Important Tips to Submit Applications(Channel) on ROKU store

[4waytechnology]

Are you looking for the process to upload your channel on ROKU Store? You have come to the right place. 

As Smart TV App Development is in great demand across the globe, getting your own smart TV channels is beneficial. Publishing or submitting your own ROKU channel or application isn’t that tough all thanks to the ROKU development team. But publishing does require a few things of the channel such as it’s source code, images and fonts all to be “packaged”  into a bundle that gets ciphered. By means of this feature, ROKU developers allow ARM developers to publish their channels while keeping all intellectual property and data safely encrypted. 

The process of “packaging a channel” uses cryptographic hardware built by the ROKU development team. This hardware is fitted into ROKU devices and creates a package,  this package can safely without any threat distributed on ROKU devices. 

NOTE: To package a channel there are two ways - 

1. Install “Development App\ the application Installer” on your Development Device 
2. Download “Eclipse IDE” with the ROKU plugin on your Development Device. 

Packaging with the Development Application Installer 

For packaging a channel in the Development Application Installer, you must enable the “packager utility”. 

Step 1: Install/Sideload Channel on ROKU Device

1. a) Before a channel can be packaged, it must be installed on a ROKU device.

Step 2: Open a Telnet Session

 Once your channel is installed, a key is needed to be generated to sign your package. Windows users can access Telnet client like PuTTy and macOS/OSX/Linux developers can use the in-built Telnet client through the terminal.

Instructions 

• Windows

1. Use PuTTy, enter the IP Address of your ROKU device. 
2. Use “8080” for the port. 
3. Click the “Telnet Button” for the connection type. 

2) macOS/Linux

1. Open the terminal and type “telnet <Roku-IP-address> 8080”.   

Step 3: Run the  genkey Utility to create a signing key

1. Type genkey into the command prompt. 

After completion, a key will be generated to sign packages. 

NOTE: Make sure to note the username and password, as it will be required later on. 

NOTE: Generating a new signing key for each channel created is a good practice. 

Step 4: Packaging your Sideloaded Channel 

1. Open the “Development Application Installer ”. Make sure the “Packager” option will be there.               

1. Select “Packager” from the top right corner. 

   “Dev Id” must be similar to “Developer ID” generated with “genkey” previously.

1. Enter the  Application name and version and the “Password” created during the “genkey”. 
2. Click on “Package”. 

1. The window will appear showing the “currently packaged application” on your screen. The Package created is now available. The signed package can be downloaded using the “.pkg”, link available in the image below.   

Is Size really an issue? 

   ROKU development team has a maximum limit size set for application packages i.e. 4 MB. Any application package larger than 4 MB, shows an error during Static Analysis. 

STEP 5: Submit to the ROKU Store 

          As packaging is done, the final step is to submit the application on ROKU Store. And to submit the application you first have to decide upon the type of channel you want for the uploading your application. 

        The ROKU platform supports two channels  “Public Channels”  and  “Non-Certified Channels or Private Channels(as called by many)”. Roku developers define “Non-Certified Channels” as a channel that is not available in the Channel Store. It is only available for testing and limited distribution. Applications on these channels can only be installed when shared by the ARM developer.   

    Whereas, “Public Channels” are available on ROKU Store and searchable. For approving and publishing your live application on the public channel ROKU development team takes almost 4-6 weeks. 

1. Open “Development Application Installer” 
2. Log in into “Developer Account”. 

1. Click on “Upload”. Open your ZIP file. 
2. Click on “Install”. When the installation is done your application will open in ROKU Store. 

STEP 6: Rekeying

   While developing multiple applications, sign each package with a different key is a good habit. This makes sure that the registry entries aren’t shared between two different channels. To sign different packages on the same device, “rekeying” is used. 

1. Open “Development Application Installer”. 
2. Click on “Utilities”. 
3. Click “Upload” this will select the signed package that you are willing to use to rekey the player. 
4. Enter the password generated from “genkey”.
5. Click on “Rekey”. 

A success will appear at the bottom of the screen.

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