Television (Apple TV and Android TV)

Codename One can build and run your application UI on the living-room TV platforms: Apple TV (tvOS) and Android TV / Google TV. As with the phone and wearable targets, the same Java/Kotlin code base drives the TV app — you write Codename One UI as usual and the build pipeline produces the appropriate TV artifact for each platform.

The two platforms reach the TV through different mechanisms:

Android TV / Google TV is Android. An Android TV app is an ordinary Android app (the same APK) that adds a small amount of manifest metadata: a Leanback launcher category so the app appears on the TV home screen, the android.software.leanback feature, and an optional banner. The existing Codename One Android port renders the UI through exactly the same pipeline it uses on phones and tablets.
Apple TV runs tvOS. tvOS is a UIKit relative of iOS reached through the same ParparVM (Java bytecode → C → native) pipeline used for iPhone/iPad, built against the appletvos SDK with a tvOS application target. tvOS has no touchscreen — navigation is driven by the Siri remote and the focus engine.

In both cases the build is additive: with the TV hints turned off your phone/tablet build is unchanged.

Detecting the TV Form Factor

Use CN.isTV() (or Display.getInstance().isTV()) to branch your UI for the TV at runtime. This is the living-room analog of the existing isTablet(), isDesktop() and isWatch() checks:

Form f = new Form(BoxLayout.y());
if (CN.isTV()) {
    // 10-foot UI: larger fonts, generous spacing, focus-driven navigation
    f.add(new Label("Hello TV"));
} else {
    // Full phone/tablet layout
    f.add(new Label("Hello"));
}
f.show();

Codename One’s existing D-pad/arrow focus traversal (the same mechanism that powers GAME_UP/GAME_DOWN/GAME_LEFT/GAME_RIGHT and component focus) drives remote navigation on the TV, so focusable components such as Button are navigable with the remote out of the box.

Adapting Styling with CSS Media Queries

The TV (and watch) form factors integrate with the CSS @media device-type mechanism. Rules inside a device-tv (or device-watch) media block are selected at runtime when Display.isTV() (respectively isWatch()) returns true — exactly the way device-tablet / device-desktop already work:

Label {
    color: black;
}

@media device-tv {
    Label {
        /* Larger type for the 10-foot UI */
        font-size: 3mm;
        color: white;
    }
}

Building for Android TV / Google TV

Enable the Android TV manifest metadata with a single build hint in codenameone_settings.properties:

codename1.arg.android.tv=true

This makes the build:

add <category android:name="android.intent.category.LEANBACK_LAUNCHER"/> to the launcher activity so the app appears on the Android TV home screen;
declare <uses-feature android:name="android.software.leanback" android:required="false"/> and make android.hardware.touchscreen optional so the app installs on touchless TVs;
generate a 320×180 launcher banner (@drawable/tv_banner) from the app icon.

The resulting APK still installs and runs on phones and tablets.

Android TV Build Hints

Build hint Default Description

Build hint	Default	Description
`android.tv`	`false`	Mark the build as an Android TV / Google TV app: adds the `LEANBACK_LAUNCHER` intent category, declares the `android.software.leanback` feature, makes `android.hardware.touchscreen` optional, and generates the 320×180 launcher banner. The same APK still runs on phones and tablets.

android.tv

false

Mark the build as an Android TV / Google TV app: adds the LEANBACK_LAUNCHER intent category, declares the android.software.leanback feature, makes android.hardware.touchscreen optional, and generates the 320×180 launcher banner. The same APK still runs on phones and tablets.

Building for Apple TV (tvOS)

Enable the tvOS application target with the tvNative.* build hints (the Apple Watch build is enabled by declaring a codename1.watchMain instead — see the wearables chapter):

codename1.arg.tvNative.enabled=true

The tvOS build produces a standalone Apple TV app. Because tvOS uses a separate App ID and provisioning profile from your iOS app, you supply tvOS signing material the same way you do for the other Apple targets.

codename1.tvMain (and tvNative.enabled) only add the tvOS target; the iPhone/iPad build is unchanged. In particular enabling the tvOS target does not switch the iOS app’s renderer — tvOS runs on Metal (it has no OpenGL ES), but the iOS app continues to honor its own ios.metal setting.

tvOS Build Hints

Build hint Default Description

Build hint	Default	Description
`tvNative.enabled`	`false`	Force the tvOS target on even without a distinct `tvMain`.
`codename1.tvMain` (a.k.a. `tvMain` / `tvNative.mainClass`)	(none)	Fully-qualified tvOS lifecycle entry class. Setting it also turns on the tvOS build. When omitted (with `tvNative.enabled=true`) the tvOS app reuses your phone main class.
`tvNative.bundleId`	`<package>.tvos`	Bundle identifier of the tvOS app.
`tvNative.minDeploymentTarget`	`13.0`	`TVOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET` for the tvOS target.
`tvNative.displayName`	(app display name)	The tvOS app name shown on Apple TV.
`tvNative.teamId`	(falls back to the iOS team id)	Apple Developer Team ID used to sign the tvOS target.

tvNative.enabled

false

Force the tvOS target on even without a distinct tvMain.

codename1.tvMain (a.k.a. tvMain / tvNative.mainClass)

(none)

Fully-qualified tvOS lifecycle entry class. Setting it also turns on the tvOS build. When omitted (with tvNative.enabled=true) the tvOS app reuses your phone main class.

tvNative.bundleId

<package>.tvos

Bundle identifier of the tvOS app.

tvNative.minDeploymentTarget

13.0

TVOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET for the tvOS target.

tvNative.displayName

(app display name)

The tvOS app name shown on Apple TV.

tvNative.teamId

(falls back to the iOS team id)

Apple Developer Team ID used to sign the tvOS target.