Important Developer Update

[riegersn]

We interrupt your otherwise ambiguously awesome developer’s lives to bring you a bit of sad news. Earlier this month we released the last version of Boxee for the PC (v1.5). After Jan 31st we will remove the download from our website and we will shutdown support for Mac/Windows/Linux platforms.

There are lots of reasons for this decision, but the clearest is our belief that the future of TV will be driven by devices like the Boxee Box, Connected TVs, Blu-Ray players and 2nd screen devices such as tablets and phones. While many users still have computers connected to their TVs, we believe this use case is likely to decline as users find inexpensive, better alternatives.

So what does this mean for you as a developer? Well if you’ve developed apps for the Boxee Box, then you’re all good. You don’t need to do anything.

If you’ve developed apps for our downloadable software, then we’d like you to:

1. Test it on the latest release (v1.5 available here) to see if it works. If it does, huzzah! Stay golden.

2. If it doesn’t work – you’ve got two options:
- Fix the bugs and resubmit it to us before Jan. 31st.
- Ignore the bugs on the PC and resubmit as Boxee Box ONLY by Jan. 31st. Check out the “platform” specification on our DevWiki for a how-to: http://developer.boxee.tv/Descriptor_XML

After Jan 31st, we recommend developing all apps in HTML5 so your app can easily work across many platforms. Our hope is that this will streamline the app development process for you as well as lighten the support load for our team.

To help you get started, we’ve put together a few easy HTML5 templates with frameworks that have already been tested on Boxee. You can find them here:
https://github.com/Boxee/html5-examples

If you’ve got any other questions or concerns about our plans, please feel free to give us a shout at developers@boxee.tv.

Cheers,
Team Boxee

[bartsidee]

very said, I will try to collect all the installs. For any future reference you should be able to find them @ my website www.bartsidee.nl I will upload them within a day or so.

[xmcnuggetx]

man I hate the idea of all html5 apps..

[iRoNBiLL]

I collected and uploaded all versions already and made notes on the site here:

http://boxee-for-computers.googlecode.com

Also yeah, HTML5 sucks and will probably get overruled by XHTML before it becomes anything relevent.

Team Boxee, don't abandon python developers too just cause you'd rather everyone use HTML5. Some people prefer the reliability of python over HTML5 I find.

iRoNBiLL

[bartsidee]

hml5 apps is definitely not comparable with native apps at the moment:
- server side vs client side
- speed
- can not back-out of app and keep for example music playing
- very limited support of video/audio
- development time (can you imagine to build an carousel in js/html from scratch vs 2 min in xml/pyth)

To the platform versions I hope we can make a joint effort to somewhat keep the platform versions alive. And or investigate the current differences with the latest xbmc version.

It might be interesting to see how much of an effort it is to work with the latest xbmc codebase and add-in some boxee features:
- webbrowser
- boxee apps
- repositories

(i'm uploading the 0.9 versions also now, @http://www.bartsidee.nl/downloads/)

[darcilicious]

I keep toying with the idea of developing a Boxee v0.9-like skin for Plex... if I go there, I'll probably do a similar one for XBMC as I can't imagine it would be that hard to one for both...

Perhaps we could create a Google Group as a place for interested Boxee desktop developers/dabblers to go?

[bartsidee]

might be interesting to set something like that up indeed. I've already ported some apps from boxee to xbmc and it is actually relatively easy to do that. (single lib that represents the MC api and changing the fonts in xml) So a skin mod and some ports for highly used apps is very interesting. Still integrating the browser would be cool, also for the current xbmc users.

[Bojangly]

So what's the recommended workflow for implementing apps now? At least with the PC/Mac version I had a quick way to write code and test it immediatelyon my dev machine for instant feedback.

I really don't relish the idea of having to code in the same room as my TV, and having to deploy to the box each time I want to take a peek.

This is sort of analogous to iOS or android dev environments ditching their simulators..

[Lilo]

hml5 apps is definitely not comparable with native apps at the moment:
- server side vs client side
- speed
- can not back-out of app and keep for example music playing
- very limited support of video/audio
- development time (can you imagine to build an carousel in js/html from scratch vs 2 min in xml/pyth)

Before answering your statements, I want to say that I believe one should code in what he feels comfortable, but looking forward, I also believe that HTML apps are a better solution.

1) I'm not sure what you mean, but from network usage perspective - javascript based applications are pretty similar to client side applications.
2) Haven't seen a single python app on boxee so far that couldn't be implemented to run as fast in javascript. Take a look at pixlr.com (the image editor) for example, to see a javascript fast application.
3) I agree, this is a REAL issue, the boxee browser does need multiple tabs and background tabs.
4) Actually, boxee browser supports pretty much every format played by the apps today. And it has the best video/audio support from any other browser (not counting the flash update that we are all waiting for) - just goto http://haz.io/ in the boxee browser. It will NOT play local files, but very few apps do.
5) I would argue that to develop an HTML5 app makes you build an app once and it will run on multiple platforms (including mobile - check phonegap), while your python/xml mix will never run on any other device (except, maybe, with some modifications, on xbmc). So by developing an HTML app (which, by the way, lets you mix any js library and plugins that exist in the wild - so coding a carousel will not take more than a few minutes anyway) you actually work LESS than when coding using python (except for the learning curve).

[bartsidee]

Hi liel,

Thank for your answers, it seems to me that the answers you gave are somewhat from a business point of view. For a companies it is indeed more convenient to build an app in html5, but are they not hiring a dev anyway? Still since a lot of the major tv apps are based on html one can fully understand why you want to have good support for html apps, it just makes an easy port.

The fact is that boxee like xbmc is somewhat a community thing. I think the majority of apps is actually build by semi professionals working in their late hours. Of course it would be great if professional apps would join in, if those would be html no problem, but one should not forget its roots.

1. This is the legal aspect, many applications are actually using sources without the official permissions. It it is still (semi) legal as the content is getting scraped from the individual client side (content owner website). If these apps would be a html5 (a new webpage), actually there would be a case of republishing content which is definitly illegal in almost all countries. So moving to html will in fact bring a lot of devs in an awkward position, most likely giving up support for the app they build.

2. Ofcourse one can make beautifull animation etc in html, but really liel one can not compare it to the native xml skinning. The boxee skin itself is actually running on this engine, could you imagine it be full html? Not to speak of the tiny but noticable delays one could get from having to externally load the js sources etc. Or just to smoothness and responsiveness of the animations in the xml engine. I'm working as a pro dev on html projects for samsung, lg etc but in no way can we get near this experience on these html apps.

5. Again businesses are going to hire a dev anyway, so the real advandage here is for the community based apps. A lot of them are build in late night hours and although one has to learn the python / xml syntax, it is definitly by times 10 faster to develop on.

Liel I think boxee has to keep in mind why people are buying a boxee box? Is it to watch netflix? Maybe for some, but hey I also got a samsung tv with netflix pre-installed on it (without any extra costs). No personally I think people are buying it because they want a mediaplayer that is top notch that has something extra. A peace of magic, the carrot on the cake, call it what you would like. But due to its community and the variety of apps boxee has this magic.

By not providing an open box, by dropping the support for the platform version, and now also the support of python/xml apps you are going in a head to head fight with the big companies like, google, lg, samsung etc. (providing their services for free as bundled with tv) What would be the extra advantage for the consumer to buy a box? By doing so you are turning your back to the boxee community and the magic will disappear, has it not already started? A lot of people have already moved to xbmc. But why can't boxee not be something in the middle. Not that technical as xbmc, but providing still that special kind of magic a community can provide. Attracting not only the basic users, but also the somewhat semi professionals who wants to have some fun developing an app and in the mean time providing a great experience for all.

I'm not saing one should not go for html, for companies it makes an easy port to other platforms, but boxee real strength lies with its community and all the variety users. Please do not try to compete with the samsung, lg an google tv platforms, this is something boxee just can't win. Listen to your users and do not forget your roots boxee!