Roku Developer Program

[Komag]

So I was testing my new Roku Stick 3600, and in my game I pressed * a few times, and suddenly I hear a computer voice say that the Roku Audio Guide has been activated! That's pretty annoying and jarring for someone immersed in my game.

How can a developer turn this thing off while in-game?

[RokuDale]

press the "*" button again,I think three times in  a row.

[belltown]

You could try this:

CreateObject("roAppManager").SetAutomaticAudioGuideEnabled(false) 

You may or may not want to check that the user is running at least fw7.5 before calling that function though.

[Komag]

Every time I hit * four times I hear "Audio Guide enabled", then hit it four more times and I hear "Audio Guide disabled". That is bad, it is terribly immersion breaking in-game to hear that.

Thanks for that tip belltown, but that line didn't seem to help for me. I tried putting it in a couple different places in my code, and the Roku Stick 3600 I tested on was running fw7.5 but I'm not sure how roAppManager is intended to work, and the description says:

SetAutomaticAudioGuideEnabled(enabled as Boolean) as Void
Available since firmware version 7.5
Enables or disables automatic Audio Guide and override any manifest setting. This is useful for channels that want to temporarily turn off automatic Audio Guide for specific screens.

So I'm not sure what it means by "specific screens". My whole game is on a roScreen. Is there a manifest setting that can turn it off?

If I can turn this off somehow I would consider it a Roku bug!

[belltown]

"Komag" wrote:
Every time I hit * four times I hear "Audio Guide enabled", then hit it four more times and I hear "Audio Guide disabled". That is bad, it is terribly immersion breaking in-game to hear that.

Thanks for that tip belltown, but that line didn't seem to help for me. I tried putting it in a couple different places in my code, and the Roku Stick 3600 I tested on was running fw7.5 but I'm not sure how roAppManager is intended to work, and the description says:

SetAutomaticAudioGuideEnabled(enabled as Boolean) as Void
Available since firmware version 7.5
Enables or disables automatic Audio Guide and override any manifest setting. This is useful for channels that want to temporarily turn off automatic Audio Guide for specific screens.

So I'm not sure what it means by "specific screens". My whole game is on a roScreen. Is there a manifest setting that can turn it off?

If I can turn this off somehow I would consider it a Roku bug!

Sorry that didn't help. Pressing the * key 4 times is supposed to turn on/off the Audio Guide according to: https://support.roku.com/article/231584647-how-do-i-use-audio-guide-
I'd expect you'd make the roAppManager call at the start of the program, before you create your roScreen, if it were to work at all. It may not even be enabled though for roScreen -- or it may be a bug.
The user can disable that functionality on their device by going to Settings > Accessibility > Audio Guide and disabling Shortcut. In the worse case scenario, you could always tell them that the first time they run your game.
There may be a (currently-undocumented) manifest setting to turn off the Audio Guide Shortcut. Hopefully, someone from Roku will chime in with an answer.

[Komag]

Thanks for the input, we'll see if Roku can shed more light on this

[EnTerr]

i tested it from the console in RokuTV (7.5) and roAppManager.SetAutomaticAudioGuideEnabled(false) does not seem to work, has no effect.

The "audio guide" is a riot though! A "must hear" for amusement's sake. Highly recommended. I am mystified as of what the voice accent is - was that India's submission for Stephen Hawking's TTS? Also, what is the last word in what it says, "Antenna TV, button. 4 in 67 ..." - interbred? integrate? immigrate?

[Komag]

I hacked a way to avoid it - simply detect when * is pressed (rather, when it's released - id 110), and then do some other benign button press (I'm using "backspace", id 11, 111) to break the pattern, so it's impossible to get four * in a row!

FUNCTION doBackspace()
 ? "doBackspace() running, doing ""Backspace"" keypress"
 ipaddrs = CreateObject("roDeviceInfo").GetIPAddrs()
 IF ipaddrs.eth0 <> INVALID THEN ipaddr = ipaddrs.eth0
 IF ipaddrs.eth1 <> INVALID THEN ipaddr = ipaddrs.eth1
 xfer = CreateObject("roURLTransfer")
 url = "http://"+ipaddr+":8060/keypress/Backspace"
 xfer.SetUrl(url)
 xfer.PostFromString("")
END FUNCTION

[joetesta]

very clever Komag!!  As I started reading this thread I didn't think there's a way around it.  I'm working on this stuff for the past week or so and EnTerr's comment gave me a good laugh.  There's a lot of room for improvement on the pronunciation that's for sure!
@EnTerr i think it's saying "in a grid" to indicate the user can go any of 4 directions, but it's pretty unclear!

[EnTerr]

"joetesta" wrote:
@EnTerr i think it's saying "in a grid" to indicate the user can go any of 4 directions, but it's pretty unclear!

Ahh, thank you. Perhaps that was narrated by Austin Power's villain "BooTone InAGrid" (cue Ivana Humpalot). Neither "button" nor "in a grid" seem appropriate, esp. considering the repetition.

Oh hey, here is a bug in said AudioGuide is turned on:

1. From home screen navigate to the right-most icon in the current row


2. Wait for the chant to finish ("... button. 3 of 68 InAGrid")


3. Press Right to go to the ad poster. Hear "68 items".

Huh? Should have said "This is an advertisement". Conversely, if you don't wait to completion in step 2, there is a smaller buglet - it says "... button. 3 of 68 InAGrid. This is an advertisement", the issue being it does not interrupt the chant as is customary when new remote press arrives.