Roku Developer Program

[brocker]

Hey all,

Are there any Roku developers in the greater Seattle area who might be willing to do some paid training sessions? This learning curve is killing me, and I have so many questions (prob simple) that require one on one interaction. Thinking there might be someone who is up to some teaching?

Thanks
Bud

[RyanMarquiste]

I'm not in the Seattle area currently, but I may be within the next few months. I may be able to help out if the timeline isn't urgent.

What type of project is it?

Ryan

[brocker]

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately the timeline is shorter than that, but it could change depending on our Sprint backlog. When you get to Seattle, if you could let me know, that would be great!!

Best
Bud

[jbrave]

Just post your questions here, people will help you, you can learn everything without one-on-one teaching, even though that might be preferable. What are the problems you are encountering?

- Joel

[jseigle85]

You can get online one on one training. Go to Roku Tube (http://rokutube.com) and click on ask a question and those guys will post video tutorial on every question you have. This training is free, but they are willing to take donations

[brocker]

Yeah, I've been posting questions, but I'm so lost I would fill up the board and annoy everyone to the point I suspect they'd say, "Oh that, guy again, ignore him". I've posted a couple topics on my frustration with the learning curve as it's straight up for me. I know there are demo projects, and documents, but the demos aren't commented very well (and in some cases not at all) so trying to understand what something does is extremely frustrating.

Also, for example, in the BrightScript 3.0 reference, on page 17, it's trying to show you how to read from an XML file. There is a line given as an example that is "? rsp.photos.photo". But when I copy the code into a test project, it fails with error "'Dot' Operator attempted with invalid BrightScript Component or interface reference. (runtime error &hec) in ...QgrV/pkg:/source/XML_Demo.brs(14)" which is that line. I don't know what the question mark "?" is as it's the cause of the error. Is that a typo?

Later on the same page there is the line "Print booklist.book.gettext()". Well what is "booklist"??? Where was that declared and where did it come from?? Is there an assumption being made that it was declared same as "rsp" earlier in the sample code? This line also fails.

As you can see, this is simple simple stuff that would just most likely annoy the heck out of everyone if I were to post something this basic continually (although it's a legitimate question to me), and I don't want to burn my bridges by doing so. I just figured that having someone to ask immediately would be 100% faster and less spammy than the forums.

Signed
Clueless in Seattle 😞

[brocker]

"jseigle85" wrote:
You can get online one on one training. Go to Roku Tube (http://rokutube.com) and click on ask a question and those guys will post video tutorial on every question you have. This training is free, but they are willing to take donations

Thanks, I saw that yesterday, but there isn't any content there. I was hoping for "how to" videos, but the only one is about how to use the site which was kinda strange.

[gonzotek]

"brocker" wrote:
Yeah, I've been posting questions, but I'm so lost I would fill up the board and annoy everyone to the point I suspect they'd say, "Oh that, guy again, ignore him". I've posted a couple topics on my frustration with the learning curve as it's straight up for me. I know there are demo projects, and documents, but the demos aren't commented very well (and in some cases not at all) so trying to understand what something does is extremely frustrating.

Also, for example, in the BrightScript 3.0 reference, on page 17, it's trying to show you how to read from an XML file. There is a line given as an example that is "? rsp.photos.photo". But when I copy the code into a test project, it fails with error "'Dot' Operator attempted with invalid BrightScript Component or interface reference. (runtime error &hec) in ...QgrV/pkg:/source/XML_Demo.brs(14)" which is that line. I don't know what the question mark "?" is as it's the cause of the error. Is that a typo?

Later on the same page there is the line "Print booklist.book.gettext()". Well what is "booklist"??? Where was that declared and where did it come from?? Is there an assumption being made that it was declared same as "rsp" earlier in the sample code? This line also fails.

As you can see, this is simple simple stuff that would just most likely annoy the heck out of everyone if I were to post something this basic continually (although it's a legitimate question to me), and I don't want to burn my bridges by doing so. I just figured that having someone to ask immediately would be 100% faster and less spammy than the forums.

Signed
Clueless in Seattle 😞

? is a synonym for the debugger 'print' command, (see page 67 for more debugger commands). I believe it is only available in the debugger. Use 'print' from within your code to send data to the debugger output.



The text on page 17, just above "Print booklist.book.gettext()" says: "For example, if the variable booklist contains this roXMLElement:"

<booklist>
<book lang=eng>The Dawn of Man</book>
</booklist>

So this suggests that you should create a new variable, booklist = "CreateObject("roXMLElement")" then .parse some xml into it (in this case, the xml data in the code above). Then the "Print booklist.book.gettext()" line should work. Right now, I'm looking at the file mediarsstoolkit.brs from the deviantart example source, and the specific function GetPhotoListFromFeed, all from the 3.0 beta sdk, for an example of how to use roXMLElement.

I don't consider these questions silly, or ones that should be completely obvious, so don't worry about annoying anyone. 🙂 Just ask away.

[kbenson]

"brocker" wrote:

Also, for example, in the BrightScript 3.0 reference, on page 17, it's trying to show you how to read from an XML file. There is a line given as an example that is "? rsp.photos.photo". But when I copy the code into a test project, it fails with error "'Dot' Operator attempted with invalid BrightScript Component or interface reference. (runtime error &hec) in ...QgrV/pkg:/source/XML_Demo.brs(14)" which is that line. I don't know what the question mark "?" is as it's the cause of the error. Is that a typo?

? is an alias for print, so the two following statements are equivalent:

? "this is a string that will be printed"
print "this is a string that will be printed"

As for the XML error, XML allows for accessing sub-elements through the dot syntax, as long as it exists. This is dependent on the actual XML parsed. I suspect that the XML provided didn't include a photos elelement with a photo element within it, or there was some different in the location of the elements within the passed XML.

The best way to get help on something is generally to create a new post with a specific question or problem, and post the example code needed to replicate the error. Additionally, clueing us in on any prior programming experience will allow us to relate concepts in BrightScript to concepts that may be more familiar (but with a different syntax or use) in a language you are familiar with, which can go a long way towards helping your understanding.

[jbrave]

Also, few here will be annoyed at being asked simple questions, everybody starts somewhere.

I would suggest that trying to decipher the examples is not a good place to start, unless you have advanced programming skills from other languages.

What is the nature of the project you are trying to create? Then we can make suggestions on where to start and offer simple sample code. The examples present complex ways of doing things that are not necessary, but can be very useful once you are far along with developing roku apps.

- Joel