Play Layout and Interface
Extension UI
The Play extension allows users to manage EPG (i.e. Channel Guide) and OTT content sources within an app. The following sample illustrates the basic layout of the extension in Appspace.
Play Tabs
There are four tabs in the layout of the Play page:
- Apps – Provides a listing of all the apps within the extension with thumbnails based on the theme of the app.
- On-Demand – Enables the management of media content via menus, for users to be able to select and play at any time (i.e. On-Demand).
- Devices – A singular location for viewing all the devices linked with a Play app in the extension. This is accomplished by assigning a Play application to a device in Networks.
- Configurations – Enables users to customize the configuration of options for the EPG content provider, channels, subscriptions, themes and remote control settings.
Apps Tab
This is the first tab in Play, and is the landing page for this extension. This tab displays all of the apps that have been created within the extension, and includes the specific details of the apps with thumbnails based on the theme/presentation layer of each app.
The features that are available in this tab include:
- Clicking on a Play app name link to view all the details and/or change its theme.
- Add/remove subscriptions within the Play app itself.
- Loading a visual representation of a selected app via the Preview button.
On-Demand Tab
On-Demand content in this case refers to the premise of users being able to pick and choose any media/content at any point in time from an available content list for playback, in addition to being able to fully control the management of the playback (play, pause, rewind, fast-forward, and/or skip the content).
This tab basically serves as a Content menu, where each menu (i.e. Name) item houses a selection of folders and content. Contents (e.g. videos, images) are placed inside these folders with user-allocated names in order to facilitate easy identification of the theme of the content.
Users are able to manage (add/remove/arrange/update) details of each content item, and content can be played from these On-Demand menu items at any point in time, hence the phrase On-Demand.
The following sub-tabs are available when selecting an On-Demand Content (Name) item:
- Overview – General details regarding the content, with customizable content icon.
- Contents – Location where the content is structured (in folders). Content can be placed in subfolders and categorized accordingly.
Devices Tab
In this tab, users will be able to list all the devices linked to the Play extension via Play applications. Using the Networks interface, a user only needs to assign a designated Play app to a player listed in the Players tab, and it will be displayed in the list in this tab.
The features that are available in this tab include:
- Adding/assigning Subscriptions to a specific device in the list.
- Customizing channel listings for each device, based on specific use case (e.g. geographic location).
- Assigning a specific Play app for each device.
- Viewing the Preview link in each device item.
Configuration Tab
This is the final tab in the Play extension, where users are able to configure various options relating to the content provider, theme/presentation layer for Play apps, as well as manage hardware remote control settings.
The sub-tabs available for configuration are:
- Themes – importing, exporting, previewing and/or removing of the front-end user interface (UI), i.e. theme or presentation layer of a Play app.
- Subscriptions - adding, editing and removing of both channels and on-demand content into subscription plans.
- EPG Providers – adding, editing, syncing and/or removing of EPG information, sourced from specific providers.
- Channels - adding, editing and removing of channels.
- Remote Controls – mapping, editing, importing, exporting and removing of hardware remote control profile settings.