Color keys in Virtual Box

by **mautilus** » Sun Aug 18, 2013 12:47 am

Hi,

Why the RC emulator in the Virtual Box does not have support for color keys? They are in specification marked as Conditionally Mandatory, but in fact they are kind of standard on TVs.

Thanks
STeN

by **mautilus** » Sun Aug 18, 2013 12:47 am

Hi,

Why the RC emulator in the Virtual Box does not have support for color keys? They are in specification marked as Conditionally Mandatory, but in fact they are kind of standard on TVs.

Thanks
STeN

by **SDK_STA** » Sun Aug 18, 2013 12:47 am

Hi,

thank you for your comment. The SDK currently targets the \"mandatory\" common features of Smart TV Alliance specification compatible devices. Parts that are marked \"conditionally mandatory\" are not supported on all devices, and thus are not included in the SDK.
As a background: if you rely on the color keys, that could mean your application could experience issues on some devices - in that case you also have to provide an alternative (\"on-screen\") way of using the functionality behind these keys. Refer also to \"https://developers.smarttv-alliance.org/qa-requirements\", section 3.

I hope this answers your question.

by **mautilus** » Sun Aug 18, 2013 12:47 am

Hi,

Thanks for your comments. I do not like using color buttons too much, but sometimes they provide useful shortcut by reducing the amount of RC button presses. Also people are used to use them, since those buttons are on every RC I have seen in last years.

They are useful especially for the globally reachable functions, which should be available on all applications screens like

1. Sign-in/out (Even the expectation is that user is always signed-in on TV)
2. Search
3. Help
4. Accessing application home screen
5. Recently watched

Of course due to use of kinetic controls and mouse they need to be selectable.

BR
STeN

by **SDK_STA** » Sun Aug 18, 2013 3:44 pm

Hi,

thank you for your comment. The SDK currently targets the "mandatory" common features of Smart TV Alliance specification compatible devices. Parts that are marked "conditionally mandatory" are not supported on all devices, and thus are not included in the SDK.
As a background: if you rely on the color keys, that could mean your application could experience issues on some devices - in that case you also have to provide an alternative ("on-screen") way of using the functionality behind these keys. Refer also to https://developers.smarttv-alliance.org/qa-requirements, section 3.

I hope this answers your question.

by **mautilus** » Sat Aug 24, 2013 7:27 pm

Hi,

Thanks for your comments. I do not like using color buttons too much, but sometimes they provide useful shortcut by reducing the amount of RC button presses. Also people are used to use them, since those buttons are on every RC I have seen in last years.

They are useful especially for the globally reachable functions, which should be available on all applications screens like

1. Sign-in/out (Even the expectation is that user is always signed-in on TV)
2. Search
3. Help
4. Accessing application home screen
5. Recently watched

Of course due to use of kinetic controls and mouse they need to be selectable.

BR
STeN