Support Google TV?

[chrisboyle]

I have a "Chromecast with Google TV" and was surprised to find Google Play offers it as an install target for Puzzles (edit: for recent builds it doesn't, though I don't think I changed anything relevant?) It will actually run and you can play using the D-pad on the remote (including long-press). There are a few major issues:

• It doesn't show up in the launcher. You need to go to Settings → Apps → All Apps, and open it from there. Must be some TV-specific manifest entry / tile image I need to add.
• Once in a puzzle, you can't reach the menu or even the app's keyboard, you're stuck within the main game area until you either press Back or complete the puzzle (at which point the completion dialog buttons work). I can imagine adding some logic to each backend to detect moving the cursor off the edge of the puzzle and flagging this to the UI to move out of the game area, instead of wrapping around. This should be conditional on the input being from a D-pad rather than the app's own optional arrow keys.
• You can't drag, so Untangle will need to either be disabled or gain keyboard compatibility.
• The load/save operations (Storage Access Framework) just gave a Toast saying there was no suitable app available. Perhaps these just need to be disabled, or perhaps an app exists that the user could install?
• Anything that would launch an external browser (links from help pages / report a bug) gave the same message. Chrome isn't (officially) available; we could either recommend a free browser that works or show a URL / QR (at least for bug reporting where it's static) and suggest that the user open it on a different device.

[chrisboyle]

As I belatedly realised this morning: Filling, Keen, Solo, Towers, and Unequal would also want excluding because there's just no good way to do that much number entry with that remote. Undead has basically the same problems, including how to move around the keyboard without moving the cursor off the play area. So I think just exclude those and Untangle on devices that have neither touch screen nor mouse, showing them in a disabled category at the bottom of the chooser titled "Requires a touch screen" or similar. That's 7 exclusions, which still leaves 33 games. Of course some Google TV devices could have "air mouse" remotes, as I've seen on one LG TV.

[JupiLogy]

What if you used the scrolling (assuming that remote works like those old i-pods) functionality to scroll through a number wheel, 1-9? For those number games.

Edit: I guess not all TV remotes will have that same functionality BUT those that don't have the scrolly wheel are likely to have a number pad right? Looks like a tough problem and I also have no idea about programming for TVs but wanted to suggest some ideas.

[chrisboyle]

I have the Chromecast with Google TV shown in the photo and unfortunately it doesn't have that scrolling functionality nor a number pad. I think the next thing to do here is check that this device only declares android.hardware.faketouch (not android.hardware.touchscreen) and if so, use a combination of faketouch + no mouse-like device detected, to exclude such games as per previous comment. How to reliably detect a mouse-like device (e.g. air mouse), I haven't figured out yet. Maybe inspect /dev/hid*.

Edit: Untangle needs a mouse or touchscreen, the number-entry/monster-entry puzzles need a keyboard (num-pad is enough) or mouse or touchscreen. There's already code in Puzzles that tries to detect a keyboard but it's not perfect - occasionally it clashes with e.g. Bluetooth headphones that declare their volume buttons as a keyboard. :roll_eyes: