How to install Playlet as a sideloaded/dev app

[iBicha]

Note: Playlet is available on the Roku channel store

You can also find Playlet by searching "Playlet" in the channel store on your Roku device.
If you installed Playlet from the store, you do not need to sideload the app.

If you cannot install Playlet from the store for some reason (for example, you cannot find it in the store in your country), you can sideload it as a dev app.

Please note that Roku only supports one sideloaded app at a time. If you have another sideloaded app installed, you need to make a choice between it and Playlet.

Another important thing to note is that sideloaded apps share the locally stored data and cache. If you install another sideloaded app after Playlet, it might be able to read your profile, your settings, or even your Invidious access token.

With that being said:

1. Enable developer settings

If you haven't already, see instructions to enable developer mode in your Roku device

2. Download Playlet

Go to https://github.com/iBicha/playlet/releases and find the release that says "latest". Then download playlet.zip
Here's a shortcut to that file: https://github.com/iBicha/playlet/releases/latest/download/playlet.zip

3. Install Playlet

Find out your Roku's ip address from the network settings. There's plenty of guides online, but here's one https://www.howtogeek.com/806547/how-to-find-roku-ip-address/

Open the address in your browser. Enter rokudev for the username, and enter the password that you chose when you enabled developer settings.

You should then see the Development Application Installer

Click Upload and choose playlet.zip that you downloaded from the previous step. Then click Install with zip.

Once installed, you should see a message indicating a successful install, and Playlet should launch automatically.

4. Updating Playlet

Playlet downloads most of its functionality from playlet-lib on startup using Github. So there's no need to do frequent updates. But it's a good idea to update it every once in a while, since dev channels do not get updated automatically.

[garionphx]

How often do you update the version in the Roku store? I think mine is on 0.25 still... I was gonna open a ticket about missing preview images, but realized I'm on a really old version.

[iBicha]

How often do you update the version in the Roku store? I think mine is on 0.25 still... I was gonna open a ticket about missing preview images, but realized I'm on a really old version.

I do not update the app on the store often, it's been many months since the last update.
0.25 is fine, it doesn't matter because the app is a thin loader that pulls the latest release from GitHub. The app's job is to download a library and run it. That functionality is simple and doesn't need frequent updates.

"Playlet lib" is where the functionality is, and it gets frequent updates.

If you have any problem, just open a GitHub issue and we will get to the bottom of it