Don't know what Zype is? Check this overview.

Zype Fire App Builder Template

This SDK allows you to set up an eye-catching, easy to use Amazon Fire video streaming app integrated with the Zype platform with minimal coding and configuration. The app is built on top of Amazon Fire App builder with java framework using Zype API. With minimal setup you can have your Fire app up and running. An example of fully functional app that is using a Zype sandbox account

Fire App Builder

Fire App Builder is a java framework that allows developers to quickly build immersive, java based Android media applications for Fire TV, without writing code. Fire App Builder accomplishes this by using a plug and play java framework with easy configuration files. Developers simply specify the format of their media feed in a json file and add resources for logos and colors to create a rich media TV experience quickly. Fire App Builder supports multiple modules for Analytics, Authentication and Advertising that you can enable for your app.

Full Documentation for Fire App Builder is located here.

Prerequisites

• Android Studio

Installing

1. Clone the repo. Answer 'No' when Android Studio asked to create new project.

2. Open Application folder as existing project in Android Studio

3. This SDK has two app variants - Zype demo app and template app. To build Zype demo app:

   • Select zypeDebug build variant for app, PurchaseInterface and ZypeAPI modules

     

   • Set zypeDebug value to defaultPublishConfig parameters in PurchaseInterface/build.gradle and Application/ZypeAPI/build.gradle files.

Note: To build custom app based on the template see this section.

4. Wait for Gradle to finish building. It may take up to 30 minutes.

5. Run the app on a connected Fire TV device or in TV emulator

Supported Features

• Populates your app with content from enhanced playlists
• Video Search
• Live Streaming videos
• Resume watch functionality
• Pre-roll ads
• Midroll ads
• Video Favorites
• Closed Caption Support

Unsupported Features

• Dynamic theme colors

Monetizations Supported

• Native SVOD via In App Purchases
• Universal SVOD via login and device linking
• Native TVOD via In App Purchases
• Universal TVOD via login and device linking

Supported Devices

Please only select the following devices when submitting your app to Amazon.

• Fire TV (2014)
• Fire TV (2015)
• Fire TV (Gen 3)
• Fire TV Stick
• Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote
• Amazon Fire TV Edition

Non-Amazon Android devices and Amazon Fire phones and tablets are not supported and should be deselected.

Creating Custom App Based on the Template

1. Select templateDebug (or templateRelease) build variant for app, PurchaseInterface and ZypeAPI modules

2. In PurchaseInterface/build.gradle and Application/ZypeAPI/build.gradle files set defaultPublishConfig parameter to templateRelease value.

3. Replace following placeholders with actual values:

Application/ZypeAPI/src/main/java/com/zype/fire/api/ZypeSettings.java

    public static final String APP_KEY = "";
    public static final String CLIENT_ID = "";
    public static final String ROOT_PLAYLIST_ID = "";

Also replace features and monetization options placeholders with true or false values.

Application/app/build.gradle

• <APPLICATION_ID> - used to identify your app on the device and in the marketplace. Must be unique and usually is following com.yourdomain.aftv pattern.

Application/app/src/template/res/values/strings.xml

• <APP_NAME>
• <APP_NAME_SHORT>

Application/app/src/template/res/values-en/strings.xml Application/app/src/template/res/values-de/strings.xml Application/app/src/template/res/values-ja/strings.xml

• <APP_NAME>

Application/app/src/template/res/values/custom.xml

• <BRAND_COLOR> - used for highlighting buttons and widgets

4. Update following resources:

Company logo

Application/app/src/template/res/drawable/logo_company.png

Image dimensions should be approximately 356 x 108 px and have a transparent background.

App icon

Application/app/src/template/res/mipmap-mdpi/ic_launcher.png Application/app/src/template/res/mipmap-hdpi/ic_launcher.png Application/app/src/template/res/mipmap-xhdpi/ic_launcher.png Application/app/src/template/res/mipmap-xxhdpi/ic_launcher.png

You can use icon generator in Android Studio to produce icons with required dimensions from 512x512 source icon image.

5. Setup UI options

App theme

The app supports both dark and light themes.
The default appearance is dark, where the screen background is black/dark grey, and text elements are white/light grey. The Light theme will display all screens with white background and black/grey text elements.

To enable light theme:

• Set LIGHT_THEME feature flag to true in the Application/ZypeAPI/src/main/java/com/zype/fire/api/ZypeSettings.java file
• Update the following values in the Application/app/src/template/res/values/custom.xml file:

Attribute name	Light theme	Dark theme
background	#FFFFFF	#22282E
spinner_color	#FF000000	#FFFFFFFF
primary_text	#E6000000	#E6FFFFFF
secondary_text	#99000000	#E6FFFFFF
tertiary_text	#99000000	#99FFFFFF
search_edit_text_bg_color	#4D000000	#4DFFFFFF
search_edit_text_bg_color_unfocused	#1A000000	#1AFFFFFF

Left menu

Left menu will appear when the user press Menu button on the device retomte control. It contains the same actions like Settings row at the bottom of the main screen. This option is turned off by default. To turn it on make the method displayLeftMenu() in the ZypeConfiguration.java return true value.

Watched bar

The watched bar is displayed on the video thumbnail and shows the time that user watched this video. This option is turned on by default. To turn it off make the method displayWatchedBarOnVideoThumbnails() in the ZypeConfiguration.java return false value.

6. Analytics

Segment analytics

To enable Segment Analytics:

• In the settings.gradle file uncomment lines referencing to SegmentAnalyticsComponent.
• In the app/build.gradle file uncomment the following row:

    compile project(':SegmentAnalyticsComponent')

• Rebuild the project

Note: You can find detail instructions on adding and removing Fire App Builder components here

Setting up Segment Analytics:

• In the SegmentAnalyticsComponent module open the res/values/values.xml file and set your Segment write key in this line:

    <string name="segment_analytics_write_key">Your WRITE_KEY here</string>

7. Rebuild the project

Built With

• Zype API - Zype API docs

Contributing

Please submit pull requests to us.

Versioning

For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

Authors

• Evgeny Cherkasov - Initial work - ech89899

See also the list of contributors who participated in this project.

License

This project is licensed under the License - see the LICENSE file for details