Roku Developer Program

[Banta67]

Hello,
First post here. Really happy to be able to create a custom app.

My question is hopefully simple. I am using the videoplayer sample, which draws it's content from XML files. I would like to know how to structure and then call on an XML feed that is based on an episode structure. For instance, I have a series of PopEye cartoons. I would like to be able to have the navigation structure as...

ANIMATION>CARTOONS>POPEYE>SEASON 1|SEASON 2 |

After selecting SEASON 1, I woud get a screen simlar to....



Which has the PLAY EPISODE 1 or CHOOSE DIFFERENT EPISODE option.

So the question is, based on the XML structure of the sample app VideoPlayer, what would the XML changes look like that would tell the ROKU Player that the selection is a episode screen and contain the proper feed for the episodes? I know its in there, I just cant figure out how to make it happen.

Please provide a simple example if possible. Once I wrap my head around this, I will be able to run with it.

Thanks
Banta

[supersecretuser]

I haven't seen anyone create such a thing so far with the SDK so you might be on your own. It's certainly not as simple as you make it sound.

[Banta67]

Thanks for your reply.
Episodic support is built into the SDK. Take a look at the documentation. In particular look at the PPT template provided. Or, pg 22 in the component reference PDF regarding..

roPosterScreen (flat-episodic)
"TV content is often displayed as a series of episodes within a season. The flat-episodic screen type provides a standard way to display episodic content, such as a TV series."

Or is the documentation referring to some other kind of episodic series?

I just need an example of how it would be called on.
Perhaps someone who knows the SDK can provide some usefull insight.

Thanks
Banta

[TommyTheKid]

Having just been through customization of the "videoplayer" example, I can tell you that there is a LOT of stuff HARD CODED (that makes no sense). You will need to make edits to appDetailScreen.brs and probably feedShow.brs if you want to do it in XML.

[mjordan]

I think essentially your XML would look like

<?xml>
<library>
     <season number="1">
          <episode number="1">
               <title>Episode One Title</title>
               ...all other metadata for episode
          </episode>
          <episode number="2">
               ...metadata
          </episode>
     </season>
     <season number="2">
          <episode number="1">
          </episode>
     </season>
</library>

Then in terms of your BrightScript stuff, read in the XML file and count how many seasons there are and create a Poster Screen or something for it, then when they select a season show another Poster Screen reading in each episode listed for the selected season.

I recently wrote an application that reads an XML file and displays a list of videos. It's just one level though (Poster Screen to select a video, then Springboard for the selected video), not divided by seasons. But anyway I found the videoplayer example to be strangely written, and it was actually easier to do it from scratch, looking up Section 4.5 "BrightScript XML Support" from the "BrightScript 2.0 Reference" document, which is a lot clearer on the basics of XML parsing.

As for the button to "select a different episode," that is easily obtained by using AddButton() and then checking for it in your message loop to go back to your episode selection Poster Screen. 🙂

[EngoTom]

Just capture the event in your message loop on your springboard.


else if msg.GetIndex() = FindOtherEpisodes
displayCategoryPosterScreen(LoadSimilar(shows[showIndex].Title))


What we do is query the server by title for similar content and load the poster screen with the new array of content.