Available on tvOS and iOS

Personal Sections

Personal Sections allow you to build your own sections in the Channels app to present your library content any way you want, in multiple different layouts. Create a section for Game Shows, Mom’s movies and shows, or even a section for your favorite sports teams.

Personal Sections let you choose what content to show, how to sort it, and how to display it. You can even use Smart Rules to build them dynamically.

With the navigation options provided by Personal Sections, you can create your own entire browsing experience. You can even replace every section that Channels already provides to make Channels look exactly how you want it to look.

• Quick Start
• Section Types
• Crafting Sections

Quick Start

Personal Sections are built in your Channels DVR Server web admin. You can find them under the Libary tab.

Create a Personal Section

Create a new Personal Section by clicking the Add Section button and choosing a section type or use one of the provided templates.

Once your section is created, you can edit it to add content, change the title, and even the icon associated with it.

Use a Personal Section

You can add your Personal Section to your main navigation using Server Side Settings. Use the Sidebar Navigation section to add your new section directly to the sidebar.

Now your section is available in Channels!

Section Types

Personal Sections can be created with different types of layouts.

Each type has its own unique way of presenting content. But all section types allow you to customize them with content types, sorting, and Smart Rules, to let you build exactly what you want to see while browsing Channels.

• Muti Row
• Flow
• List

Multi Row

Multi Row sections are the traditional style you’re used to seeing across Channels. They show multiple rows of content with each row able to be expanded with the More button.

Each row you create shows a specific type of content sorted how you specify. You can use Smart Rules to filter them. There are even options to specify exactly how you would like to see them presented.

Muti Row sections can contain Button Rows. Button Rows are a special type of row that show a list of buttons that can be used to navigate to another section. Buttons can be defined to show a Personal Section, a section that Channels already provides, or to even launch a URL.

Flow

Flow sections show content in a single group that flows down. They show a specific type of content and even let you show the filter bar for some content types.

List

List sections show content in a single list with details about each item.

Crafting Sections

Personal Sections can be crafted to show exactly what you want to see. Each combination of section type and content type being used are edited a bit differently but they share a lot of the same options.

Let’s go over the different content types you can use and the editing options you’ll encounter below.

• Content Types
• Editing Options
• Smart Rules
• Button Rows

Content Types

Below is a list of all of the content types you can show in your sections or rows.

Option	Description	Smart Rules
Up Next	Displays the Up Next list	No
Movies	Displays movies from your library	Yes
TV Shows	Displays TV shows from your library	Yes
Video Groups	Displays Video Groups from your library	Yes
Episodes	Displays episodes from your library	Yes
Videos	Displays videos from your library	Yes
Movie Collections	Displays Movie Collections from your library	Yes
Show Collections	Displays Show Collections from your library	Yes
TV Show	Displays episodes from a specificly chosen TV show	No
Video Group	Displays videos from a specificly chosen Video Group	No
Library Collection	Displays the items from a specifically chosen Library Collection	No
Channel Collection	Shows the guide items from a specifically chosen Channel Collection	No

Editing Options

This is a list of all of the options you will encounter, along with a description of what they do.

An option’s availability will vary depending on the content type you are using.

Option	Description
Title	The title of your row
Content Type	What type of content will show
Sort	How the content will be sorted
Sort Order	Optionally reverse the order of the sort
Row Style	Optionally show the row as a single horizontally scrolling row
Progress	Hide or show the watched progress on the presented content
Badges	Hide or show the badges on the presented content
Art Style	Show the airing art or thumbnail of the content
Limit	Set the amount of items to show in a single horizontally scrolling row
Show Filters	Optionally show filters in flow based layout
More > Layout	Optionally use the List layout when expanding the row with the More button

Smart Rules

As with many of our other features, Personal Sections support Smart Rules. These allow you to filter the content that is shown in your sections based on a set of rules you define.

Smart Rules utilize all of the metadata of your content to let you craft exactly what you want to see.

Smart Rules don’t just allow you to filter, they make your Personal Sections dynamic and allow the content shown to update as your library changes.

Want to show just unwatched Action movies from the 80s in your Personal Section? You can do that!

Button Rows

Button Rows are found in Multi Row sections. They allow you to navigate to other sections of Channels directly from your Personal Section. With some creativity, Button Rows and Personal Sections can create a completely customized experience while using Channels.

The buttons can navigate to different things. These are explained below.

Channels Sections

All of the native out-of-the-box sections that Channels provides can be added as a button.

Personal Sections

Any Personal Section you create can be added as a button, even those that you didn’t add directly to the Sidebar navigation.

URLs

URL buttons can be added that will open the URL that you provide.

On iOS, this could open any app’s deep link or even open a website in your browser. On tvOS, these will only work with deep links, as tvOS does not have a browser.