Apple TV - Apple Remote

[IcemarkUK]

Now that I have my game out on the original platforms I support, I took the opportunity to build the Apple TV variant - to be honest I didn't expect it to work. However built nicely, ran, and went through the startup sequences. Then came to the first bit of user input and was expected nothing worked. Everything I have done so far is mouse, touch, or key selection. I have not Gamepad / Remote support at all. I managed to use the Remote with the very rudimentary touch support, so I managed to navigate part of my menu and in to the game - and just amazing that it works!

The thing is - I have no idea what I am meant to be adding. I tried trust google, but could find anything interesting for Apple TV support for Cocos2d-x or Axmol.

I have some buttons inside Layout. I have some widget stuff. I have some Menu and MenuItem elements.
I do have some global keyboard listeners registered for shortcut keys and esc etc... so if anyone can point me in the correct direction - I would much appreciate it.

[rh101]

That is strange, because the controller should be supported. The code is in core/base/Controller-apple.mm. Are you able to debug it to see what's happening when there is input from the controller? Just look for the sections surrounded by if defined(AX_TARGET_OS_TVOS).

[IcemarkUK]

It feels like I am missing something to manage the focus of my elements.

[IcemarkUK]

Ok. I think there is a big bit missing.

All my menus are based on Menu. I don't see any code in Menu to handle controllers. Nothing to handle focus events.
Inside menu I use MenuItem - see above statement.

My popup windows are based on Layout. Layout is based on Widget. There is code in Widget to handle Focus. But only if you've called enableDpadNavigation

I have stray Buttons around which is also a Widget.

I can't see any code to let a Button or MenuItem handle the state of being focused. ie: Draw themselves differently.

FocusNavigationController::onKeypadKeyPressed never gets called.

On the simulator at least both microGamepad and extendedGamepad are true at the same time - with the same value.

On the simulator I just cannot get events to be triggered at all. I will try more later I the week (away for a fews days) when I can put my real device and computer in the same room...

[paulocoutinhox]

Hi,

Mine game runs on AppleTV too:
https://paulocoutinho.pages.dev/gamemania/home/

[rh101]

Mine game runs on AppleTV too:
https://paulocoutinho.pages.dev/gamemania/home/

Fair enough, but was there any specific code you needed to add to get the app working with Apple TV, such as what you did to get the controller working?

[IcemarkUK]

Hi,

Mine game runs on AppleTV too: https://paulocoutinho.pages.dev/gamemania/home/

Are you handling all the events yourself? ie: Add an event listener then decide what to do with events - include which element should have focus, or are the standard UI elements just working with the controller left/right/action and showing which ui element currently has focus?

[paulocoutinhox]

Hi,

1 - My scene inherit from ax::Scene, normally:

class MenuScene : public ax::Scene {
  private:
    void onControllerKeyDown(ax::Controller *controller, int keyCode, ax::Event *event);
}

2 - On init method you need:

bool MenuScene::init() {
    // super init first
    if (!Scene::init()) {
        return false;
    }

    // controller
#if (AX_TARGET_PLATFORM != AX_PLATFORM_WASM)
    Controller::startDiscoveryController();
#endif

    auto listener = EventListenerController::create();
    listener->onKeyDown = AX_CALLBACK_3(MenuScene::onControllerKeyDown, this);
    _eventDispatcher->addEventListenerWithSceneGraphPriority(listener, this);

    // schedule update
    scheduleUpdate();

    return true;
}

void MenuScene::onControllerKeyDown(Controller *controller, int keyCode, Event *event) {
    if (window) {
        window->onControllerKeyDown(controller, keyCode, event);
    }
}

In my case i have a class for each FairyGUI window, but you dont need.

3 - After receive the event from controller, you make your logic:

void MenuWindowGUI::onControllerKeyDown(Controller *controller, int keyCode, Event *event) {
    switch (keyCode) {
    case Controller::BUTTON_DPAD_UP:
    case Controller::BUTTON_DPAD_LEFT:
        selectPreviousControl();
        break;
    case Controller::BUTTON_DPAD_DOWN:
    case Controller::BUTTON_DPAD_RIGHT:
        selectNextControl();
        break;
    case Controller::BUTTON_A:
        if (controlListIndex < 0) {
            return;
        }

        auto selectedButton = getContentPane()->getChildByPath(controlList[controlListIndex]);

        if (selectedButton) {
            selectedButton->dispatchEvent(UIEventType::Click);
        }
        break;
    }
}

4 - In your Info.plist you need:

<key>GCSupportsControllerUserInteraction</key>
<true/>
<key>GCSupportedGameControllers</key>
<array>
    <dict>
        <key>ProfileName</key>
        <string>ExtendedGamepad</string>
    </dict>
</array>

[IcemarkUK]

Yes, so you're handling it yourself, or at least off loading to FairyGUI?

[IcemarkUK]

I have info.plist setup.
I've already called Controller::startDiscoveryController();

This is my scene - just doesn't get called on the simulator.

    auto eventListener = EventListenerController::create();
    eventListener->onKeyDown = [](Controller* controller, int keyCode, Event* event) {
        if (keyCode == Controller::Key::BUTTON_DPAD_LEFT) {
            UIDEBUG("Move left");
        } else if (keyCode == Controller::Key::BUTTON_DPAD_RIGHT) {
            UIDEBUG("Move right");
        } else if (keyCode == Controller::Key::BUTTON_A) {
            UIDEBUG("Confirm/Select");
        }
    };
    _eventDispatcher->addEventListenerWithSceneGraphPriority(eventListener, this);

[paulocoutinhox]

1 - I receive the event from controller and reflect it in the UI. If the user press to up or down, i selected next or previous control.

2 - When the UI initialize i create a vector with control name:

// initialize control list
controlList.push_back("btStart1");
controlList.push_back("btStart2");
controlList.push_back("btStart3");
controlList.push_back("btStart4");
controlListIndex = -1;

So, when you press up/down, i navigate between the controls and by name i know what control i need update.

With the button X of controller i select that button calling their click event.

3 - I don't know if in the simulator it works, because i test direct on my AppleTV.

[IcemarkUK]

ok. So you are doing all the work yourself. I thought there was support in the UI elements for the controller. I think @rh101 expected this too. Indeed Widgets DO support the Android DPAD for focus control, so I wonder if there is just some wiring missing... this is what I will look at next week.

Thanks for the clarification.

[IcemarkUK]

So to conclude this discussion, here are my findings for Apple TV Remote and Controllers.

• You must enable the MicroGamepad and or ExtendedGamepad in your info.plist along with GCSupportsControllerUserInteraction
• There are no inbuilt default UI elements that support either of these
• Widgets support AndroidDPAD only if you call Widget::enableDpadNavigation(true);
• The Widget Focus/Navigation code does not support the controllers on TVOS, because it uses an EventListenerKeyboard
• You will need to build focus / navigation support directly by using EventListenerController