Store Search History

I am looking for suggestions on how best to store the history for the search screen. It is populated from an roArray, but when I try to write the roArray to the registry it complains of a type mismatch. I would like to hear how others have done this. I would prefer to keep the search term on the Roku rather than sending it to the server.

I appreciate hearing how you have done this.

Thanks.

The Roku has a global search history that will automatically persist when you add terms to it. See the roSearchHistory component in the SDK.

Here is a simple example I put together awhile back that might help: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=32518&p=202516#p202518

I looked at that, but I don’t want to use the global search history in my app. I get annoyed enough by the apps that already use it.

“SkipFire” wrote:
when I try to write the roArray to the registry it complains of a type mismatch. I would like to hear how others have done this. I would prefer to keep the search term on the Roku rather than sending it to the server.

You can only write strings to the registry. One solution would be to use roXMLElement to build a chunk of XML representing the contents of your search history array and store that in the registry.

Here is some code that I have used, while out of context, it might provide some clues to help you. At the bottom are some of my registry management functions.


Write the current search term to the registry: (note, this is an excerpt and is based on previous search terms having already been loaded into histlist from the registry. It checks if the search term is already in the registry and if not then it adds it to the list and removes the oldest term from the list)

 
'code excerpt from a search screen
'm.tquerystring contains is the current search term.
'histlist contains list of search terms loaded from the registry
                                                histlist=m.historylist 'this line should go at the very top of the search function

                                               flag=0

                                                for i=0 to histlist.count()-1
                                                      if m.tquerystring=histlist[i]
                                                         flag=1
                                                      end if
                                                next i
                                                if flag <> 1 then
                                                      histlist.unshift(m.tquerystring)
                                                      if histlist.count() > 9
                                                          histlist.pop()
                                                       end if
                                                 end if                                                                    
                                                        searchscr.setsearchterms(histlist)
                                                        m.historylist=histlist                                                                       
                                                        writereg("history","searchhist",arraytostring(histlist))                                    
 
 
function AddHistory(id,histlist) as object
flag=0
for i=0 to histlist.count()-1
                if id=histlist[i]
                                flag=1
                end if
next i
 
if flag <> 1 then
                histlist.unshift(id)
                if histlist.count() > 10
                                histlist.pop()
                end if
end if
                m.mixhist=histlist                                                                            
                writereg("history","mixhist",arraytostring(histlist))
return m.mixhist
end function
function arraytostring(array as object) as string
str=""
for each element in array
if element <> invalid
                str=element+","+str
end if
next
return left(str,len(str)-1)
end function
function loadsearchHistory() 
                if not checkreg("history","searchhist") then
                                ?"no search history in the registry"
                                createregsection("history","searchhist", "")
                else
                                ?"found search history, loading"
                                histemp=box(readreg("history","searchhist").tokenize(","))
                                i=histemp.count()-1
                                j=0
                                while true
                                                if i=-1 or j > histemp.count() -1 
                                                                exit while
                                                end if
                                                m.historylist[j]=histemp[i]
                                                i=i-1
                                                j=j+1
                                end while
                end if
end function
function createregsection(secname as string,keyname as string, keyvalue as string)
registry=createobject("roregistry")
section=createobject("roregistrysection",secname)
section.write(keyname,keyvalue)
end function
 
function checkreg(secname as string,keyname as string) as boolean
registry=createobject("roregistry")
section=createobject("roregistrysection",secname)
return section.exists(keyname)
end function
 
function readreg(secname as string, keyname as string) as string
registry=createobject("roregistry")
section=createobject("roregistrysection",secname)
return section.read(keyname)
end function
 
function writereg(secname as string, keyname as string, keyvalue as string) as boolean
registry=createobject("roregistry")
section=createobject("roregistrysection",secname)
section.write(keyname,keyvalue)
end function
 
function deletekey(secname as string,keyname as string) as boolean
registry=createobject("roregistry")
section=createobject("roregistrysection",secname)
return section.delete(keyname)
end function
 
function deleteSection(secname as string) as boolean
registry=createobject("roregistry")
return registry.delete(secname)
end function
 
function regflush()
registry=createobject("roregistry")
registry.flush()
end function

RokuJoel, I didn’t know about tokenize but that makes it quite easy thanks.

RokuChris, thanks for the XML suggestion.

Is there a simple way to search history by date or otherwise? We installed YouTube on the roku and we want to know what has been watched. I am not a programmer. Thank you in advance