Roku Developer Program

[kbenson]

"EnTerr" wrote:

Hmm, what you propose is a "scope creep". It requires significant changes (specification/integration/testing) and to me has no apparent use. My point of view is from "smart" remote (e.g. smartphone w/wifi) to be able to easily select show from instant queue (having the queue list by other means - Netflix API - since Netflix channel does not provide access to it). the device UI provides own navigation interface that does not need "scroll five right" or "scroll XX left" commands but will need to locate the item for playing on Roku if directed to do so. A simple sufficient way would be if there is "jump to 1" command and then using the existing commands to pinpoint (FF +5, RW -5, > +1, < -1).

It's only scope creep after the scope has been designed and agreed upon at least once. Until that time, it's discussion of the best way to implement a feature. I happen to think that implementing it in a way that A) doesn't necessarily take up the last button on the remote, and B) allows for more useful roGridScreen capabilities in general is the way to go if there needs to be a change.

Now, it's true that we aren't strictly talking about the same thing. You are referring to the default Netflix channel adding a feature, and I'm talking about expanding the capabilities of roGridScreen in general.

Now about usefulness being able to jump to Instant Queue top movie, i happen to vehemently 🙂 disagree! I have 200+ movies in my queue and scrolling them screen by screen on Roku is PITA. They are sorted in order of preferences - with the need of order Neflix seems to also agree, since they provide you web UI to reorder the instant queue - on top of my queue are the movies i'd like to watch first - based on my taste or because they will "expire" (if you use Netflix you may have noticed some items in queue are marked with "available until ..." date due to licensing limitations). How do i (and other users) end up with long queue - simply by surfing Netflix's "you would like" suggestions and queuing for later.

There wouldn't be need of "jump to queue start" if the queue view was not wrapping-around - we discussed that in another thread - but it does wrap around as-is and i cannot just step on REW button until it reaches the start. This shortfall i find someone related to the Apple Mac menu good UI - see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menu_bar#Ease_of_use - where menu being always on top of the screen, it's very easy to "throw" the cursor against the edge of the screen, knowing that cannot overshoot the menu bar.

I have 370+, and it maybe takes 5-10 seconds to reach the start if you choose the right direction and use FF or REW (actually, about 7 seconds to go through 170 titles, I just timed it).

Unfortunately, since I'm not the only only adding movies, I can't easily sort them, and at this point I'm not going to try.

I don't know specifically why you would be farther along the queue all that often if most of what you want to watch is in the beginning, but at 200+ titles you'll rarely be more than 5 seconds from the start if you go the right direction, but only because the queue DOES wrap. Imagine the reverse though, where someone wants to get to a movie they just added to the end of the queue, and it doesn't wrap. Now it may take twice as long. You are optimizing for your use, which may or may not match the average user.

[TheEndless]

"kbenson" wrote:
I have 370+, and it maybe takes 5-10 seconds to reach the start if you choose the right direction and use FF or REW (actually, about 7 seconds to go through 170 titles, I just timed it).

Unfortunately, since I'm not the only only adding movies, I can't easily sort them, and at this point I'm not going to try.

I don't know specifically why you would be farther along the queue all that often if most of what you want to watch is in the beginning, but at 200+ titles you'll rarely be more than 5 seconds from the start if you go the right direction, but only because the queue DOES wrap. Imagine the reverse though, where someone wants to get to a movie they just added to the end of the queue, and it doesn't wrap. Now it may take twice as long. You are optimizing for your use, which may or may not match the average user.

I think it would make the most sense for it to wrap the same as the poster screen, where a repeated key press (button held down) scrolls to the beginning or end of the list and then stops. Then a second key press wraps. Best of both worlds.

[EnTerr]

"TheEndless" wrote:
I think it would make the most sense for it to wrap the same as the poster screen, where a repeated key press (button held down) scrolls to the beginning or end of the list and then stops. Then a second key press wraps. Best of both worlds.

And off we go again, off-topic. I had a simple request stated.

What you propose is useless because a "remote" app cannot press-and-hold a button for indeterminate amount of seconds - it has no feedback from the box at what position it was and how long it will take to go to the queue end or beginning. Even if you plan to "overshoot" by wide margin every time, 7+ seconds is unacceptable.

I remember your idea of scrolling/wrap-around from another topic - why dont you open new topic for it instead of muddling this one?

[EnTerr]

"kbenson" wrote:
I don't know specifically why you would be farther along the queue all that often if most of what you want to watch is in the beginning, but at 200+ titles you'll rarely be more than 5 seconds from the start if you go the right direction, but only because the queue DOES wrap. Imagine the reverse though, where someone wants to get to a movie they just added to the end of the queue, and it doesn't wrap. Now it may take twice as long. You are optimizing for your use, which may or may not match the average user.

I think you don't understand the problem, perhaps you should try using DVPRemote to see it first hand.
The issue is that when starting Netflix channel, you don't know where the cursor is positioned in the instant queue. You know it is on the first line (instant queue) but not at which position. It does not start at #1, it is at the last location you scrolled to before. It might be #1, might be #234 - who knows, there is no feedback from the channel. There are workarounds (like what DVPRemote does now - asking user to indicate where in the queue there are now) but they make for clumsy, awkward user interface - which is not "the Roku way".

[TheEndless]

"EnTerr" wrote:

"TheEndless" wrote:
I think it would make the most sense for it to wrap the same as the poster screen, where a repeated key press (button held down) scrolls to the beginning or end of the list and then stops. Then a second key press wraps. Best of both worlds.

And off we go again off-topic. I had a simple request stated.

What you propose is useless because a "remote" app cannot press-and-hold a button for indeterminate amount of seconds because it has no feedback from the box at what position it was and how long it will take to go to the queue end or beginning. Even if you plan to "overshoot" by wide margin every time, 7+ seconds is unacceptable time.

I remember your idea of scrolling/wrap-around from another topic - why dont you open new topic for it instead of muddling this one?

Whoa! Where in the world did that attitude coming from? This topic is about a way to jump to the beginning of the queue, which my suggestion would accomplish. How in the world is that off topic???? And of course a remote app can press and hold. Whether it has to do so for 10 seconds or one, I think that'd be a heck of a lot more user friendly than asking the user which item is currently selected.

And as far as I can recall, I've never posted anything regarding this before. Maybe you've confused me with someone else, or just misread my suggestion, but I'm sorry for "muddling" your thread with what I thought was actually a worthwhile suggestion that addressed both your request and kbenson's.

[kbenson]

"EnTerr" wrote:

"kbenson" wrote:
I don't know specifically why you would be farther along the queue all that often if most of what you want to watch is in the beginning, but at 200+ titles you'll rarely be more than 5 seconds from the start if you go the right direction, but only because the queue DOES wrap. Imagine the reverse though, where someone wants to get to a movie they just added to the end of the queue, and it doesn't wrap. Now it may take twice as long. You are optimizing for your use, which may or may not match the average user.

I think you don't understand the problem, perhaps you should try using DVPRemote to see it first hand.
The issue is that when starting Netflix channel, you don't know where the cursor is positioned in the instant queue. You know it is on the first line (instant queue) but not at which position. It does not start at #1, it is at the last location you scrolled to before. It might be #1, might be #234 - who knows, there is no feedback from the channel. There are workarounds (like what DVPRemote does now - asking user to indicate where in the queue there are now) but they make for clumsy, awkward user interface - which is not "the Roku way".

I was addressing your example of having to scroll to the beginning to view the movies you've sorted for high precedence. That is, your normal user use case. I don't see how my suggestion for a solution earlier in this thread doesn't meet the technical needs as explained here, while also allowing for some other nice features.

While I support the call for a way to better navigate the Netflix queue in a deterministic manner, I'll state again that I am AGAINST using the instant replay button to skip to the beginning of the queue. I would much rather it be used for some more intuitive and useful (for the average user) task, such as automatically loading the details screen the last movie watched, or since that's fairly easy with the Recently watched queue, maybe the last detail screen looked at. I understand that doesn't help people making apps to interface with Netflix, but that's the reason I specified an alternative solution.

[EnTerr]

"TheEndless" wrote:
And of course a remote app can press and hold. Whether it has to do so for 10 seconds or one, I think that'd be a heck of a lot more user friendly than asking the user which item is currently selected.

I am trying to come up with a solution which a person will find reasonable as a user of remote app. I may be too narrow-minded - but I don't think 14 seconds is acceptable time to locate a movie (10 secs to beginning, 4 secs to walk half the queue FF/RW worst case) - vs only 4sec if there was way to "reset" position in queue. Of course it will be best if there was API for Netflix channel to position in queue but I am sure Roku have long queue of features to implement and are very slow in rolling new features because of the big user base. Jumping to the beginning of the queue OTOH - i thought - is something any user will apreciate if can be done with the IR remote too, so i proposed something that (i thought) benefits anyone.

"TheEndless" wrote:
And as far as I can recall, I've never posted anything regarding this before. Maybe you've confused me with someone else, or just misread my suggestion, but I'm sorry for "muddling" your thread with what I thought was actually a worthwhile suggestion that addressed both your request and kbenson's.

You have - we discussed it already here http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=37520&p=244521#p244537, excerpt:

"TheEndless" wrote:
Maybe holding down the FF or REV could scroll to the beginning or end and stop, like it does on the non-grid poster screens.

[TheEndless]

"EnTerr" wrote:

"TheEndless" wrote:
And as far as I can recall, I've never posted anything regarding this before. Maybe you've confused me with someone else, or just misread my suggestion, but I'm sorry for "muddling" your thread with what I thought was actually a worthwhile suggestion that addressed both your request and kbenson's.

You have - we discussed it already here http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=37520&p=244521#p244537, excerpt:

"TheEndless" wrote:
Maybe holding down the FF or REV could scroll to the beginning or end and stop, like it does on the non-grid poster screens.

Oh... OK, so I posted the same suggestion in another thread that was discussing the exact same thing. At least I'm consistent, even if I don't remember it. 😛 If you read further down in that thread, you'll see that I suggested another option for ECP apps to accomplish it with a special key combination. I don't develop external control applications, so this feature wouldn't benefit me regardless of how it is implemented. I was just genuinely trying to offer a possible solution that addressed multiple issues. No secret agenda. No thread hijacking attempt. And no intentional "meddling"... I'm sorry you took it as such.

[RokuKevin]

I suggest that all developers take a look at the new ECP "input" command. That command lets you pass any command to channels. I propose that Roku adds a "beginRow" and "beginColumn" commands to the Netflix channel that would enable remote apps to position the grid focus at the instant queue first position. (Naming conventions on this should also be discussed).

I good discussion here would be coming up with other standard commands that all channels might make use of. This is an opportunity for developers to come up with "de-facto" command standards. And for remote and app developers to come to an agreement on the interface that would be useful for all apps to support.

--Kevin

[EnTerr]

"RokuKevin" wrote:
I suggest that all developers take a look at the new ECP "input" command. That command lets you pass any command to channels. I propose that Roku adds a "beginRow" and "beginColumn" commands to the Netflix channel that would enable remote apps to position the grid focus at the instant queue first position. (Naming conventions on this should also be discussed).

I good discussion here would be coming up with other standard commands that all channels might make use of. This is an opportunity for developers to come up with "de-facto" command standards. And for remote and app developers to come to an agreement on the interface that would be useful for all apps to support.
--Kevin

Thanks, Kevin -
i've looked at the "input" introduced in ECP and it seems very thoughtful in regard to possibly use iOS and Android devices as advanced controllers - the explanation gives ideas about sensors and accelerometers, so i can imagine game channels being written, turning Roku into a low-end game console with Wii-like movement-sensitive remoting (wouldn't that be sweet!). There is something that bothers me though and that is the lack of feedback to the external controller, if i understand this right, all you can do is *send* data to Roku and it will always respond "200 OK" - no way to indicate it failed or status? There should be a way Roku to feed back an advanced remote - one use from games is make the remote "rumble" (vibrate). Another, be able to query Roku status: what channel is running currently ("query/channel"?) - i think i proposed that with details in another thread - so the remote app knows what extensions to provide (e.g. what additional "input" commands can be used).

In regards to Netflix channel, if going the ECP way, to follow the spirit on the new "input" command i suppose it should be something like

POST /input?cmd=goto&row=Y&column=X

so that direct positioning can be done instantly.

This ECP way though people with regular remote won't have a way to jump to beginning or end of queue. No big loss i guess since people here expressed "meh" opinion on it.