="http://rokudev.roku.com/rokudev/examples/videoplayer/images/ElizabethGilbert.jpg" hdImg="http://rokudev.roku.com/rokudev/examples/videoplayer/images/ElizabethGilbert.jpg">
		<title>Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity</title>
		<contentId>10051</contentId>
		<contentType>Talk</contentType>
		<contentQuality>SD</contentQuality>
		<media>
			<streamFormat>mp4</streamFormat>
			<streamQuality>SD</streamQuality>
			<streamBitrate>1500</streamBitrate>
			<streamUrl>http://video.ted.com/talks/podcast/ElizabethGilbert_2009_480.mp4</streamUrl>
		</media>
		<synopsis>Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses -- and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person 'being' a genius, all of us 'have' a genius. It's a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.</synopsis>
		<genres>Creativity</genres>
		<runtime>1172</runtime>
	</item>

How would I modify code to show different poster types?(Flat Category, Arced Landscape, ETC)?
Please provide a quick example.

Is there a document or cheatsheet that shows all of the parameters that I can modify through the XML input?
Thank you so much!
Banta

The XML does not directly control the interface. If you look through the videoplayer example, there is code that parses that XML and maps it into the content-meta-data structure for the poster screen. That code is in ShowFeed.brs and CategoryFeed.brs. However, I do not believe display-type is one of the attributes it maps. You would need to add that code.

[Banta67]

Thanks for the reply.
I'm affraid that RokuKevin was perhaps not understanding what I was trying to do.

I am wondering if the screenstyle can be changed on the fly when loading the xml?

I am looking to update the page value...
screen.SetListStyle("arced-landscape")

which is currently on line 23 of the file appPosterScreen.brs.

So what I am thinking is I would have something like....

<item sdImg="http://rokudev.roku.com/rokudev/examples/videoplayer/images/ElizabethGilbert.jpg" hdImg="http://rokudev.roku.com/rokudev/examples/videoplayer/images/ElizabethGilbert.jpg" liststyle="flat-episodic">

or...

<category title="Technology" description="TED Talks on Technology" sd_img="http://rokudev.roku.com/rokudev/examples/videoplayer/images/TED_Technology.png" hd_img="http://rokudev.roku.com/rokudev/examples/videoplayer/images/TED_Technology.png">
<categoryLeaf title="The Mind" description="" feed="http://rokudev.roku.com/rokudev/examples/videoplayer/xml/themind.xml" liststyle="flat-episodic"/>
<categoryLeaf title="Global Issues" description="" feed="http://rokudev.roku.com/rokudev/examples/videoplayer/xml/globalissues.xml" liststyle="flat-landscape" /> </category>

then in appPosterScreen.brs, do something like.....

screen.SetListStyle(liststyle);

Do you think this is on the right track? What else would I need to change here. Please bear with me as I am new to all of this.
Any additional help or tips you can give is appreciated.
Thanks
Banta :roll:

[RokuKevin]

Sorry i did misunderstand you.

The videoplayer app does not currently support setting the list style in the xml. If you wanted to do that, you'd have to modify the script to parse the list style out of the xml as well and set it for the poster screens.

The videoplayer app just gets the content for the poster (which categories to display... which movie content to display.... etc...) from the xml.

--Kevin