Roku Developer Program

[ioan]

Do I have to copy the brs file with global functions in each project folder or there is a way to share it between multiple projects?

[belltown]

What's a project?

[ioan]

"belltown" wrote:
What's a project?

All the files that make a channel... How do you call them all? Channel?

[belltown]

Do you want to share code between multiple channels (i.e.share the same files between your Pro channel and your Basic channel)?

Or, do you want to share code within a single channel among multiple components within that channel?

[ioan]

"belltown" wrote:
Do you want to share code between multiple channels (i.e.share the same files between your Pro channel and your Basic channel)?

Or, do you want to share code within a single channel among multiple components within that channel?

Oh, now I understand what you mean.

I need to share code between multiple channels, between the Pro version and Basic version. Right now I copied my global brs file in both channels and make all modifications twice and I'm hoping that there is a better way to share global functions between channels. 

[belltown]

I see what you want to do.

Ideally, you shouldn't have shared files that both need modifying. You should have one repository for your shared (library) code, make the changes in that one place, then copy each changed library file to both channels' directories.

If there are minor differences between files used in one channel versus files used in the other channel, then it might be worth refactoring your code. For example, you might want to pass parameters into your utility functions so that whichever channel they are called from can pass in parameters specific to that channel.

This is more of a general software engineering issue than a Roku-specific issue, so you can really do whatever you want. My main advice though would be (a) avoid repeating code; and (b) keep things as simple as possible.

[belltown]

Another option in your particular case is to only have one code base that works for both channels.

You'd obviously need a separate manifest file for each channel, and have to package and submit them separately, but all the rest of your code could be the same; it would just work differently depending on which manifest file was used.

For example, in Main(), you'd have an if-statement that creates either Pro-Scene or Basic-Scene depending on which manifest file was being used. You may have a separate XML file for each scene that each include either common or separate scene-specific brs code, as well as each including the same global brs code that you'd only need to define once.

That approach might be more complicated, but it will definitely reduce the duplication of code.

[destruk]

What we did when we faced this issue with 6 separate channels all using the same codebase with different graphics, servers, variables, etc is we used one section of main.brs to store the base urls and database information for the channels.  That way we'd just need to edit the rest once as the code was basically the same.  Something like if m.channelname="channel1" then load such and such graphcs, verify with this database, use this billing, and use these layouts instead of those other layouts, pull this feed, etc etc.  Belltown posted that when I was typing this - same thing... 🙂

[ioan]

Yeah, I guess having one code base for both channels would be easiest to maintain. Thanks to both of you for the input. 

[EnTerr]

"ioan" wrote:
I need to share code between multiple channels, between the Pro version and Basic version. Right now I copied my global brs file in both channels and make all modifications twice and I'm hoping that there is a better way to share global functions between channels. 

Can i propose a very simple solution to your very specific problem, which avoids tackling at all sharing of sources between projects? 😉
Have only 1 channel source!

No, just wait a minute - hear me out: since your Basic version is a subset of the Pro version, build from a single codebase - moreover build a single app, once - then upload to 2 channels. But how will they differentiate? Quite simple - when started, query what's the channel# - roAppInfo.getID() - and based on that tune up the behavior (i.e. act as Pro or Basic). Say if the # is that of the Basic channel, then disable some features, maybe tweak some messages - otherwise (i.e. side-loaded or Pro), have the full functionality. Reminder, the channel name and thumbnails are specified in the dev.portal (outside of the app bundle).