Hello fellow dev's. I have an idea that could partially answer the question that so many users have asked on the general forum: "can we have a web browser on the Roku"
The idea is that we all agree on a standard markup language that could be used to easily build an image canvas, and then we can create sites that actually are browsable by the roku. Of course, nobody wants to type in long urls with their thumbs, so there would probably need to be a central browsing directory that one could start at and navigate to other pages.
So here is my basic idea: simple xml layout information that gets parsed and loaded into an array by the "browser" and displayed by calling canvas.setlayer(layer,array):
<imageHD>
<url>http://asdfasdf.com/img.jpg</url> - url of image
<positionx>12</positionx> - x position
<positiony>144</positiony> - y position
<width>640</width> - image width
<height>100<height> - image height
<color></color> - only used if url is null
<trans></trans> - transparancy -only used if url is nul
<orient><orient> -rotation in degrees
<layer></layer> - layer to display this element
<islink></islink> true if the image is meant to be selectable
</imageHD>
<imageSD>
<url>http://asdfasdf.com/img.jpg</url> - url of image
<positionx>12</positionx> - x position
<positiony>144</positiony> - y position
<width>640</width> - image width
<height>100<height> - image height
<color></color> - only used if url is null
<trans></trans> - transparancy -only used if url is nul
<orient></orient> - rotation in degrees
<islink></islink> true if the image is meant to be selectable
<layer></layer> - layer to display this element
</imageSD>
<textHD>
<url>http://babab.com/text.txt</url>
<positionx></positionx> - text box upper left x position
<positiony></positiony> - text box upper right x position
<width></width> - text box width
<height></height> - text box height
<color></color> - color of text - standard html
<trans></trans> - transparancy of text
<orient></orient> - rotation in degrees
<islink></islink> true if the text is meant to be selectable
<layer></layer> - layer to display this element
</textHD>
<VideoHD>
<url>http://babab.com/text.txt</url>
<positionx></positionx> - video box upper left x position
<positiony></positiony> - video box upper right x position
<width></width> - video box width
<height></height> - video box height
<format>mp4</mp4>
... other video format items could go here
<length></length>
</VideoHD>
<VideoSD>
<url>http://babab.com/text.txt</url>
<positionx></positionx> - video box upper left x position
<positiony></positiony> - video box upper right x position
<width></width> - video box width
<height></height> - video box height
<format>mp4</mp4>
... other video format items could go here
<length></length>
<layer></layer> - layer to display this element
</VideoSD>
This way we can create an "underweb", and companies interested in getting content or advertising on the Roku will hopefully be willing to implement this. Of course someone will have to write a simple app that outputs code like this (hopefully in java or something cross platform).
Who thinks this is a good idea? Well, if you don't, please don't argue, just post an alternative idea that is hopefully simpler and more powerful.
- Joel
Screenshades: The first Screensaver for Roku2!
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