chessdragon136 677 Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 (edited) Sorry for being quiet on this - Have just had the time to read up on your thoughts and they're interesting .. @@Rowlett - The idea of a wrapper for the web interface is a non starter unfortunately - if the website view has a particular problem on the tv you may be better off asking the server developers to look into it - let them know as much detail as you can and they may be able to resolve the issue... When you browse the server from the tv what client does it register as in the dashboard? That information may help them. The second reason I don't like a wrapper is that the older tv's (like mine) doesn't have a web browser, so an app would have to be created within the abilities of the tv (it does dlna so i know it's possible (Although if I'm able to do it is a completely different matter!!) However, thought I'd share some screenshots - Navigation through my library is now possible but rather buggy currently, and playback has been achieved on some videos so its some progress. I've also been able to register the client in the dashboard and to update the playing and stopped content (but not a constant time update, can't implement the websocket currently..) What isn't implemented is the ability to enter any text - so have had to currently hard code my server location and my login details Annoyingly I'm having difficulty making this work with the examples found on the internet in my testing projects... And finally just some technical things I've noticed as I've gone through 1. jQuery doesnt seem to be liked on the Samsung TV.. No idea why but as soon as i try to implement it it seems to crash the emulator.. Haven't tried this on the tv itself but without the emulator I can't design the app, so the MediaBrowser Javascript API is currently out the window Thankfully I don't plan to do too much with it anyway (it will be a bare minimum app if i'm lucky to get it that far!!!!) 2. Samsung's API documentation is a complete farce! As a result this will take a lot of time as elements just arn't documented and some examples don;t even state which API's it supports! Edited February 11, 2014 by chessdragon136 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaN 47 Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Hi chessdragon, any idea how "Cast to TV" api works in Samsung, it can be a start, just to have the app play what another client i.e Web or Android, can send to TV to play remotely. Sent from my HTC Butterfly using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chessdragon136 677 Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 ouch! :-( the web browser is reporting as Safari 535.20 and i know it's nothing developers can deal with here as the browser itself does not have full screen capability (on any website). good luck with creating your app though!! Ahh ok I didn't realise it was a design choice by Samsung. Its a shame it isn't possible for MB3 to act as a DLNA server as that would solve all our problems! Hi chessdragon, any idea how "Cast to TV" api works in Samsung, it can be a start, just to have the app play what another client i.e Web or Android, can send to TV to play remotely. Sent from my HTC Butterfly using Tapatalk The Cast to TV (Allshare in Samsung speak) seems to be only for Samsung devices. Agaiin, if the server was DLNA it would be possible, but it isn't and coding MB3 to be a DLNA server would be a huge effort - Simply put it would be easier to create a Samsung Smart TV App than that... I'm just going to keep plodding on with this and see where I can get it - If I can work out text input then I can't see why I can't get the app off the ground in some capacity eventually. (No transcoding support but the Samsung TV's are pretty damn good in what files it will play, even my 2011 plays MKV's and my neighbours 2012 one will even embedded subtitles in mkv) Again, any support is appreciated.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaN 47 Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 (edited) Again, any support is appreciated..Count me in, I can help in testing if this what you mean DaN using Tapatalk Edited February 12, 2014 by DaN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aanewman4 3 Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 Ahh ok I didn't realise it was a design choice by Samsung. Its a shame it isn't possible for MB3 to act as a DLNA server as that would solve all our problems! The Cast to TV (Allshare in Samsung speak) seems to be only for Samsung devices. Agaiin, if the server was DLNA it would be possible, but it isn't and coding MB3 to be a DLNA server would be a huge effort - Simply put it would be easier to create a Samsung Smart TV App than that... I'm just going to keep plodding on with this and see where I can get it - If I can work out text input then I can't see why I can't get the app off the ground in some capacity eventually. (No transcoding support but the Samsung TV's are pretty damn good in what files it will play, even my 2011 plays MKV's and my neighbours 2012 one will even embedded subtitles in mkv) Again, any support is appreciated.. Do you have a code repository up, I am a reasonably competent coder, though I would not consider myself a software engineer, more of a systems integration and business process engineer. I don't have any experience with the Samsung SDK but I would be willing to throw some time at some things if you are interested in some help. Otherwise no worries. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chessdragon136 677 Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 Do you have a code repository up, I am a reasonably competent coder, though I would not consider myself a software engineer, more of a systems integration and business process engineer. I don't have any experience with the Samsung SDK but I would be willing to throw some time at some things if you are interested in some help. Otherwise no worries. Yeah I'm definitely interested in some help - I haven't got a code repository up yet, but if you're willing feel free to grab the SDK : Link I'll get the code up somewhere when I can - I really need to spend some time and tidy up what I have first.. However if you can I'd appreciate it if you could look into text input - just create a new project once your set up.. (The sdk needs to be installed and run as administrator else it crashes..) - I have found some samples of text input from the internet (stackoverflow) so hopefully there is enough out there to help.. The other aspect I could do with some interest in at the moment is how to save settings so its remembered when the app opens the next time.. Both of those bits of code are required so the user can enter the IP address of the server and type the password of the user.. (And search capability if we get that far) One last thing - can you set the emulator options (In the Samsung Smart TV Preferences) to use Emulator version [2011] - that's the basis i'm testing on for now and will incorporate compatibility later on Thanks, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheesegeezer 3087 Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 Yeah I'm definitely interested in some help - I haven't got a code repository up yet, but if you're willing feel free to grab the SDK : Link I'll get the code up somewhere when I can Please put it up on Github, it's where all mediabrowser repositries are. @@Luke, could you add another sub repo to the main mediabrowser one for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chessdragon136 677 Posted February 13, 2014 Share Posted February 13, 2014 Thanks - I'll let you know when I'm at a stage I think its a possible working program, hopefully in a few weeks time - It may not be complete but once I hit a stage where I think someone else could pick it up and carry on I'd rather the community has my work... Also some good news, I've found a document on how to do text entry into the system and another on file systems so I think I now have all the required components to make something fully workable - still need to look into websockets and if Samsung supports them - if not I guess i'll have to poll data to the server IME Tutorial General Guide 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aanewman4 3 Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 Yeah I'm definitely interested in some help - I haven't got a code repository up yet, but if you're willing feel free to grab the SDK : Link I'll get the code up somewhere when I can - I really need to spend some time and tidy up what I have first.. However if you can I'd appreciate it if you could look into text input - just create a new project once your set up.. (The sdk needs to be installed and run as administrator else it crashes..) - I have found some samples of text input from the internet (stackoverflow) so hopefully there is enough out there to help.. The other aspect I could do with some interest in at the moment is how to save settings so its remembered when the app opens the next time.. Both of those bits of code are required so the user can enter the IP address of the server and type the password of the user.. (And search capability if we get that far) One last thing - can you set the emulator options (In the Samsung Smart TV Preferences) to use Emulator version [2011] - that's the basis i'm testing on for now and will incorporate compatibility later on Thanks, Ok, I have time tonight, I will get everything setup. Do you want me to see if I can put together a sample project with text input and saved settings or are you comfortable with the documentation you found and have something else of in mind? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chessdragon136 677 Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 I think the best thing I can ask you to do is to just play and learn the api - and when either of us hits problems hopefully the other can help out! At the moment I just need a few days / a week to work out some bits (I have a GUI bug when I load a new menu which I'm trying to track) before I can really share what I have and explain what I've done. I've created a basic text input app but currently i cant close the text input nor can i get a full qwerty keyboard working... And not even looked into file system bits yet - - all thats needed is to save the mediabrowser server location and user names and passwords, so basically a really simple csv! should be only a few lines of code hopefully! Do you have a Samsung tv? And do you happen to do html / css work (I'm useless at this) - would be a nice boost to make an app that looks like MediaBrowser - I'll even take some paint screens of how to lay it out if anyone is interested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37095 Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 I would just make a personal repo for now. If this gets far enough along that its going ot turn into something release-able, then we'll be happy to add it. In the meantime we have plenty of developers here who can help answer questiosn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aanewman4 3 Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 I think the best thing I can ask you to do is to just play and learn the api - and when either of us hits problems hopefully the other can help out! At the moment I just need a few days / a week to work out some bits (I have a GUI bug when I load a new menu which I'm trying to track) before I can really share what I have and explain what I've done. I've created a basic text input app but currently i cant close the text input nor can i get a full qwerty keyboard working... And not even looked into file system bits yet - - all thats needed is to save the mediabrowser server location and user names and passwords, so basically a really simple csv! should be only a few lines of code hopefully! Do you have a Samsung tv? And do you happen to do html / css work (I'm useless at this) - would be a nice boost to make an app that looks like MediaBrowser - I'll even take some paint screens of how to lay it out if anyone is interested. Sure I will do some tinkering then over the next few days, I do have a Samsung TV its a couple years old. I have html/css skills a little rusty been a year or two since I needed serious CSS capabilities. Most of the systems integration I work on are cloud based systems these days so I am pretty capable with various web application technologies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmac 132 Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 I could probably mock up a simple HTML file to give you a MB3 look if you want. Let me know if there's any Certain parameters you'd need set in it to be able to import it into your project. I was tinkering with Eclipse a little while ago, but couldn't get the emulator working properly so I kind of gave up on it, but I should be able to make an HTML GUI template you can import into your project if you'd like. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chessdragon136 677 Posted February 14, 2014 Share Posted February 14, 2014 Oh yes I definitely want it! Thanks - Perhaps doing html is a bit premature since there are still operational things to sort but think it would we nice to do (so don't spend too much time on it) I've uploaded the current html css and images Here If you look at my screenshot on the previous page the layout hasn't changed.. The left menu displays all the folders / navigation, the player is the player and the box underneath displays episode overview currently.. I'm tempted to hide the player elements in favor for series, episode images... The Samsung app design is made so everything runs off the one html file (Is a limitation as far as I can see unless I use something called scenes and that is a right pain) - In the long run it will be a case where elements are hidden and then visible dependant on the stage of the program - For instance once we work out the login elements the first screen the app will show will allow you to enter the server url, then that saves and disappears showing the gui as it stands now with the items on the left displaying the available users.... I hope I'm making sense to everyone else out there! Just feel free to play around - the div id's need to stay the same for the program to work but in reality don't worry about that too much now. The screen size is 960x540 - that is the preset app size so don't change that - all the CSS's I've seen seem to set everything absolute, again not sure if that's a design aspect so can only try... Any questions feel free to ask.. And again thanks for the support! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmac 132 Posted February 15, 2014 Share Posted February 15, 2014 @@chessdragon136 PM sent... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chessdragon136 677 Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 As I haven't posted anything new in a few days I thought I'd add a new screenshot of my latest work: So as you can probably guess I'm working on the login page! I needed a change of pace so I'm just playing with layout (Ignore the background image its just Samsung's emulator background...) - I have a good enough understanding of remote control inputs now that making i can make it work. It's also the first page I've been able to create from scratch so as you can see I'm trying to keep the MB3 theme and make the login page like that of the HTML version Also, I have managed to make text input & saving settings work, so have working code that asks for the server ip and saves it to file, and on next launch if the server is defined it will attempt to log in automatically (and if it fails you have to specify the server ip again (specifying the port number will be added in due course)) Enjoy 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowlett 9 Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 dunno if these posts a member posted on the samsung forums could help? even if it's just to take some functions from the samples app? http://www.samsungdforum.com/SamsungDForum/ForumView/df3455b529adf7c4?forumID=ce8f8fb6ce5ccc8f¤tPage=1&searchText=&selectcontents=1&selectPageSize=20&sorting_target=&sorting_type=desc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chessdragon136 677 Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 Thanks - Does help to see links others have found.. I had come across one of the linked posts in your link before and it was actually why I realised that opening the website in the app was a bad idea - primarily due to websites not being written for use with a remote control - the page loads (with lots of errors) but then I can't do anything with it, and as I didn't create the page I would have to go through the page, identify all the clickable elements and make them work, which is impossible... (Thats a really long sentence - oh well) As for my program I am not at a stage where I think I have most of the elements working, I just need to tidy up and then work out how to link them all into one cohesive program (and re-write elements I did last week as I now know it was a rubbish way to program it!!) So now I just need some time to try make it work.. @ moderators - I know I have unfortunately hijacked this thread from its original purpose - If you wish feel free to move posts / start a new thread where appropriate and I'll continue there. (As a moderator on sites myself I know how much I hate it when people do this - sorry!!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWebsmith 598 Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 so im a newb to samsung apps (just got a 7100 series over the weekend).. would this end up (i know down the road with no eta yet..) in my "smart hub apps page"? all the best either way.. love having multiple choices to get at my mb library Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chessdragon136 677 Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 (edited) so im a newb to samsung apps (just got a 7100 series over the weekend).. would this end up (i know down the road with no eta yet..) in my "smart hub apps page"? all the best either way.. love having multiple choices to get at my mb library That is the plan - Once its complete I'll submit it to Samsung and then it will appear in the "store" for no better word for it, and from there you can download and install it. Beta testers (if and when it's required) can sideload the app onto the tv by setting up a webserver, copying the files i provide to it and then logging into the tv with the developer account. That will then allow you to download the app from the webserver, install it and test it. I may be able to provide a webserver myself, I need to see how it works..Look at SamyGo Edited February 17, 2014 by chessdragon136 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWebsmith 598 Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 wonderful.. ill leave you to your dev efforts, but yell for us when testing/info/thoughts are needed/wanted .. good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rowlett 9 Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 sweet looking good! count me in for when it's ready for testing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chessdragon136 677 Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Toda'ys Preview - Is much like the web interface... What do you think? (And if you'r wondering about the keypad having no letters, its doe to the fact the emulator likes to run in Korean... Just to make life just that little more interesting! 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chessdragon136 677 Posted February 22, 2014 Share Posted February 22, 2014 Gui Designs and Implementations are complete for TV - Suggestions / Comments welcome!! -> The arrows on the pages need to be changed I know -> Text size is an issue as some Overviews have loads of data and others small -> May need to try implement an auto scroll but I have no idea and I can't use jquery (It crashes) Posted in order as you would navigate through the collection (Have left out the IP Port settings screen, its same design as Users Next is to implement the player elements back in and to understand how they work rather than just accepting it does 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37095 Posted February 22, 2014 Share Posted February 22, 2014 Well done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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