# Apps on Hydra



## davidblackledge (Sep 9, 2008)

Anybody upgraded?

Can you "Add an App?"

If so, can custom apps get selected in the home shortcuts? 
If the general answer is "no" is anything from Enter Webz available as a home shortcut? If so, that would mean Genres drive it.

Oh... I guess the enterwebz.tv default app list doesn't include "video" genre in the result anymore which is likely the necessary genre if it's relevant. I don't recall right now if putting a thumztak in "Apps/video" group will force that genre in the results or if it just forces it to "other" genre, but it SHOULD result in "other" AND "video" genres.

If anybody experiments (move an app to "Apps/video" group, and check... much later (maybe after a restart to be certain)) please let us know your result.

Also, can you select any Vewd (formerly Opera TV) app favorites as a home shortcut?


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

I upgraded my spare Roamio Pro so I could mess with Hydra and update my Alexa skill.

- I don't see an option to add a custom app - the "ADD & MANAGE APPS" screen just lets you customize which built-in apps show up for OnePasses
- Vewd does show up under Home Shortcuts


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## davidblackledge (Sep 9, 2008)

windracer said:


> - I don't see an option to add a custom app - the "ADD & MANAGE APPS" screen just lets you customize which built-in apps show up for OnePasses


Well, I'm not surprised, I guess, but I won't say I'm not disappointed.

On a related note, my Premiere updated last night and afterwards I verified it has metastasized the cancer of HME broken MP3 and MP4 formats in that model. All HME can do now is play games and the rarer MPEG2 videos (and show live tv). Or maybe that was an unrelated patch update and it was broken before - it's my wife's main TiVo and I'm not to interrupt its function with HME testing ;]

I guess there are probably some people with functioning Series 3 devices that are OK still, but both of mine are not functioning.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

You could always port to HTML5 and publish to the Opera store.


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## davidblackledge (Sep 9, 2008)

Dan203 said:


> You could always port to HTML5 and publish to the Opera store.


Yeah, and have Opera/Vewd reject your work for not following standards they don't have in the guide they link you to when they reject it. (This is where I am right now with porting Archive On Demand - twice they've complained about my icon/screenshot store graphics without saying which images are the problem, and the 2nd time I can't see how any of them break the linked standard, and now they're complaining about how it functions when they have no written standards about that.) Archive On Demand - yeah it needs a little work that I'll admit to, but not as much as they complained about.

Even if they accept it it's still:
Hey, everybody, click Apps then go the bottom of the list and click "Vewd App Store" then wait for it to launch then navigate down to "Search" then type very slowly with your remote to search for "Dave's App" and then launch it and a few minutes later it'll do something.

If you Favorite it in Vewd and also make a Home Shortcut for "Vewd App Store" then you only have to:
Click "Vewd App Store" then wait for it to launch then navigate down to "Favorites" and click "right" over and over to get past the other favorites until you "Dave's App" and then launch it and a few minutes later it'll do something.

... do I sound discouraged?

I used to complain about how many clicks it took to find Apps in a Series 3. I didn't know what a blessing it was.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I thought they added a way to create a direct link to a Opera Store app on the TiVo apps list?


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## davidblackledge (Sep 9, 2008)

Well, TIVO has a way, I think, but no way for us 3rd parties to participate.

According to windracer above, the Hydra interface only let's you set Vewd (what Opera TV Store is now called) in its "Home Shortcuts" - not any of the specific apps inside of it.

The only option I know of right now for us is that launching arbitrary web pages apparently is working again I heard? So one could use that interface on a tablet or PC to directly launch an HTML5 app on the TiVo.


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