Optimal Background?

Hi Guys,


Working on a video centric tvOS app and finding it pretty hard to work out what the background will do on a real device. Will this change depending on content on the main screen? Should we change this ourselves to a solid colour or is that discouraged?


Would love to know what everyone else is doing and what the best approach may be.


Cheers,

Steve

Answered by Technology Evangelist in 55131022

Use of the system material is encouraged. The default background is a light blur effect background that obscures the content of the home screen.


The behaviour of an actual device and the simulator is much the same.

Accepted Answer

Use of the system material is encouraged. The default background is a light blur effect background that obscures the content of the home screen.


The behaviour of an actual device and the simulator is much the same.

Cheers for the clarification, we'll try to use it where we can. Guess I juse wondered because the Gilt and AirBnb examples both use white backgrounds instead.

Ultimately the asthetic of your application is up to you and how it aligns with your branding.


We discuss this a little bit in the Human Interface Guidelines: https://developer.apple.com/tvos/human-interface-guidelines/visual-design/#textures


One of the advantages of the blur effect is that it can create a sense of depth and place in the overall environment.

Is there a way to chose between a light or a dark background, simliar to how you can choose a light or dark theme for a UITabBar on iOS?

I'm displaying a modal over the main screen of my app and I would like the background to be a blurred version of the view behind it as the HIG suggests. For UIBlurEffectStyleExtraLight in the HIG it says "The system automatically applies this style by default if your app implements transparent window backgrounds." How do I "implement transparent window backgrounds"? Currently the background of the modal is the standard default blur of the home screen (I think) and not the view behind it. Have tried embedding the parent view in a nav controller but I still can't get the background of the child to be a blurred version of the parent. Works with a UIAlertController (although I think it uses a slightly different blur/texture).

By default all the UIKit views will have a transparent background. The wallpaper that you see behind your app is already blurred. I think all that you need to do is add a full screen UIVisualEffectView to your modal view to get the desired effect.

Okay. Also requires setting the segue presentation style to "Over Full Screen", right? Doing that and adding a fullscreen UIVisualEffectView seems to give me what I was looking for. Although, in the Simulator (Xcode 7.1 beta 3) the background is actually semi-transparent as in the windows behind the Simulator show through.

Optimal Background?
 
 
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