A Menu Page describes both the visual layout of content on a screen and rules to handle user and system input providing interactions. When working with a TV-like display where the user interacts via a dedicated remote-control device you will need multiple menu-pages to provide even the simplest interactive system. Menu-pages can interact with child pages by passing parameter data from one page to another when opening that page. Any data displayed on a screen connected to the system will be part of a Menu Page.
¶ The Menu Editor
You will find the menu-page editor under Content -> Interactive Menus on your site. This is an advanced web-application that allows you to build and edit menu-pages for your site. The application shares the deployed render and event engine used by the actual TV application ensuring the render engine is always in sync with the actual application deployed to the connected TVs.
More advanced features include building advanced action handlers, basing rendered data on templates or documents, building navigate-able components based on interactive services such as Wake Up and View Bill or based on dynamic data such as available TV-channels, Subtitles in current channel or available system channels.
The Menu Page Editor is documented in detail in this section.
¶ Creating a new page
A new page can be created from the page dropdown menu selecting New MenuPage. When creating a new page you can copy an existing page or you can create a blank page.
¶ Types of pages
Menu Pages can be classified with predefined page-classes. Doing this allows you to use the page for various system configurations. Eg. a page that is to be used as a wake-up page, must be tagged as such to be available for selection when ordering a wake-up via the portal.
Also certain pages will receive certain page parameters from the application when opened. These are documented in this section.
A page that is to be set as the main menu page in a configuration must be tagged as a main menu page.
These are the available page categories:
¶ Main Menu
A page that is to be used as the main entry point/dashboard of the TV experience.
¶ Offline Menu
A special page that will act as the main menu if the TV is not able to connect to the online services. This page should be designed as simple as possible, not utilizing any assets such as images or special fonts as these will not be available in offline mode. NOTE: Philips does not support any offline menu. However, the TV channels are stored in the internal TV channel list.
¶ TV Channels
A page that is to be used as the main linear TV-channel browsing UI. This is the traditional TV-channel experience and it will be linked to a TV-button on the remote-control if available.
Typically this page includes a TV-channel list, current/next EPG, channel category selection, a way to open the channel audio selection and a way to open the channel subtitle selection.
¶ Radio Channels
A page that is to be used as the main linear Radio-channel browsing UI. This is the traditional Radio-channel experience.
¶ Power On
A page that will display every time the TV is powered on. This can be used as a promotional page and should/could be designed so that it exits to the main menu on user input. If this page is not set, the main menu will display on power-on.
¶ Welcome
A page that is meant to be displayed as the welcome message for a newly checked in guest.
Parameters
page.guestName - the checked in guests name
¶ Full EPG
A page that is to be bound to a guide/EPG button on the remote-control. Typically displays a grid of p for channels. The EPG Matrix menu component is typically used.
¶ TV Audio
A page that is typically running windowed displaying a list of available audio languages for the current channel.
¶ TV Subs
A page that is typically running windowed displaying a list of available subtitle languages for the current channel.
¶ Ext Input
A page offering the selection of an external input to display on the TV.
¶ Wake-up Order
A page that is to be bound to a wake-up key as found on many hospitality remote controls.
¶ Wake-up Alarm
A page that is to be triggered when a guest wake-up is executed. Typically includes some media-playback containing audio and perhaps an audio fade-in function.
¶ Message Display
A page that is to be used as the page to open when displaying an incoming message.
Parameters
page.id - ID of the message to display
page.senderName - Name of the sender
page.createdDate - When the message was created
page.subject - The subject of the message
page.body - The body of the message
¶ Message Notification
A page that is to be used as the page to notify the user of a new message. It will typically open the Message Display page on some user input action.
Parameters
page.id - the id of the new message