PreviewChannelHelper

@WorkerThread
public class PreviewChannelHelper


From a user's perspective, the TV home screen has two types of channels: the single Live Channels row versus the App preview Channels. This class is concerned with App Channels; or more precisely: your app's preview Channels. In API 26+, all TV apps are allowed to create multiple channels and publish those Channels to the home screen.

This class provides convenience methods to help you publish, update and delete channels; add, update or remove programs in a channel. You do not need to know anything about Content Providers, Content Resolvers, Cursors or such to publish your channels. This class abstracts away all database interactions for you.

To make it easy for you to distinguish classes that help you build App Channels, the support library uses the prefix Preview- to denote the classes that pertain to app Channels. Hence, the classes PreviewChannel and PreviewProgram help your app add channels to the TV home page. All calls to methods in the class should be made on worker threads.

Summary

Public constructors

PreviewChannelHelper(
    Context context,
    int urlConnectionTimeoutMillis,
    int urlReadTimeoutMillis
)

Public methods

void
deletePreviewChannel(long channelId)

Removes a preview channel from the system's content provider (aka TvProvider).

void
deletePreviewProgram(long programId)

Removes programs from a preview channel.

List<PreviewChannel>

The TvProvider does not allow select queries.

@Nullable PreviewChannel
getPreviewChannel(long channelId)

Retrieves a single preview channel from the TvProvider.

@Nullable PreviewProgram
getPreviewProgram(long programId)

Retrieves a single preview program from the system content provider (aka TvProvider).

@Nullable WatchNextProgram
getWatchNextProgram(long programId)

Retrieves a single WatchNext program from the system content provider (aka TvProvider).

long

Publishing a channel to the TV home screen is a two step process: first, you add the channel to the TV content provider; second, you make the channel browsable (i.e. visible).

long

This is a convenience method that simply publishes your first channel for you.

long

Adds programs to a preview channel.

long

Adds a program to the Watch Next channel

void
updatePreviewChannel(long channelId, @NonNull PreviewChannel update)

To update a preview channel, you need to use the PreviewChannel.Builder to set the attributes you wish to change.

void
updatePreviewProgram(long programId, @NonNull PreviewProgram update)

Updates programs in a preview channel.

void
updateWatchNextProgram(@NonNull WatchNextProgram upgrade, long programId)

Updates a WatchNext program.

Protected methods

Bitmap

Downloads a Bitmap from a remote server.

Public constructors

PreviewChannelHelper

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public PreviewChannelHelper(Context context)

PreviewChannelHelper

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public PreviewChannelHelper(
    Context context,
    int urlConnectionTimeoutMillis,
    int urlReadTimeoutMillis
)
Parameters
int urlConnectionTimeoutMillis

see setConnectTimeout

int urlReadTimeoutMillis

see setReadTimeout

Public methods

deletePreviewChannel

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public void deletePreviewChannel(long channelId)

Removes a preview channel from the system's content provider (aka TvProvider).

deletePreviewProgram

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public void deletePreviewProgram(long programId)

Removes programs from a preview channel.

getAllChannels

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public List<PreviewChannelgetAllChannels()

The TvProvider does not allow select queries. Hence, unless you are querying for a single PreviewChannel by id, you must get all of your channels at once and then use the returned list as necessary.

getPreviewChannel

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public @Nullable PreviewChannel getPreviewChannel(long channelId)

Retrieves a single preview channel from the TvProvider. When you publish a preview channel, the TvProvider assigns an ID to it. That's the channelId to use here.

Parameters
long channelId

ID of preview channel in TvProvider

Returns
@Nullable PreviewChannel

PreviewChannel or null if not found

getPreviewProgram

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public @Nullable PreviewProgram getPreviewProgram(long programId)

Retrieves a single preview program from the system content provider (aka TvProvider).

getWatchNextProgram

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public @Nullable WatchNextProgram getWatchNextProgram(long programId)

Retrieves a single WatchNext program from the system content provider (aka TvProvider).

publishChannel

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public long publishChannel(@NonNull PreviewChannel channel)

Publishing a channel to the TV home screen is a two step process: first, you add the channel to the TV content provider; second, you make the channel browsable (i.e. visible). This method adds the channel to the TV content provider for you and returns a channelId. Next you must use the channelId to make the channel browsable. There are two ways you can make a channel browsable: a) For your first channel, simply ask the system to make the channel browsable: TvContractCompat.requestChannelBrowsable(context,channelId) b) For any additional channel beyond the first channel, you must get permission from the user. So if this channel is not your first channel, you must request user permission through the following intent. So take the channelId returned by this method and do the following inside an Activity or Fragment:

intent = new Intent(TvContractCompat.ACTION_REQUEST_CHANNEL_BROWSABLE);
intent.putExtra(TvContractCompat.EXTRA_CHANNEL_ID, channelId);
startActivityForResult(intent, REQUEST_CHANNEL_BROWSABLE);

Creating a PreviewChannel, you may pass to the builder a url as your logo. In such case, updatePreviewChannel will load the logo over the network. To use your own networking code, override downloadBitmap.

Returns
long

channelId or -1 if insertion fails. This is the id the system assigns to your published channel. You can use it later to get a reference to this published PreviewChannel.

publishDefaultChannel

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public long publishDefaultChannel(@NonNull PreviewChannel channel)

This is a convenience method that simply publishes your first channel for you. After calling publishChannel to add the channel to the TvProvider, it calls requestChannelBrowsable to make the channel visible.

Only use this method to publish your first channel as you do not need user permission to make your first channel browsable (i.e. visible on home screen). For additional channels, see the documentations for publishChannel.

Creating a PreviewChannel, you may pass to the builder a url as your logo. In such case, updatePreviewChannel will load the logo over the network. To use your own networking code, override downloadBitmap.

Returns
long

channelId: This is the id the system assigns to your published channel. You can use it later to get a reference to this published PreviewChannel.

publishPreviewProgram

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public long publishPreviewProgram(@NonNull PreviewProgram program)

Adds programs to a preview channel.

publishWatchNextProgram

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public long publishWatchNextProgram(@NonNull WatchNextProgram program)

Adds a program to the Watch Next channel

updatePreviewChannel

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public void updatePreviewChannel(long channelId, @NonNull PreviewChannel update)

To update a preview channel, you need to use the PreviewChannel.Builder to set the attributes you wish to change. Then simply pass in the built channel and the channelId of the preview channel. (The channelId is the ID you received when you originally published the preview channel.)

Creating a PreviewChannel, you may pass to the builder a url as your logo. In such case, updatePreviewChannel will load the logo over the network. To use your own networking code, override downloadBitmap.

updatePreviewProgram

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public void updatePreviewProgram(long programId, @NonNull PreviewProgram update)

Updates programs in a preview channel.

updateWatchNextProgram

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
public void updateWatchNextProgram(@NonNull WatchNextProgram upgrade, long programId)

Updates a WatchNext program.

Protected methods

downloadBitmap

Added in 1.1.0-alpha02
protected Bitmap downloadBitmap(@NonNull Uri logoUri)

Downloads a Bitmap from a remote server. It is declared protected to allow you to override it to use your own networking implementation if you so wish.