Create a Boxee App

Boxee is a popular program that enables people to bring video on the web to the TV. Creating a Boxee app is just a matter of adding the RSS feed of a channel to a very simple config file.

Setting Up a Channel

First you need to set up an RSS feed for the videos that you wish to show in a Boxee app. Setup a channel as you normally would with Bits on the Run. Press the "publish RSS feed" button. This is the link to the feed that you will want to use for your app.

Writing the Code

Below is a working demo of an application that you can run locally. Take a look and then read on to learn what items you need to customize to suit your needs:

<app>
     <id>botrdemo</id>
     <name>Bits on the Run</name>    
     <version>1.0</version>
     <description>This is a demo application that will show you how to write a Boxee application that shows the contents of an RSS feed.</description>
     <platform>all</platform>
     <thumb>http://www.bitsontherun.com/static/uploads/images/logo.png</thumb>
     <media>video</media>    
     <copyright>Longtail Video</copyright>
     <email>support@longtailvideo.com</email>
     <type>rss</type>
     <platform>all</platform>
     <minversion>0.9.7</minversion>
     <url>http://content.bitsontherun.com/feeds/LasfrJ72.rss</url>
     <repository>http://dir.boxee.tv/apps</repository>
     <test-app>true</test-app>
</app>

You will need to modify the following fields

• id: This will be the unique name of your app in the Boxee repository. This will need to be unique, one word and lowercase.
• name
• version
• description
• thumb: This is the logo for your application that you should host on your website. This should be a square png of 200x200 pixels.
• url: This should link link to the RSS feed of the channel that you set up earlier.
• test-app: You will have to remove this line before actually submitting the app to Boxee. You will need this line while testing locally though.

Save this file with the filename descriptor.xml

Installing the App

Before you submit the app, you should first run it locally to make sure there are no bugs. To do this first browse to the Boxee UserData folder. The location of this folder is different for each Operating System:

• Linux: ~/.boxee/UserData/
• Mac OSX: ~/Library/Application Support/BOXEE/UserData/
• AppleTV: ~/Library/Application Support/BOXEE/UserData/
• Windows Vista: C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\BOXEE\userdata\
• Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\BOXEE\userdata\

Now go to the apps folder and create a new folder with the name that you used for your id.

Move the descriptor.xml that you just created to this folder, start Boxee and launch your newly created application.

Submit your App to Boxee

Now that you're happy with the application it is time to submit your application to Boxee.

Prepare the Descriptor.xml

First you will have to remove this line and save the file, since your app will no longer be a test app:

  <test-app>true</test-app>

Zip Up The App

Boxee apps are distributed as zip files. Zip up the folder that you created for your app. Use the following naming convention: appid-version.zip

For our example the file name would be botrdemo-1.0.zip

Submission process

The submission process is done from the Boxee Developer Dashboard. Boxee have documented the submission process in-depth too.

Advanced Functionality

This is only a very basic Boxee application that just displays the contents of one RSS feed. If you wish to build an application that matches your style, you should look into this tutorial.

The Boxee Developer Wiki has a wealth of resources for even more advanced functionality; it is also possible to use Python for example.