Roku development, where to start?
Uros Mitic

Uros Mitic @umitic

About: An Engineering Manager with a focus on team dynamics, communication, and sustainable development practices.

Location:
Vienna /Austria
Joined:
Dec 4, 2017

Roku development, where to start?

Publish Date: Apr 8 '18
27 7

When I started learning Roku development I had a luck of working with an awesome senior developer who already had a lot of experience with the BrightScript and SceneGraph.
Everything that I wanted to learn I could learn from him(and I still do).
Unfortunately a lot of developers don't have this opportunity so I wanted to share few links that could help them learn Roku Development.

1.
For learning BrightScript start from codingalien.com and the Roku documentation.
Some information on the codingalien.com page is outdated so the good practice would be to compare it to the Roku documentation(You will also learn by doing this).
UPDATE:
After you get some grasp of BrightScript head over to learnroku/crash-course, this is for now maybe the best source of learning regarding ROKU development for beginners.

2.
SceneGraph, in short, is data structure that Roku uses to manage rendering of the application screens. After learning BrightScript this is where you should go next.

3.
When you get familiar enough with BrightScript and SceneGraph, play a little with the Roku examples from here. You can also check my github for some ROKU examples.

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
ROKU has created a Youtube channel and a ROKU channel with tutorials on for the new ROKU developers. This is really good starting point:
ROKU Youtube Tutorial channel
ROKU Course

VARIOUS TOPICS:
1.Roku Like A Hurricane - Short tips and tricks and nicely explained "how to" blog posts.

ADVANCED TOPICS:
1.
After you learned how to develop ROKU channels, You would need to learn how can you do unit testing on ROKU.
Thanks to George Cook and his great work on unit testing framework called rooibos that will be a lot easier then before.
You can check his unit testing framework, with great documentations and video tutorials here: rooibos.

TOOLS:
1.BrightScript 2D API Emulator - The ROKU emulator for 2d games is still a "new born" and in Alpha stage but with the great potential thanks to the awesome work of Marcelo Lv Cabral . Side Note: It's only for 2D API so it can't be used as a regular emulator for all things ROKU.
2.Roku Atom and VSCode Linter developed by WillowTree Aps

You can always ask for help from stackoverflow community and of course from the Roku Dev Forum.

Notable developers from the StackOverflow Roku Developers Community:
1.Nas Banov
2.Eugene Smoliy
3.alphablender
4.TheEndless

Hope I managed to help.
Have a great day.:-)

Comments 7 total

  • Jonathan Irvin
    Jonathan IrvinAug 10, 2018

    I just started #roku development, pinning this for future reference.

  • George Cook
    George CookOct 4, 2018

    Hi, appreciate this.

    Perhaps you would care to add the rooibos unit testing framework somewhere in here. It's a mocha inspired framework, with fully rich docs, and a couple of hours of video tutorials. I think most brightscript developers would really benefit from using it.

    github.com/georgejecook/rooibos

    • Uros Mitic
      Uros MiticOct 4, 2018

      Hi, I agree with You and thanks for reminding me of Your great work and this great project! I really appreciate your effort! Rooibos is added to the article. :-D

  • Juan Ramos
    Juan RamosNov 6, 2020

    Hello. I see the codingalien site is not available anymore.
    Do you think it is possible to run a single .brs file in the command line?
    I mean, to learn more about the syntax.
    Thanks for writing this article.

  • Renjith V R
    Renjith V RNov 21, 2020

    Thank you @Uros. I'm the father of codingalien. But the domain expired. I created this blog 4 years ago. I have a plan to start again.

    • Uros Mitic
      Uros MiticNov 24, 2020

      @Renjith VR Thank You for the great work You have been doing on the blog! Glad to see it back online in the future! :-)

  • Iqonic Design
    Iqonic DesignOct 30, 2023

    Getting started with Roku development? For a smooth and successful journey, consider Iqonic Design's Product Design and Development Services. They can guide you in the right direction and help you create outstanding Roku apps. Explore their services to ensure your project gets the attention it deserves!

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