Code generator framework for smart TV platforms

Abstract

In recent years, smart TVs have become more common, making them need to be included as targets for the software industry. In this study, the authors developed a code generator framework and demonstrated it in an architectural view. The proposed framework converts C# programming language based projects, in a Windows Forms or a Windows Phone Application project, into native smart TV Platform applications. The selected primary smart TV platforms assigned for application conversion were Android TV, Firefox OS, and Tizen OS. The authors enabled developers to generate native codes for all three platforms from a single code base using model to model conversion, as in the model driven architecture approach with the use of the open source Roslyn C# language compiler. The need for creating projects for every single platform to make them run on different platforms will thus be eliminated and development cycles shortened. By doing so, the time required to develop an application for each platform is reduced while keeping the generated applications’ quality as high as the original application. To show the functionality, the proposed approach is applied in three case studies. The success of the code conversion is satisfactory and converted applications are functional.