The link should probably be the main TVML page rather than one of the template reference pages. https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/tvos/document...
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Apple TV Markup Language
31–40 of 74 posts
Re: Apple TV Markup Language
#32The link should probably be the main TVML page rather than one of the template reference pages. https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/tvos/document...
The "About TVML" page is far less compelling. Barely better than noise, in the context of a link on the HN front page, without a specific and pre-existing interest in the topic. If OP had linked to that, I personally wouldn't have read any further.
The (arbitrary) template page linked to has visualizations and code samples. Much better.
Re: Apple TV Markup Language
#33So what's an example of something you could build with this?
Probably something like the MLB app they showed:
- Basic streaming
- various ajax requests for score listings, etc.
- Plus some chrome / UI with app-specific assets
Re: Apple TV Markup Language
#34I believe this XML+JS thing was the only way to write apps for the old Apple TV. Various postings on the internet seem to suggest this from way back; the old SDK was probably only ever available to a select few handpicked appletv channel partners. What's new in the new tvOS SDK is that you can also write native apps in Objective-C/Swift, with a main() function that starts up UIKit, and with access to most of the norm…
I was confused at first because TVML seemed more prominent in the marketing/developer materials. But we just saw a game run on Apple TV so yeah, you could write native apps w/o the TVML.
This was confusing for A LOT of people!!
Re: Apple TV Markup Language
#35I'm a little surprised they're jumping into the literal "TV" namespace so wholeheartedly. Is the future of this ecosystem really exclusively limited to the Television? Gaming is already an explicit part of this, which undoubtedly will include VR, which is theoretically suited to Television-like content. If they do this right, the source code running on your VR gogs will mention "TV" everywhere, much like the the curr…
Well, think of the origin of the name, Tele-vision. I'd say that TV is just as appropriate a name for VR as VR is, if not even a little better of a name. We didn't stop calling flying vehicles aircraft when the jetliner was introduced. It's not so bad to call a potential VR platform by the "tv" moniker
Re: Apple TV Markup Language
#36I'm a little surprised they're jumping into the literal "TV" namespace so wholeheartedly. Is the future of this ecosystem really exclusively limited to the Television? Gaming is already an explicit part of this, which undoubtedly will include VR, which is theoretically suited to Television-like content. If they do this right, the source code running on your VR gogs will mention "TV" everywhere, much like the the curr…
"Is the future of this ecosystem really exclusively limited to the Television?
Gaming is already an explicit part of this"
Presumably people won't be writing games with this simple presentation layer optimized for printing lists of multimedia content - for example TV Shows... Games will (mostly) be written in objC/Swift to the Metal APIs, as will many other apps.
This is just a small portion of the app creation ecosystem for the Apple TV, and since it's geared towards things that traditionally are watched on a TV, I think the name is fine.
--edited to clean up the quote
Re: Apple TV Markup Language
#37If any of the authors are reading, you really ought to consider putting this into an XML namespace. It can just be a mysterious invocation to most users today, but if you need to extend this in the future (inline SVG? inline XHTML?), it'll save your bacon to have done it in the first version.
Why would anyone add complexity to the syntax when you can make it simpler by removing the XML namespace? If you need to add namespaces, then you have already failed.
If you have XML namespaces, you can embed foreign XML types in your XML (like the grandparent's SVG example) and also keep your schema-validating XML generators/parsers. That's good for the same reason static type checking is good.
It can also simplify the code that parses it. With an SVG XML document embedded right in your TV XML document, you can e.g. use your functions that take an SVG node regardless of whether it was the root node of a document or embedded in another document and render it to the screen.
It can also let you do versioning. For instance, let's give a schema like
Part of that problem is solved with schema versioning and part of it is solved with namespaces.
Re: Apple TV Markup Language
#38If any of the authors are reading, you really ought to consider putting this into an XML namespace. It can just be a mysterious invocation to most users today, but if you need to extend this in the future (inline SVG? inline XHTML?), it'll save your bacon to have done it in the first version.
Why would anyone add complexity to the syntax when you can make it simpler by removing the XML namespace? If you need to add namespaces, then you have already failed.
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Re: Apple TV Markup Language
#39If any of the authors are reading, you really ought to consider putting this into an XML namespace. It can just be a mysterious invocation to most users today, but if you need to extend this in the future (inline SVG? inline XHTML?), it'll save your bacon to have done it in the first version.
Why would anyone add complexity to the syntax when you can make it simpler by removing the XML namespace? If you need to add namespaces, then you have already failed.
It's if you want to have backwards compatible syntax supported by later devices. This will naturally happen as you add features and modify old ones. It's even more important in hardware devices that might might not be able to be updated later.
EDIT: I think someone is probably down-voting me for a technical reason. Would you please explain it?
Re: Apple TV Markup Language
#40I think it's interesting that Apple is promoting making apps that are web based that you wouldn't have to get approval for to make updates. Maybe because it's limited on you can do with TVML but I think it's interesting.
I don't think that's what's happening here. Each of the TVML documents would be stored locally and called by a locally stored TVJS file, which is invoked by your binary.
In other words, all of the program logic and display elements are on the Apple TV - only the data that's being retrieved and displayed would be stored server-side - which is no different from any iPhone app that displays server based content today.