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Video: Let’s Build a TV Spatial Navigation

Sergio Avalos
Sergio Avalos
Spotify
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Video Summary and Transcription
The video delves into spatial navigation, highlighting the challenges of implementing it in smart TV applications. It explains the need for a spatial navigation library due to the diverse operating systems of smart TVs. The talk explores how to build a web application for the user interface, which simplifies maintenance but loses native platform support for spatial navigation. The lack of browser support for spatial navigation is addressed, with a proposal in progress. The video discusses using the getBoundingClientRect method to select the next node after a key press, filtering nodes by direction and main axis, and selecting the closest one based on distance. The NavigationEngine class is updated with the handleNavigation method to implement this logic. The video also covers using a useFocusRef hook function to manage focus without static IDs, addressing challenges like complex arrangements and circular navigations. It mentions using React and React Router DOM for the demo application, with navigational nodes registered and events listened from TBControl. The video encourages developers to explore open-source projects for spatial navigation, like the one from Norwegian Media, and to get involved in building a community around smart TV application development.

This talk has been presented at React Advanced 2023, check out the latest edition of this React Conference.

Available in Español: Construyamos una Navegación Espacial para TV

FAQ

The topic of Sergio Avalos's talk is Spatial Navigation for smart TV applications.

Sergio Avalos is a software engineer at Spotify, working on the team behind the Spotify client that runs on smart TVs.

Spatial Navigation is a term used to describe the process of navigating a TV interface using the directional keys on a TV remote control.

As of 2023, browser support for Spatial Navigation is still a work in progress. There is a proposal in draft, but it is not yet implemented.

Yes, there is an open-source project provided by Norwegian Media, released in 2019, but it wasn't available when Spotify's smart TV application was initially developed.

Using IDs for navigational elements can be error-prone, difficult to work with dynamic views, and adds extra information unrelated to the application logic.

Sergio Avalos suggests using a hook function that returns a callback for setting the reference of the HTML element and managing focus without relying on static IDs.

Some advanced challenges in Spatial Navigation include handling non-matrix layouts, managing focus on pop-ups, and implementing circular navigation for convenience.

Developers can use the library linked in Sergio Avalos's presentation to start building smart TV applications without developing Spatial Navigation logic from scratch.

A library for Spatial Navigation is needed because smart TVs have different operating systems, and using a web application for the user interface can lose native platform support, including Spatial Navigation.

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