How to load a sample channel application on your Roku device
In this guide, we will cover the essential steps for installing and modifying a ‘Hello World’ sample channel application on your Roku device.
Steps:
- Review the Developer Setup Guide
- Open the Developer Application Installer
- Download and install the Sample Channel Application
- Edit the Sample Channel Application
- Re-upload the Sample Channel onto a Roku device
Requirements to follow this guide:
- A Roku device: roku.com/products/compare
- A Roku developer account: developer.roku.com/enrollment/standard/
- Download the sample channel application: hello-world.zip
1. Review the Developer Setup Guide
The Roku Developer Setup guide enables any Roku device to install sample applications such as the basic hello world example in this guide.
| Developer Settings | Development Application Installer |
|---|---|
 |
 |
After completing the steps covered in the Developer Setup Guide, open a web browser and navigate to the Roku device URL (i.e. http://192.168.x.x)
ℹ️ To connect to your Roku device, make sure your computer and Roku are on the same local network.
Roku device credentials
When you navigate to your Roku device, it will prompt for a user name (rokudev) and the password that was setup during the Developer Setup Guide. Enter this information to continue.
Once the page opens, you have successfully connected to the Roku device.
The main screen will show the development application installer:
Related article: How to update the software on a Roku device
Now that you have enabled Developer Settings on your Roku device and logged in, we can continue with downloading and installing a Sample Channel Application.
Download the sample application: hello-world.zip
Once downloaded, take the .zip and upload it to your Roku device using the Developer Application Installer:
To finish this process, click on the Install button located below the upload option.
If the sample channel contains no errors and the process runs successfully, the sample channel will launch on the Roku device:
ℹ️ Roku devices with Developer Settings enabled will allow one “side-loaded” channel at a time. If you run this process again, the new channel upload will replace the existing channel.
Finding your Sample Channel on the Roku Device
The side-loaded channel will be automatically placed in the bottom row of your main channels, also known as “My Channels”.
When you uncompress the .zip directory, you’ll see the following setup:
Here’s a breakdown of the common items inside the sample application:
For this example, you will open the helloworld.xml file that is located inside the components directory.
The example XML file above shows how a simple Label is created and centered on the screen. Specifically on line 5, the Label’s value is set with text="Hello World!".
ℹ️ Optional: Review the code for additional attributes that can be set for this sample channel application.
Change the value of the text field on line 5 to another phrase:
After saving the edits to helloworld.xml, select all the items inside the directory and use the zip compress utility on your computer.
ℹ️ Remember to compress only the contents of the directory, not the parent folder.
For Example:
If you compress (“zip”) the parent folder, the Developer Application Installer will return an error.
The proper ways to compress the required files:
Mac OS X:
Right click all selected files to compress into a .zip file.
Windows:
Simply select all the files and folders and right click to compress into a .zip file.
Once you have recompressed the Channel application, open a web browser and navigate again to the Roku device URL (i.e. http://192.168.x.x)
Upload the .zip file and click Install
You will immediately see the edited phrase in your Sample Channel Application:
Go to sdkdocs.roku.com and explore the methods, parameters, and syntax for building rich and complex channel applications on the Roku Platform.