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Feedback on Tizen for .NET Tooling: 1 out of 5 stars

Below are some (probably harsh) feedback on my experience using the Tizen for .NET tools with my v4.0 TV.

- I always have to do a clean rebuild to get the app to to update, otherwise it just builds but then runs the old previous-deployed version. I wasted so much time wondering why my changes weren't reflected.

- F5 debugging doesn't work. It only works without the debugger attached which makes it near impossible to build any serious apps, as there's no way to step through code and understand why something is or isn't working.
 

- All the Tizen tooling doesn't work on high-dpi screens. Most buttons and text is clipped because it fails to correctly scale for high-dpi. Most laptops are high-dpi today and many use 4K monitors, so it's basically unusable on a modern monitor.
 

- When deploying apps, there's no app icon to pin to smarthub either. I can only launch apps via Visual Studio. This makes it hard to do longer-term day-to-day testing by just starting the app directly from the TV, and takes the fun away from any hobbyists. Apparently you can only do it iwth the v5.0 emulator, but if you run the emulator you might as well just launch from VS. It completely defeats the purpose. https://developer.tizen.org/forums/tizen-.net/smart-hub-tizen-4.0-tv-.net-app and https://developer.tizen.org/comment/28679#comment-28679
 

- The certificate tools doesn't work any longer unless you set your PCs date back a month. And even that it doesn't really work as I can't get the device manager to detect I created a certificate.

 
- Error messages are often useless, where error message will just say "Closed" and clicking details will then just tell you "closed closed" twice or something otherwise unusable.
 
- Tooling relies on the JDK with no support for the OpenJDK which is problematic for most businesses with the recent change in licensing.
 
- Tooling is completely broken in VS2019. VSIX declares it's supported, but the manifest then takes dependency on the VS2017 editor component. I tried fixing the manifest manually, but then it'll fail in the property panel and can't deploy. https://github.com/Samsung/vs-tools-cps/issues/3
 
- When I go to try and install emulators, no emulators are found to download.
 
- It doesn't look like you can actually deploy any .NET apps to the store: https://developer.tizen.org/forums/tizen-.net/what-future-tizen.net
 
- There's not a single sample showing how to build a TV Video streaming app. I mean isn't that the #1 scenario for TV apps? I found an old Channel9 video showing how it's done, and it was overly complex requiring you to create custom Xamarin.Forms renderers, and the source code was not avaiable for download anywhere. https://developer.tizen.org/forums/tizen-.net/media-player-custom-renderer
 
- Side loading apps was for whatever reason (apparently some bullshit story about security) disabled, yet again reducing the possibility for more wide-spread testing of beta-releases.
 
- .NET Forum doesn't seem to have much helpful activity from Samsung.
 
- The VS tooling hasn't seen any changes since it was first checked in 7 months ago: https://github.com/Samsung/vs-tools-cps
 
Bottom line is that quality issues with the tooling and the overall developer experience, all these bugs makes it so bad, I can't recommend anyone using Tizen.NET for developing apps for your TV at this point. Considering this is now a year past the tools initially shipped, I'm getting the feeling this was already dead on arrival, and it's a waste of time to try and use it (but please do prove me wrong).
Edited by: Morten Nielsen on 14 Jan, 2019

Responses

11 Replies
Juwon(Julia) Ahn

First of all, I'm very sorry for any inconvenience in app development and thank you for your valuable comments.
After you posted this, I have been trying to find solutions to all of your feedbacks.
I still believe the solutions I found may not meet your expectation, but we will keep trying to improve development environment continously.

As for now, the results are as follows:

The items below are now supported.
 - OpenJDK
    OpenJDK is available since Tizen 3.1 version. (https://developer.tizen.org/development/tizen-studio/download/release-notes)

- Certificate issue
    Author expiration date has been extended to 2027/01/01 since Tizen 3.1 version.

- Publish .NET apps on app store
    You can publish your .NET app for Tizen 4.0 Wearables(Samsung Galaxy Watch, Gear S3/Sport) & Samsung Smart TV 2018 above).
    For Samsung Wearables
         https://seller.samsungapps.com
         https://developer.samsung.com/galaxy-watch/distribute
    For Samsung Smart TVs
         https://seller.samsungapps.com/tv/portal/main
         https://developer.samsung.com/tv/distribute/seller-office/applications/net-application-registration

- Tizen 4.0 TV emulator
    In case you still want to download the 4.0 TV emulator, you can download 'Tizen 4.x TV Extension for Tizen SDK'  here(https://developer.samsung.com/tv/develop/tools/tv-extension/archive).
    After downloading the image, follow the guide(https://developer.samsung.com/tv/develop/getting-started/setting-up-sdk/installing-tv-sdk) how to install the extensions from local images. It explains on the bottom part.

The items below will be supported soon.
 - VSIX issue
    VSIX will be fixed in Visual Studio Tools for Tizen 2.4 by removing VS 2019 support. It's planned at the end of February.
    Support VS 2019 will be revised until VS 2019 official version is released.

- TV Video streaming guide
    We'll provide developer guide during March.

- Update VS tool's github(https://github.com/Samsung/vs-tools-cps)
    It will be updated at the end of March after Visual Studio Tools for Tizen 2.4 version is release.
    
 - Lack of activity on Tizen Developer Forum
    For better developer support, we are preparing a new integrated developer support site (called Tizen .NET Portal) to support Tizen .NET developers. 

The items below will be supported since Tizen 5.0.
 Unfortunately, there's no Tizen 5.0 upgrade plan for 2018 Samsung Smart TVs.
 - debugger
 - app's icon to display on smarthub


 The items below are not supported
 - Sideloading
   Sideloading is not allowed on Smart TV due to TV security policy. We will review this policy internally and see if we can improve it. (Galaxy Watch is available.)
 - Tizen standard sdk tool's high-dpi screen (SDK limitation)
   We will also review and improve the high-resolution support for tizen sdk tools.

We tried to reproduce the following issues but we can't.
I'd appreciate it if you could tell us more about how to reproduce these issues.
 - app build issue
 - error message "closed closed"

Once again, I apologize for the inconvenience. We'll try to improve Tizen .NET app development environment.
Please keep a steady interest in Tizen .NET app development.

Tizen is me

Hi, I have gear s3 and just updated to tizen 4.0, I confused about can I or cannot I develop app using .net for my gear s3 ?

Juwon(Julia) Ahn

Yes, you can develop Tizen .NET apps using your gear S3 upgraded to Tizen 4.0.

Tizen is me

Thanks, what is the best way to develop .net for tizen 4, visual studio code or regular visual studio ? Can I use community edition ?

 

Thanks Julia

Juwon(Julia) Ahn

I recommend Visual Studio 2017.

Tizen is me

Hi Julia, 

 

I successfully deploy tizen sample app to emulator using visual studio community, but the problem is when deploy to my gear s3 theres

"Check certificate error [-12] failed", This is strange because I already have Tizen Studio that already installed to my gear s3 - and after close the VS, I tried to deploy my app to gear s3 using Tizen Studio and it still successful

How do I fix this ?

 

Thanks

Juwon(Julia) Ahn

Hi,

When you build/execute your Tizen .NET app on Tizen emulator, you need to use Tizen default certificate.

On the other hand, you should use Samsung Cert when deploying it to Samsung Wearables such as Galaxy Watch, Gear S3, or Sport.

To apply your Samsung Cert, please make sure the following checkbox checked.

   (Visual Studio >> Tools > Options > Tizen > Certification > Check "Sign the .TIP file using the following option")

You can get more information from here.

 

Tizen is me

Thanks Julia, it works.

Although, maybe I should add note that we must clean the build and rebuild the solution, if not certificate is not applied

Tizen is me

Hi Julia,

 

Quick question, is the API for tizen.net is complete ? I mean all API in the regular C/C++ is already in the Tizen.Net API ?

 

Thanks

Juwon(Julia) Ahn

About 80% is supported. ( Is there any feature you need? )

 

Tizen is me

Cool, not yet in mind, because I need SAP for .net and its already there, but there's something that I dont understand, maybe you can help :

In the SAP sample (gear as consumer and android as provider), there's listview with connect,fetch and disconnect, and I found that the fetch selection is auto select after we click on it once, and the connect and disconnect selection dont have the same behaviour, and I tried to look at the source to find what's difference between this and the other two and not found any differences

What could be the difference ?

 

Thanks