Day 1: Installing Eclipse, the Tivo HME, and the Bananas Toolkit             

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This tutorial will show you how to create a real TiVo application yourself.  I've tried to include a lot of detail, because I sometimes find that tutorials leave out important details sometimes that make it frustrating to complete.  If you follow the steps here carefully, you should be able to successfully write your own application.

3/21/06: Updated for HME 1.4 and Eclipse 3.1.2

First Things First

Before you go any further, you should make sure that you're a candidate for this tutorial:

• You should have a TiVo Series 2 box running software version 7.2.x or higher.  Do not assume you already have this; go check (Tivo - Messages and Setup - Account & System Information - System Information).  As of this writing, the Humax DVD Recorder models are not supported.  (You can write and run this app using just the Simulator if you don't have a TiVo, or are waiting for your 7.2 upgrade.)
• Your TiVo should be on your home network with at least one PC.  See this article at tivo.com for more information.
• All my examples assume you're running Windows XP, Service Pack 2, but the TiVo SDK is supported on other operating systems.
• You shouldn't be afraid to write some code.  TiVo apps are written in Java.

A Quick Word About Comments

I stripped out most of the comments when I've included code snippets within this tutorial.  All of the methods in the classes are very short, usually only a few lines long, and it's pretty easy to tell what's going on in there.  Never fear -- at the end of this tutorial, you will be able to download a completely-commented version of this project.  (Sorry if you don't agree with this tactic, but I did it on purpose: the intent of this tutorial is to explain how to get an app going, not all of the fine details of the code.)

License

The code is this tutorial is being made available to you via Common Public License v1.0.  Portions originate directly from the TiVo HME and Bananas source code, referenced below.

Note About SDK Versions Used

This tutorial was developed using version 1.4 of the TiVo HME SDK, and version 1.3 of Bananas. 

The Basics

You're going to need to install 3 things to get going:

1. Eclipse
2. The TiVo HME SDK
3. The TiVo "Bananas" UI Toolkit

Eclipse is a great free IDE (Integrated Development Environment).  The Tivo HME SDK (Home Media Engine Software Development Kit) is a set of resources (Java source files, classes, images, etc.) that allow you to interact with your TiVo over your home network.  Bananas is a UI toolkit built on top of the HME that lets you quickly build nice TiVo-looking apps without having to do all the UI and graphics work yourself.

For more details on HME and Bananas, see my HME intro page.

Download and Install Eclipse

Go to the Eclipse Downloads Page and download the Eclipse SDK.  As of this writing, the latest version is 3.1.2.  It's OK to grab a newer version for the purposes of this tutorial, if there is one.  It's 100+ MB, so it'll take a little while to download.

Once you've downloaded the ZIP file, open it and extract it to c:\ .  This will place all of its files in c:\eclipse.

That's it!  It's installed.  You can put it someplace else (e.g. c:\eclipse-3.1.2 or some such), but generally speaking, when you start deviating from the tutorial, you can cause yourself some undue problems trying to get things working.  I'd recommend just putting it in c:\eclipse.

Download and Install the TiVo HME SDK

The HME SDK may be found on the download page at tivohme.sourceforge.net. This tutorial was written using hme_sdk_1.4.

Once you've downloaded the ZIP file, extract it to c:\tivo.  This means that alls of the HME SDK files will be found in c:\tivo\hme_sdk_1.4 when it's all unzipped.

Download and Install Bananas

Bananas may also be found at tivohme.sourceforge.net.  This tutorial was written using bananas_1.3.

Once you've downloaded the ZIP file, extract it to c:\tivo.  This means that alls of the Bananas files will be found in c:\tivo\bananas_1.3 when it's all unzipped.

Run Eclipse For The First Time

The first time you run Eclipse, you have to do a little bit of setup.  To start it up, go to c:\eclipse (in Explorer) and double-click eclipse.exe .  I'd recommend creating a shortcut to it on your desktop; you'll be running it a lot.

When you first run Eclipse, you'll be asked to select a 'workspace'.  This is a directory where all of your Eclipse project data will be stored.  The default is c:\eclipse\workspace, which is OK, but I prefer not to mingle my data and my applications.  So, I create a 'TiVo Projects' folder under 'My Documents' and I point Eclipse to it.  Check the 'Use this as the default' checkbox too:

If you get a purple welcome screen; just click the big curvy arrow in the top-right corner:

You should see a window that looks something like this:

Use Eclipse to Run the HME SDK Samples

Before going further, I'd recommend getting the SDK sample apps to run in the simulator through Eclipse.  Complete instructions, including a video of exact steps, may be found at the top of my HME intro page.

Finishing Up Day 1

Okay, this is enough for one day.  Tomorrow will be fun -- we'll get to run a real app.  Tutorial: Day 2

If you're new to Eclipse, I'd recommend Eclipse Distilled.  It's cheap, fairly short, and packed with useful info.  Of course, you could always read the manual, too: Eclipse 3.0 Platform User Guide.  You'll get a few more Eclipse tips on Day 4.

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