Okay, so today I wanted to mess around with making a TV app using Vue. I’ve seen some tutorials online, but they weren’t exactly what I was looking for, so I figured, why not just dive in and see what happens?
First things first, I fired up a new Vue project. Nothing fancy, just the usual Vue CLI setup. Once that was done, I started thinking about the structure. I mean, a TV app is basically a bunch of grids and lists, right?
Mock Up
So, I sketched out a basic layout on a piece of paper. I decided to go with a simple design: a header, a sidebar for navigation, and a main content area to display whatever is selected.
Components Creation
Then I got to work on the components. I created a Header component, a Sidebar component, and a ContentArea component. For now, I just put some placeholder text in each of them. I thought about what kind of data I’d need. I figured I’d need a list of channels, and for each channel, a list of shows. Simple enough. I whipped up a quick JSON file with some dummy data to use for testing.
Data Fetching and Displaying
Next, I tackled the data fetching part. I used the fetch API to grab the data from my JSON file. I stored the data in the main App component and passed it down to the Sidebar and ContentArea components as props.
In the Sidebar, I looped through the list of channels and displayed them as a simple list. For the ContentArea, I initially just displayed the details of the first channel in the list.
Navigation
Then came the fun part – navigation. On a TV, you don’t have a mouse, so you need to handle navigation with the remote. I added event listeners for the arrow keys, the Enter key, and the Back key. I made it so that you could navigate through the channel list in the Sidebar using the up and down arrow keys, and select a channel with the Enter key.
Displaying Content Dynamically
Once a channel was selected, I updated the ContentArea to display the details of the selected channel. I did this by keeping track of the currently selected channel in the App component’s state, and passing that information down to the ContentArea.
Styling
Now, it was time to make it look decent. I added some basic CSS to style the components. I made sure the focus state was clearly visible, so you always knew what was currently selected. I played around with different layouts and colors until I was happy with the result.
Polishing and Final Touches
Finally, I added some extra features, like a “now playing” section in the ContentArea that showed what was currently airing on the selected channel. I also implemented a simple search feature in the header, allowing you to search for channels or shows.
And that’s pretty much it! It’s not a full-fledged, production-ready app, but it’s a good starting point. I had a lot of fun building it, and I learned a ton about building TV apps with Vue. There’s still a lot more I could do, like adding pagination, improving the remote control navigation, and making it more visually appealing. But for now, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
- I might try to integrate a real TV guide API next, that would be cool!
- Or maybe I’ll try to make it work on an actual TV.
Who knows what the future holds? Anyway, I hope this was somewhat helpful or at least entertaining. See you next time!